The Port Bar, Portishead, Bristol

A relatively new addition to the Portishead pub scene, this really has more of a café/bar type feel to it than your traditional pub, although it is in fact owned by the Portishead Brewing Company and as such there was a good range of their beers on tap, albeit all keg rather than cask. They’ve done a good job on making it look quite attractive with a decent amount of outside seating and foliage. It’s a decent size internally, forming a sort of Z shape with the bar counter in the middle. The style is perhaps a bit of a mix of rustic and contemporary with a smooth grey screed on the floor but attractive planks of timber nailed to the ceiling which was a bit of a feature, even if the cable trays and ventilation ducting suspended below this did detract from the look somewhat. The front of the pub is entirely glazed with views down the precinct, elsewhere the walling is mostly exposed brickwork with some painted white and some left natural. A number of pot plants were fixed to the walls, and lighting was a mixture of exposed filament bulbs in upended glass jars above the bar counter, along with more industrial style metal fittings. Seating was mostly regular wooden tables and chairs at differing heights, and there was also a ledge around the window to rest your pint on. The bar counter was clad in some sort of black corrugated iron, which actually looked better than it sounds, whilst a couple of large murals on the walls added a splash of colour. The menu offered a selection of dishes, mostly in the form of pizzas or platters. Our falafels with flatbreads, hummus & salad, and a bowl of nachos with melted cheese, olives and sweetcorn were both pretty decent dishes and generous portions. As befits it’s café bar feel, a selection of cakes were displayed on the bar counter. Beers on tap were all keg rather than cask as mentioned earlier, and as the previous reviewer has noted did mostly tend toward the pale ale or IPA style. On this occasion the options were Battery Point, Supercharge, Hopper, Banana Lang, Master Caution, Desert Bastard and Alpha Citrony. Ciders were presumably all their own as well since I had not come across any of them previously and consisted of Proper Drop, Toodle Pip and Gasping Goose, the latter of which went down very well. Unusually the portion sizes listed were ⅔ and a pint rather than the more usual ½. Overall I quite liked it here, even though it didn’t really have a traditional pub feel to it and would happily return if in the area.

A newish craft beer bar. Due to the ‘rona I ended-up sitting outside but from what I could see the inside is done in a fairly upmarket craft style, just enough to be hip but not scare off the middle class locals (there’s a food emphasis in addition). A goodly number of beers on as well as some ciders, with the majority of beery brews coming from Portishead Brewing. Disappointingly the range was very similar – all variations on pale and the four I tried were really over-gassed. Quality-wise I have to admit they were fairly so-so, and one was on the musty side. It’s unlikely to keep me away from the Ship.

Official site of The Port Bar - www.theportbar.uk

Official site of The Port Bar - www.theportbar.uk