Oliver's Bar, Gloucester

Gloucester Brewery outlet strategically located next door to Spoons on the dockside in what looks like an original building. Main bar is as you enter, semi-divided by a brick wall, with a further room beyond. General décor theme is exposed brick walls, high tables and elevated perimeter banquettes; overall quite a nice use of the space. A chrome topped bar with 8 pumps all clipped; 4x Gloucester, 3x guests and a cider. Also ten kegs of interest on a metal pipe font. My Dockside Dark was a little warm but ostensibly fine. It's a fairly impressive endeavour and I'd happily pop back. 7.5

Loved this place. There was so much exposed brickwork an even a bricked floor and the lights hung on ropes. There were padded bench seating round the sides and a lot of rough looking iron stools. There was a barn feel with no real ceiling. Beer choice was great. 5 Gloucester brewery beers and guest beers from Harviestoun and Ilkley breweries. We enjoyed a flight of 3 Gloucester beers.

One of the original buildings in the much expanded and rejuvenated Quays development, this is now owned by the Gloucester Brewery and has something of a subterranean feel being a few steps below street level, although there are nonetheless plenty of windows which still manage to make it light and airy. There is also some outside seating for the warmer weather. Internally it’s quite rustic with exposed brick walls and even a brick floor. Lighting is the obligatory exposed filament bulbs some of which were suspended by ropes rather than the more usual cables. A couple of old pallets fixed to the wall had light bulbs affixed to the corners and included a wine list. Seating was a mixture of padded benches around the perimeter along with high tables and chairs. The ceiling was all open beams which went well with the exposed brickwork and made it seem a bit like an old barn, albeit with some very contemporary fixtures and fittings. There was a good selection of beers on tap, although as might be expected the majority were from the Gloucester Brewery. The barman was friendly and knowledgeable and happy to provide several samples. On this occasion the guests were Arbor’s The Devil made me brew it and Mad Dog’s Third Eye Blind along with their own Session IPA, Gloucester Gold, Kiss my Grist, Cascade and Vanilla porter. Ciders meanwhile were Appleshed and their own Bramley, both of which were new ones to me. There were also a number of keg options although I did not note these. All in all well worth checking out.