The Stable, Cardiff

Facebook page of The Stable - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of The Stable - www.facebook.com

Visited 23/11/24 This is primarily a venue to head to for pizza and the cider offering. The draught keg beer offering was Freedom lager, their own branded Pale Ale, Korev lager, Camden Hells and Jubel Peach lager. As someone that is not a huge cider fan, the bottled and canned beer range was more interesting than the draught range and I settled for a 500ml bottle of the GEM from Bath Ales, but I also spotted a strong tropical IPA called Sundance from Wiper & True. There were five still and five sparking ciders on tap on the wall behind the bar servery, as well as a good number of bottle and can options. Large open plan, industrial style venue (think most BrewDog’s) selling pizzas largely with communal bench seating plus some tables at the fringes and ledges at the end opposite the open kitchen. Boarded flooring and lots of silver ducting at a quite low height. Bar counter opposite the entrance, which was a large glass fronted place. Seating upstairs on a mezzanine sort of level. Seating out the front also, partly covered. Having had lunch a couple of hours prior, just had to be seduced by the smell and look of the freshly cooked pizzas which were going down a storm with the predominately South African shirted rugby crowd in here an hour before kick off in the Millenium.

Located on the lower two floors of a modern office block, this is another outlet from the West country cider and pizza specialists, and whilst it inevitable doesn’t have much in the way of style or ambience, it nonetheless had a bit of a buzz about it, and there was of course an extensive cider selection which is always a plus point. Large, full height windows extend right across the front of the building, taking in both the ground and mezzanine floors. Décor wise it’s quite industrial, with exposed steel joists and plenty of air conditioning ducting and cable trays. That said, there is also some parquet wood on the floor as well as slate style tiles and pine wood cladding on the limited wall space. Light fittings too were quite industrial, with metal dome casing, or just plain bulbs in many cases. Seating was predominantly long communal benches, although the upper floor did have more in the way of tables and chairs. There were no real ales on tap unfortunately, with the cider options clearly being more of a focus here, although they did have a few beers on keg, namely their own Pale Ale, along with Marmalade IPA and American Pale Ale from the very local Mad Dog Brewery. Ciders meanwhile were their own Rapscallion, Sandford Orchard’s Devon Red, Lilley’s Bee Sting, Sheppy’s Elderflower, Cockeyed Monkey Mango, Snailsbank Fruit Bat, Hunt’s Barn Screecher, Barbourne Painted Lady, a trio from Gwynt Y Ddraig - Black Dragon, Strong Medium and Golden Medium, and a duo from Hallet’s with their National Treasure and Whisky Barrel Aged Dry.