Bread & Roses, Plymouth

A community pub for the arts scene. Rather horrified that a 5.9% NEIPA and packet of scampi fries were £8.20. The reason for the craft - a single cask on. In a rare moment of confidence, I had a sample and turned it down. Whatever it was, was pretty flat and lifeless. Decorated to a high standard, but a mould problem on one of the ceilings. To be honest, I never got over the charge to our joint account, waiting for Mrs M to tell me to go home when she got the mobile transaction alert.

No sign of Joey Boswell in this artsy-fartsy student pub, housed in an impressive-looking building. There's some original old features in the L shaped interior like the moulded ceiling and arched windows. The walls have been painted (badly) in green with lime trim. The jumbo three paned mirror behind the bar is impressive and gives the place a good dose of reflected light. Despite the building’s size there's very little in the way of seating, there couldn’t have been more than 20 people in but there was no spare table, so I made do with being a barfly for 10 minutes. I expected some of the patrons to be insufferable but they were fine. GBG’23 listed with four pumps sporting two Teignworthy beers, my Templar was in great nick for a warm day (NBSS 4). Not the type of pub that particularly appeals to me but the beer quality does the talking, so I’d pop back in again if I was nearby. 6.5

Bread and Roses advertises itself as a ‘Social Enterprise Pub’ and is an arty space with regular group meet-ups for the local community. The interior is L-shaped with seating around the exterior walls and the bar counter supports four handpumps. Two of these were unused leaving Church Ledge and Mew Stone from Noss Beer Works as the cask ale options. The keg range is entirely craft and the food stretches to bar snacks. At the rear is a stage area that is used for live events, including music and comedy. This place was a little too studenty for my liking so I’ll not be returning, even though the service was very polite.

Official site of Bread & Roses - www.breadandrosesplymouth.co.uk