Nailsea Micropub, Bristol

A pretty joyless micro from a shop conversion. A grey interior, an owner who heaved himself of his chair to serve me and proffered no chat beyond telling me the price he wanted. Three cask, my Nutticombe tasted very weird (NBSS 1). Dumped and scarpered. The kind of place that gives micropubs a bad name. Inevitably it’s GBG listed.

A relatively recent opening just off of Nailsea’s High Street, this is a welcome addition to a town that has a fairly average selection of pubs on the whole. Do check opening times before travel though as they can be a bit limited – even before lockdown they weren’t opening until about 4:00pm on a Saturday, for example. In common with many micro-pubs, this was a converted shop unit, or opticians more accurately and the suspended polystyrene ceiling tiles are an indicator of it’s previous life. Grey seems to be very much the colour theme here, with grey carpet on the floor, pale grey paint on the walls and grey cushions scattered across the wooden bench seating fixed to the perimeter. Beers were dispensed directly from barrels racked up behind the bar, and a chalkboard to the right listed the current selection. Plenty of beer mats were tacked to a couple of wooden support posts and a ceiling joist, hinting at a frequently changing selection. Unlike some micro-pubs, there was also a small wine and gin selection, so there should be something to keep most people happy. The atmosphere was ok when we got there with a couple of other sizeable parties in, but the time we left in was deserted apart from the three of us and the lack of any background music or any other noise made it deathly quiet and rather lacking in atmosphere. On this occasion there were only two beers available. Whether that is as a result of them not getting fully back in to their stride since reopening, or whether it’s because it was only a Wednesday, I’m not sure. Certainly there were plenty of unused barrels. The two that were on were Hop Kettle’s North Wall which seemed pretty decent, and Moor Nor’ Hop. Ciders meanwhile were Dawkins Bristol in medium or dry, Rhubie Rhubarb and one that was just described as a traditional Scrumpy. All in all, not a bad effort, but it could do with a bit more atmosphere.