Pleased to Meet You, Newcastle Central, Newcastle Upon Tyne

Bar/restaurant that seems to be quite a trendy place popular with a fairly young clientele. The large room has plenty of seating which feels quite cosy after dark. We've never quite managed to get here during the day. So, I've no idea what it is like during daylight hours. Always busy, this place serves a varied range of drinks, including real ales, spirits and cocktails. Real ales were Almasty Simple Pleasures, Anarchy Blonde Star, Brew York Calmer Chameleon & McColl's Let's Eat Pies And Talk About Men's Mental Health. The cider was Hogan's Wild Elder. It stays open quite late in the evening and makes a good penultimate place to drink before heading to Lady Grey's for even later drinks.

Official site of Pleased to Meet You - www.ptmy-newcastle.co.uk

Official site of Pleased to Meet You - www.ptmy-newcastle.co.uk

I found this to be something of a trendy cafe / bar type of place. It doesn't look like an original pub and consists of a roughly square drinking area with the bar on the left and a restaurant area to the right. There were a few in on my Friday afternoon visit. The beer choice was poor compared to the previous four places visited as there are now only four hand pumps which had one unused, Otter Aussie Summer, Mordue Five Bridges and Sonnet 43 Raven. I went for the Aussie Summer (£3.60) which was in good nick but quite pedestrian. It's not really my sort of place and given the dull choice of beer I wouldn't return. It's GBG 2018 listed.

A modern upmarket bar that's been done out in a quasi-shabby industrial chic style and to be fair it’s been executed quite well. What could have been a grimly utilitarian, opened-out space has been cleverly divided up to contain several cosy and discrete drinking areas festooned with potted plants and some expense has been incurred. Six pumps at the bar with a decent mix from Mordue, Theakston, Heavy Industry, Almasty and Whitstable Bay aka Shepherd Neame as well as a number of cwaft choices. My Theakston Vanilla Stout was barrel-end but a fair drop nonetheless. I unexpectedly enjoyed this one and it's worth adding to a crawl round the area.

Our first port of call on yesterdays visit and we hadn't been before. Decent selection of ales would make it worth a revisit, although during the afternoon as I would imagine it will get pretty busy on an evening.

Don't let the daft name put you off from checking out this surprisingly large, city centre pub and restaurant. The place is run by the same small chain responsible for the Hop and Cleaver, Redhouse and Lady Greys pubs around the city and, whilst it doesn't quite match up to the high standards set by these venues, it is still very much worth a visit. I arrived very late on a Sunday evening, so much of the pub was out of bounds by this point including the restaurant area to the right of the entrance and the cellar bar. I was instead able to explore the main bar area which is in the left hand portion of the building. This is a large bare boarded room with the servery along the left side and some effective partitioning through the centre in the form of pillars, a glass wall and a series of shelves decked with numerous potted plants. The servery looks pretty modern and has a bare brick bar back which is in keeping with the exposed brickwork found around much of the room. Exposed copper piping and various ducts and wire trays can be seen around the ceiling. Seating is provided by comfy padded benches opposite the bar and lots of ledges with high stools around the perimeter supplemented by a few tub chairs. To the right there are one or two comfy looking snugs and other such cosy nooks, all with bare brick walls and limited seating, offering a degree of privacy from the main bulk of the room. To the rear there was a set of doors labelled 'Allotment', which seeming leads out to the rear garden with its thoughtful smoker's shelters. This small chain generally excels on the beer front and I found there was a thoughtful selection of local micro brewers represented alongside a couple from further afield. Cask options on this visit were Bandwagon Orange Wit Beer, Mordue Five Bridges, Credence Red, Small World Thunderbird Stout, Elgoods Strawbeer and By the Horns Mayor of Garratt. These options were backed up by a healthy range of interesting keg and bottled options and my pint of the Five Bridges was in decent enough shape. I wasn't really sure what to expect from this place and had visions of a trendy craft beer bar, but it's actually a pretty decent, versatile pub that has the capacity to deal with large crowds of drinkers or offer a pleasant meal for those planning on eating. For me, it lacked some of the warmth and points of interest that characterise its sister pubs, but it remains a solid option in an area with lots of stiff competition.

Pleased to Meet You is a modern bar that is aimed at the younger more affluent inhabitants of Newcastle. My visit was on a recent Tuesday evening not long after the Newcastle v Man City match had finished so I wasn’t surprised to find it very busy. The interior is deceptively large with an open plan bar area to the left and a separate restaurant to the right. The toilets are located downstairs as is the large ‘Viceroy’ cellar bar. Out the back is the Allotment Beer garden that consists of a very long bench and some sheds that I didn’t investigate further. I spent my stay in the open plan bar area where a counter runs along the left hand wall. This counter supports six hand pumps and a standard and premium keg range. My colleague was a little disappointed that there were no mid-range abv ales, but he soon got over it as his 4.8% ale kicked in. Food is served all day and from the menu by the entrance I learned that the mains are priced between £9 and £23. There are no televisions here, but there was some background music playing at varying volumes. I found the staff to be very friendly and I enjoyed my visit here.

A choice of 6 ales and 15 craft keg on our Sunday eve visit. I spotted Anarchy Brewery Sorachi Ace, so decided to go for that. Mrs A went for the Fat Brewer Pale Ale - both were served too warm. So we went to the Wellington across the way for a decent pint, where we happily found they had Anarchy Blonde Star on handpump.

This pub wasn't here last time I was in town a couple of years or so ago, it's a meandering kind of place even if it is generally one room, (there is one small side room as well) the style and mood changes as you move around. As is now usual there is a boarded floor, lots of exposed brickwork with the occasional slogan in white, another one with the rather worrying trend of exposed upper joists and steel beams which consequently have no fire protection. Services and pipes are also on open display but then there are fancy chandeliers, one had a monkey on top for some reason. All kinds of seating are available, there are a few bits of deliberately distressed furniture, daily papers available and lots of big vases of flowers. As I entered I immediately noticed the "meet and greet" person, ready to pounce no doubt with the "are you eating with us" nuisance but I expertly swerved that and made my way to the bar. There are a selection of cask and keg offerings, also listed on boards, the cask ales were Mordue Five Bridges, Two by Two Monkey Puzzle, Harviestoun Schiehallion, Atom Bunsen Brown Ale, Firebrick Brewery Elder Statesman and Temptation Brew Co Elation. The Elation was excellent, 6.5% and £3.50. The keg beers had the usual price mark up but not as much as I have seen elsewhere. It is a bit of a modern and trendy place which I'm sure will be a hit here, especially in this part of town, I'm becoming a bit immune to modern pub design however the hand basins in the gents supported by a knackered old bicycle were a new one for me. Overall, although there is none of the tradition I enjoy in a pub I did quite like the place. I imagine that on a weekend evening it is a brash and noisy barn but on a quiet Tuesday afternoon it was a peaceful haven.