The Ill Repute, Old Market, Bristol

A recent opening on the site of former bar known as The Retreat, this bills itself as more of a gin bar than your traditional pub and has a stripped out, fairly minimalist décor. Internally it consists of one fairly small room, with some sort of concrete screed on the floor and deep aqua blue paintwork on the walls. There is really little of any note with the walls being bereft of anything other than a couple of long plain mirrors. The tables appear to have bene fashioned from mismatched planks of wood glued together and the bench seating around the perimeter was liberally scattered with a plentiful array of colourful cushions. A raised area at the front of the pub contained a comfy looking sofa whilst a number of copper pans suspended from the ceiling had some foliage growing in them. Lighting was exposed filament bulbs as is de rigour in any pub renovation these days, and these were supplemented by candles on all the tables. Although concentrating on gin, the bottle selection behind the bar looked to be less than many places, although there were a selection of botanicals lined up in glass jars on the bar counter. Unfortunately there were no real aloes on tap on this occasion, although there was a single pump for Tribute which appeared to have run out. Ciders fared slightly better though, with both Thatcher’s Gold and Symonds Founder’s Reserve.

The Retreat is situated in a pretty pubby area,the pub was not on my list to do but as i had to amend my crawl due to heavy rain i had to do it when i saw it. Once inside there is an oblong shaped room with the bar on the right side,the floor is wood laminate,there is a small raised area to the front left,the main area has bench seating down the left side. There were two TVs showing music videos. The beer front was not so good,no real ales for a start and of the the 10 keg taps only three were working with all others out of use,i had a half of Carlsburg from one of the three operational taps which was drinkable. This pub seemed to be on a downwards turn on my visit. Pub visited 25/6/2016