Tiny Rebel Cardiff, Cardiff

This is a former social club that appears to be set in an old factory or warehouse. It covers two floors with lots of exposed brickwork, bare floorboards and various furnishings but only limited normal seating. The bar is in a room on the right as you enter and there is an area on the left with some normal seating. Disappointingly the bar only had one Tiny Rebel beer on primarily because a beer festival the week before had cleaned them out. I tried a Hard Knott Cool Fusion which was an excellent pint. I'll have to return to give the Tiny Rebel beers a full investigation.

Housed in a smart looking building, handy for the Millennium Stadium, this is a former social club that was initially known as Fire Island before being expanded and converted into the first tied house of the Tiny Rebel Brewery. You enter down some steps into the main bar area which is dominated by the servery immediately in front of you and therefore provides virtually no seating options. The bar is L-shaped, turning to run down the left hand side of the room, and has a rough wooden counter with a cold metal top. Functional warehouse style shelving suffices for the bar back and there are handy TV screens above which list all of the cask and keg options along with price, abv and style details. Following the bar round to the left, a row of high steel tables and uncomfortable plastic high stools emerge, leaving plenty of vertical drinking space for those busy match days. Low wood panelling does little to cheer up the depressing bare concrete walls and unattractive windows that predominate. A smaller room can be found through a doorway at the rear, where standard tables and chairs offer comfier seating options in a slightly cosier, pub-like space, notable on this visit for the bloke hammering tunes out on the old upright piano, with a drunken sing-a-long ensuing. Three projector screens were dotted around the pub for showing rugby fixtures and once the piano died down, I realised that piped music was playing throughout. The bar's utilitarian approach to décor was at least justified when sampling the beers available here. On cask, the options were Tiny Rebel Cwtch, Dirty Stop Out, One Inch Punch, Bass Drop and Rocksteady Hard Cider, Great Heck Mount Mosaic and Treason Stout and Naked Beer Indecent Exposure plus one other cider. I tried the Dirty Stop Out (reasonable) and One Inch Punch (excellent) and also sampled their Urban IPA (outstanding) which was available as one of six Tiny Rebel keg brews with four more guest craft kegs also on. A vast bottled beer selection including the full Tiny Rebel range was also available. The staff were all very friendly and helpful and one barman poured my pint and then offered me some tasters of whichever other beers I'd like to sample. Great stuff. I popped in here late on a mid-week evening, but the place was doing a pretty good trade and I found myself losing all track of time and only departed at around 1:30am (the bar opens until 2:00am every day). The décor may not appeal to all, but the beer and service was top notch and as such I would say this is a must do venue for any discerning drinker.