Mumbles Ale House, Swansea

Compact alehouse set behind a tiny front patio terrace; simply furnished and decorated, with the small counter naturally being the focus. Four real ales on offer when I visited, three on handpump and the other being dispensed by gravity from the rear stillage: Glamorgan Welsh Pale (£3.40), Oakham Scarlet Macaw, Bluestone Elderflower Blonde and Afgan Pale Ale from Grey Trees.

Opening in the summer of 2014, in a terraced house just off the main Mumbles Road, this place became Wales' very first micro pub in the process. The place is a little tricky to spot at first, as it looks like it might be someone's house, but a couple of benches and a lone smoker outside the front door gave the game away. As you would expect from the micro pub concept, the pub has a very compact floor plan although unlike many similar venues, they have opted to fit a proper servery, rather than just bringing drinks out from the taproom. The room is bare boarded with branded front windows and cream coloured walls which have been decorated with a number of pleasant seascape paintings. Some high tables and stools make up the majority of the seating options, with more stools along a drinking shelf to the left before the bar appears. The counter is a modern, white construction sat in front of a simple bar back with the casks racked on the end wall. A huge blackboard opposite the bar lists the ale options and has a few more stools beneath, thus rounding out the available seating. The usual rules regarding a lack of music or TV screens seem to apply and there was a strong crowd in on my Friday evening visit, creating a good atmosphere and causing the front windows to completely steam up. There are three handpulls on the bar, with the rest of the beer served by gravity directly from the cask. For a micro pub, the range was surprisingly extensive, with ales available on my visit comprising Butcombe Haka and Crimson Red, Tiny Rebel One Inch Punch, Wye Valley Butty Bach, Hydes Owd Oak Dark Mild, Oakham Car Thief, Saltaire Pride, Arbor Dark Sky Drinking and Haviestoun Bitter and Twisted. The bar staff were extremely friendly and talked me through a few of the ales before I settled on a pint of the Crimson Red, which was in very good shape. With time to spare before my final pub of the crawl and subsequent bus home, I also tried the Owd Oak Dark Mild, which was even better - arguably the best pint of the entire crawl. This is a great little venue that compliments the Mumbles drinking scene and doesn't look out of place in an area noted for its fine pubs. This is one of the best micro pubs I have visited so far and you would do well to time a visit to the Mumbles with their own, restricted, opening hours.