Scapegoat, Exeter

Tabac Taphouse is a single room parquet floored bar with Green seating and copper topped tables up the left and in the front right-hand corner adjacent to the serving counter that runs along the right-hand wall. The walls are covered with framed pictures of celebrities smoking and there’s a cigar clock that I haven’t seen since my days of drinking in the Duke of Hamilton in Hampstead back in the 1990’s. Limited premium and craft keg was available from the moody barman, I went for half a Salt Beer Factory’s Alpacalypse for £3.40 which I didn’t enjoy very much. So I didn’t like the service or the lager, oh and the violin and guitar plucking background music also wasn’t to my taste. This place looks interesting from the street, but it’s not so I’ll be walking past next time.

Too-cool-for-skool bar by Exeter Central. Hipster centrale, from This Life’s Ferdy behind the sheet steel bar to the Raleigh Racer propped up by the door. There's a bit of charm via the parquet flooring and simple wooden boxed bar back. The wall opposite the bar has a plethora of framed b&w prints, mainly of old movie stars smoking however I also saw Stalin in there – ludicrous and offensive. Five keg and a plethora of spirits. I went for a Utopian Pale which weighed in at a silly £3.65 for a half and inevitably card only payment. Leave this one to the poseurs.

A couple of doors down from Exeter Central station, this is a cute little bar, set in what is presumably a former tobacconists. The premises has retained some nice features, most notably the fine parquet floor, which features throughout a room of micropub proportions with plain painted walls and the servery along the right-hand wall. Some nice padded bench seating runs down the left-hand wall and in a small nook in front of the bar, with lots of uncomfortable looking low stools in support. The bar has a great dark wood counter with a most unexpected snob screen at one end and an impressive, high shelf bar back with the pub's name written in tall letters across the top. A small bookcase to front right, holds a collection of random books beneath a large ‘The Sky's the Limit’ mural depicting an airman looking to the skies. Meanwhile, over on the left-hand wall, there is a small board displaying pub merchandise, surrounded by a huge collection of black and white celebrity portraits including a photo of Keith Richards that may be familiar to one of this site’s forum contributors! A huge mirror on the back wall does its best to give the impression of a larger space, but the pub fills very quickly and a few rickety canteen style benches and tables have been put outside on the broad pavement area, to act as some much needed overspill. Sadly, there’s no cask on the bar, but five craft keg options, including a cider and lager option, mean that a visit is not wasted. I tried the Saltaire Triple Chocoholic for £2.00 a half, served up by a friendly barman. The pub had a great Friday night vibe and seemed to be very popular with a younger crowd arriving for a night on the town via the adjacent train station. I liked this place, despite the lack of any cask ale, and thought it had a cosy, European cafe bar feel to it. They serve up some decent craft keg beer in a pleasant, interesting environment and I’d have no hesitation to pop in again if I needed to kill a bit of time waiting for a train.