The Coach, Bristol

Looks pretty upmarket from outside but inside is a very basic boozer, painted (badly) in white, magnolia and grey with visible brown stains from water ingress – the ‘homely’ interior described by the previous reviewer has gone. Dart board from before the smoking ban plus a faint whiff of urinal cakes. Small but useful rear patio. Two cask - Doom Bar and Bass - the latter of which was surprisingly decent if oddly sweet with little copper edge (NBSS 3) whilst a sign outside proclaims it as a permanent beer. A frisson of tension as one of the (myriad of) local scumbags on the hawk was shooed out. Worth a nose for the Basserati but of little interest otherwise, it’s far too stark and basic presently.

Still quite busy and a strong Irish theme with Gaelic games on the TV and lots of Irish music on the Jukebox. Currently no Real Ales, but an excellent pint of Guinness.

The Coach and Horses is a stand alone pub that is in a quiet area of inner city Bristol. Once inside the bar faces in a small L shaped room,the floor is tiled and the seating wood bench type and tables and chairs,there was a TV to the left showing horse racing and a pool table to the rear right which is carpeted,there is a small room behind the bar to the rear left which is also carpeted. There are no real ales on the bar or even keg bitters so i had a drink of Guinness which was decent enough. There was background music playing and the pub was very busy on my Saturday afternoon visit. This is very much a locals pub. Pub visited 25/6/2016

This pub was boarded up and derelict for some years so it’s good to see it re-open again. It’s clearly had some money spent on it’s refurbishment and now has quite a homely feel to it and is in complete contrast to many of the other pubs nearby. On a recent Thursday evening visit though, it was almost empty with only one other punter in there which obviously doesn’t bode too well for it’s future, although there is live music on some nights which is likely to attract more people in. There is one bar that runs along the front of the pub with the bar counter at the back. This is quite narrow and there was limited seating with just a few high stools and a couple of high tables at each end. Flooring was tile effect lino and there was some dark wood panelling on part of the walls with floral wallpaper elsewhere. A darts board was in one corner and a plasma was showing some horse racing, although the volume was muted. However, the volume of the background music was just a tad too loud I would have said. At the rear was a snug and next to this a lounge which had some brown leather sofa’s, a selection of board games and even a chess table. A few boards up above the bar listed forthcoming events, many of which revolved around sporting fixtures and although it didn’t obviously strike me as a sports bar there were also a number of framed rugby shirts on the wall. I didn’t see a menu, but apparently a range of pizzas are offered. Barmaid seemed friendly enough. Beers on tap were Prescott Track Record which is unusual around these parts, and GWB Exhibition. Ciders were well represented with a trio from Thatcher’s – Dry, Traditional and Gold as well as Blackthorn. They also had Natch available in cans.