Black Isle Bar, Inverness

Pizza and large open plan dining/drinking den that recreates the hipster style bars of bigger cities. The brews were on a TV Screen and no complaints on my Scotch Ale, even when only served in halves. I soon found a way around that. Walked past on the evening and it was heaving.

A newly-opened bar bringing hipster culture to the Highlands. Chunky scrubbed wood tables, exposed pipes, a nasty bare concrete ceiling plus a jumbo wall mural of some generic-looking countryside with a 'welcome to' sign (is it meant to be the outside of Inverness??). A genuinely impressive feature is the long and solid tree bar top. Food offering is inevitably pizza, priced from £9.50 to £10.50. 25 keg beers (no traditional cask) potentially available with about 20 on during our visit, displayed on an electronic screen ala the Wellington in Brum. Prices are generally expensive and only one offering came in at under 2 quid a half. Noticed that no pint servings were available for beer over 6% - pub’s doing or Scottish Parliament nanny statism? Tried the BFM BATS (pretty meh) and Black Isle Hiberbator (decent), both served very cold. Unusual feature are the sinks in the toilets, with the ‘taps’ actually being a singular copper pipe that has a set flow from the hot and cold pipes feeding into it – looked daft but actually had a practical use in that the water was warm coming out at the first time of asking. Overall it’s expensive and a tad pretentious but was fairly busy mid-Sunday. Will the novelty wear off? I might be tempted in gain, but only for (a cheap) one. 6.5