Indie Craft Beer, Kendal

This is a small, bottle shop-style craft beer bar on one of the town centre's main retail streets. The premises has a bare boarded, square ground floor room with a single banquette under the front window and a drinking ledge with high stools to the right, beneath the obligatory beer board. Fridges and shelves jam packed full of bottles and cans run down either side of the room, seemingly as much for off-sales as for drinking on site, but their presence does give the place more of a shop feel as a result. The servery is to the rear left and has an ugly, cheap wood counter and a plain bar back, with the beer engine mounted halfway back. The ceiling has been liberally covered with an ever spreading collection of keg font inserts and there's a beer bottle display in the front window which adds to the shop feel. Stairs to the right of the servery lead up to a first floor lounge - a bare boarded room with banquettes and chairs, a nice fireplace to one side, a pleasant colour scheme and various music themed bits including portraits of musicians and books on the subject. I also spotted some DJ decks amongst the beer bottles downstairs and there was a strong indie soundtrack playing throughout my stay, with a few music themed bits on display, alongside a selection of pub merchandise. One cask ale was available when I arrivwd - Lunebrew Pale Ale at a reasonable £4.00 a pint. The real focus is the craft keg range though, with ten of twelve lines in operation offering beers from the likes of Neptune, Farm Yard, Salt and Verdant. My pint of the Lunebrew was pretty average and I was the only customer on an early Sunday evening, so it was a bit awkward sitting there alone. I thought this was a decent enough crack at a bottle shop bar, thanks mainly to the provision of the first floor lounge area, but like most such venues, it didn't really work that well for me. It doesn't seem like they get enough throughput to justify the cask ale, and the place felt dead during my stay, which only heightened the feeling of drinking in a shop. Worrh a look for craft keg fans, but one for me to drop from future crawls around town. Date of visit - 14th January 2024

I think if I had a bottle shop/craft bar, this would be the blueprint. Cask - interesting Keg - interesting international bottles. Could have stayed all night, working through a well curated menu. Shop conversion with a small front room but I think it did have space further to the back. GBG 2024.

Official site of Indie Craft Beer - www.indiecraftbeer.co.uk

Official site of Indie Craft Beer - www.indiecraftbeer.co.uk

This is a bottle shop and bar which also has upstairs seating.Arrived just before opening time but on a chalk board it stated 4 keg taps and 10 gins.