Kilpin Beer Café, Nottingham

Bohemian beer cafe on 2 levels, gets past the possibility of being a bit up market and is a comfortable nice place with good beer

A modern beer bar with four cask available on my visit, unfortunately I went for the same beer as Nev in the review below, Ossett Jet Stout, which wasn't in good shape at all, however some of the keg lineup looked interesting particularly the Belgian stuff and looking around this was what quite a few of the customers were drinking.I didn't dislike the place and possibly just caught the cask beer at a poor moment, I would certainly give it another go.

Lurking in a corner of an alley of a main street, it’s a bar with beer but not a pub like place. The main floor has a counter with four slightly submerged pulls and a couple of t-bars, wines and spirits behind. Tasteful decor in traditional red over brown wainscotting although all with a modern upmarket twist. Very traditional furniture with tall bentwood stools. Sporty but artistic decor. There’s space upstairs and downstairs.

Bar to middle with all the ales displayed on the wall. There were five real ales and ten craft type offerings which were expensive. Don't think I'd return but it is certainly worth a visit.

The Herbert Kilpin is a new pub/bar located down a small alleyway and is next door to the “craft “beer bar Junkyard. It is hard to find if you do not know where you are going as it is not heavily advertised. Once you enter the bar is to the left with high tables and stool against the outside window and some more scattered seating. The pub is in a modern style with hard wood floors and has the exposed brick/lots of metal and lighter colour scheme. Upstairs is much nicer and has been kitted out really well with nice warm carpets and better seating with some really nice sofas. The pub is really arm and if you can grab a sofa like we did is actually a really nice modern place to sit and have a drink. I usually don’t take to well to modern bars but the upstairs here is very warm and welcoming and a very nice place to sit and have a drink. Owned by the same people as the Junkyard the Herbert kilpin has a much better selection of cask beer (junkyard has none). There were five pumps on the bar with one unclipped and one featuring the permanent Kilpin ale brewed by black Iris brewery (£3.70) . Of the three guests two were from the \harbour Brewing company, I failed to note one of these but the other was their Nicaraguan coffee stout (£3.90) and Horncastle Brewery’s Liliths trust (£3.70) The Horncastle beer was a very well kept beer and most enjoyable. This was a nice find once we got a seat upstairs. The clientele were a bit on the hipster scale and the downstairs is not really the kind of place I like but was much more impressed with the upstairs, much more relaxing and more comfortable to sit inn. I would visit again if I could get a spot upstairs but they do charge very high prices for Nottingham and I doubt I would continue paying if it gets any higher, really is the top end for the city centre.

Excellent conversion, generating a very clean looking trendy pub for the hipster types in the city. having said that, the beer and keg is superb and the whole place is very wife friendly. For those who don't know, Herbert Kilpin was a Notts County player who went to work in the Italian Lace Industry and set up AC Milan as a works team. We sat upstairs in a beautifully decorated loft area with skylights letting in lots of natural light. Lots of old and new mixed furniture give plenty of options. The pub does food and many of the tables upstairs were reserved for 7:30 - 8:00pm. The back exit of the pub lets out onto a patio with seating that is shared by the Junkyard next door, so you can go on a mini crawl without leaving the premises.

The Herbert Kilpin is a new pub that is next door to the Junkyard. Once inside there is a square shaped room with the bar on the left side,there is a wood tiled floor,the seating is pretty minimal with two tall tables and wood stools and a drinking shelf to the front with tall wood stools,there is another room upstairs which i did not go up to look at. There was a decent choice of real ales on the bar,i had a drink of Fallen Just the Ticket which went down well,the other beers noted were Totally Brewed Ber Royal,Alchemy Bad Day at the Office and Black Iris Kilpin. The main room downstairs seemed pretty bare and not one to settle in,i hope the upstairs room is more comfortable than the one downstairs. Pub visited 23/7/2016