Six°North, Aberdeen

A Craft beer bar, opened in 2013, it's a decent conversion over two floors. After entering through a porch room lined both sides with encased bottles, you will see a mezzanine upper level and a fairly simple lower bar with granite walls, exposed steelwork and slab flooring along with long trendy pine IKEA style tables, designed for large groups (of students, I’m guessing). A large skylight makes a big difference here and the pub was light and bright. A large screen (which is actually four plasmas taped together) was showing the rugby. 24 keg lines on (no cask – it was discontinued) with a number of their own brews alongside a pretty impressive selection from elsewhere (eg Duchesse). My homebrew stout was fair but lacked a genuine depth of flavour. Noted that the prices weren't too high for this sort of bar. It was a decent stop and I wouldn’t have an issue pitching up here again.

This is a surprisingly large craft beer bar and microbrewery in a student-friendly part of town that has positioned itself in direct competition with the Brewdog bar just around the corner. You enter into quite a cosy front room which, from the outside, appears to be the extent of the entire premises. The room has a bottle shop feel to it thanks to large shelving units down either side, packed full of bottles and cans. Long benches down both sides of the room offer the only seating options here, so most punters had moved on into the rear bar with its quarry stone floor and smart servery along the left hand wall. More canteen style benches serve long tables through the centre of the room with hard bench booths to the front and rear. The bar has a traditional dark wood counter contrasted with a modern bar back and has a skylit ceiling above with beer boards hung just beneath. A fireplace on the end wall was filled with shelves stacked with beer bottles and the walls have been decorated with mirrors and some black and white prints showing various points in the brewing process. Stairs lead up to a mezzanine area which appears to offer more seating although I didn’t get around to exploring. Quite a cool soundtrack played in the background (far better than the one playing in Brewdog’s bar) and there was a modest midweek crowd in when I arrived, but not half as many as in the packed out Brewdog. The friendly barman’s first words to me were “what sort of thing are you looking for/” and he was really helpful in navigating me through the eight home brews and twelve guest beers (none of which were on cask I should add). I fancied a dark beer but sadly none of the home brews fitted this rather broad description so I found myself drinking something called Stoat Craft Chocolate and Orange Porridge Stout(!) at a rather hefty £3.00 for a half pint. I liked this place and thought it was way more interesting than its rival bar down the road yet seemingly considerably less popular, which suggests marketing can get you a long way. Whilst the lack of cask ale would likely deter me from regular visits, this would be my first port of call for a craft beer fix in this city.

Outlet for the self-proclaimed 'Belgian Brewers of Scotland', housed in a bright modern bar with a seating area at the front and more upstairs on a gallery and in another (rather hidden) first-floor room. Mainly a craft keg establishment, with two big hooped 12-tap shiny metal founts (one mostly their beers, the other largely imports from Belgium). However, there were also two real ales available from the six handpumps on the bar-back - their own BPA (Belgian Pale Ale, £2.55 for a schooner) and Hawkshead Brodie's Pride. Busy, but civilised, on a Friday evening.