Left Handed Giant, Bristol

Facebook page of Left Handed Giant - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of Left Handed Giant - www.facebook.com

An excellent review from PSM needs little addition,this is a hip and modern brewery tap.There are 30 unmarked keg taps on the bar ,some serving cider,some cocktail mixes but predominantly LHG craft keg beers,split on the description gantry above into styles such as Lager,Stout,Pale,IPA and Sour with the 5 guests listed seperately.There are two handpumps for traditionlists serving LHG Dark Mild and Pale.(Decent enough,NBSS 3). Functional rather than inviting,I was on a crawl visit and so didn't have time to delve into the keg options,maybe next time.

This is a mightily impressive warehouse-style brewpub with a prime city centre, riverfront location, operated by the Left Handed Giant Brewery. With such a large building at their disposal, it’s no surprise that this place operates across a few floors, but the vast majority of customers were down on the ground floor when I visited on a busy Sunday afternoon. You arrive through a covered riverside courtyard with lots of benches serving quite long tables, with a few high tables for people to stand around. The shelter is open ended along one side, so you get a view out over the river, to the park on the other bank. Large folding doors to your right take you through to a high ceilinged space with a concrete floor, rough exposed brick walls mixed with some wood panelled sections and the usual run of utilities obscuring the ceiling, albeit with a few panels interspersed here and there, each bearing a doodle style image. The bar runs along the back wall and has a wood panelled counter front that matches the walls and no bar back as such – just beer boards hung from above, some low shelving and a view into the brewery which is behind the bar, with many large vessels visible. High tables served by stools and benches fill the centre of the room and there is a fair bit of regular bench and chair seating around the perimeter as well. Various bits of merchandise hang from one of the walls, but aside from this, décor is kept to a bare minimum in favour of industrial stylings typical of such brewpubs – some shelves hung from the ceiling and lined with potted plants being the notable exception. Passing the pizza kitchen at the far end of the bar, which was doing a roaring trade despite the city centre prices, you reach a staircase that takes you up to a smaller, rather featureless, first floor space with decent views and more of the same seating options. The stairs go up again from here, but were roped off, so I don’t know if there’s another area on the second floor. Indie tunes were playing in the background, but the hubbub from a good crowd meant they were pretty much redundant unless you happened to be sat near a speaker. I think I counted no less than eighteen keg and two cask beers from Left Handed Giant, plus three guests on keg. The cask options were Dark Mild and Summer Bitter, both of which I had drunk in abundance on King Street the night before, so I opted for a pint of the Sky Above on keg instead, which was a decent enough drop. The staff were busy but efficient and seemed capable of helping customers navigate the bewildering choice of beers. I thought this was a great place to showcase this brewery which I was only faintly acquainted with previously. The spartan industrial feel of the place is unlikely to sit well with fans of traditional pubs, but I liked the conversion they’d done on this impressive riverside building and thought it was a nice touch that they’d included some cask options alongside the usual slew of craft keg. An interesting addition to Bristol’s city centre pub scene.

Industrial Barn of a brew pub - set over several floors, with an enviable patio area out front. All high stools, high tables, exposed ducting. I think you know the drill. Beer served in 1/2 pint and 2/3rd only - even though many were around the 5% mark. Pizza available but 40 min wait, even when relatively empty. Mad snacks for £2. Not my cup of tea but spacious and hip.

It is of course as described by Blackthorn below, I suffered no problems with short measures or any access restrictions.I thought it was a very impressive set up with all 30 taps in action covering a wide range of beer styles,clearly set out on large boards behind the bar including about four Ciders.My beer of choice was LHG Shifting Planes 5.9%, 2/3rds at £3.95. I thought it was a great place.

A recently opened brewpub by local micro Left Handed Giant in what was at one time the site of the historic George’s Brewery, it’s great to see the building back in use after many years of being derelict. It’s in a prime spot alongside the river and this was our second attempt at a visit, with the venue being full to capacity the first time and a bouncer on the door operating a “one out, one in” policy. Internally it’s quite industrial in style with some type of concrete screed on the floor and visible cable trays and air conditioning ducting covering the ceiling, although these were partially obscured by a number of colourful suspended panels and some suspended wire racks that had been turned in to plant troughs. Walling was a mixture of styles with pale blue painted breeze block at the rear, and very rough, dilapidated brick walling to the right, whilst glass walling to the left gave good views in to the adjacent brewery. Seating was mostly high wooden tables with grey and blue chairs. A good sized, semi-enclosed patio area at the front of the pub with brick paving on the floor was a pleasant spot. We didn’t check the menu, but a tiled pizza oven was something of a feature, and I believe that the food is provided by “Mission Pizza” who cook purely vegetarian dishes. There was an extensive and eclectic selection of beers on tap, with many being brewed by LHG as might be expected, although they were only served in ⅓, ½ or ⅔ measures. The barman gave some guff about this being because the brews were mostly small batches, and serving smaller sizes meant that more people could experience them. Chalk boards above the bar divided the selection in to Pale, Sour and Dark/Stout and percentages ranged from a light 2.8% to a whopping 11%. Their own brews consisted of All For Myself, Something I Said, Dream House, Portrait Outtake, New Best Friend, Unity Distinct Phases, Outer Peace, Back & Forth, Deeper Water, Woodland Creatures, That Life and Thungs We Summon. In addition to this there was The Kernel, Burnt Mill Green Path, Duration Dripping Pitch, Dry & Bitter Double Dippy Doo, Pressure Drop IDA, Lervig Sour Suzy, Alvinne Omega and Kees Export Porter. After that lot, the cider choice was distinctly disappointing with Hallet’s being the only option. Overall, whilst they’ve done a good job in renovating an old building, I thought that the small measures, lack of cider choice and no cash policy all detracted from the overall experience, and it’s not anywhere that I’m likely to rush back to.