Fierce & Nobel, Bristol

Brewery with a tap which I happened to walk past and decided to drop-in and have a gander. A fairly basic operation though there's a couple of tables in the quaint little wood panelled bar room which give a nice ambience. Otherwise it's seating in the brewery section or outside in a fairly grim concrete area. Two empty pumps wasn’t a good sign though up to eight keg were on. I tried their stout which was decent, served-up by a friendly if somewhat stereotypical Krafty Konvert. Beware that it's fairly expensive, 6 quid or so for a pint assuming there wasn't too much mark-up on the half. If you're doing the nearby Duke of York then you'll probably want to have a swift one here to tick it off. If I’d been able to sit in the bar room I’d probably have given it a 7 but I didn’t so it’s a 6.

Whilst out wandering around some previously unexplored neighbourhoods of Bristol, I randomly stumbled upon this small taproom, located down a small side street, practically right next to the motorway. You enter to a basic bar area in a compact and rather dark room with the servery to one side and some limited seating opposite. It all felt very gloomy on a baking hot September afternoon, although I can imagine it would be a cosy enough spot on a Winter’s evening. A door at the far end takes you into a much larger room, in what looked like an old mechanic’s garage or some such similar workshop. This room houses the brewery and has a row of metal framed tables and chairs down one side, allowing you to marvel at the smart looking brew kit that fills the rest of the space and benefiting from the large open garage-style door at the far end that allows plenty of light in. The barmaid also mentioned an upstairs seating area, but I didn’t spot this, opting instead to take my beer outside where a few benches made from old pallets and some modern metal framed garden furniture can be found in a scruffy yard with a cracked concrete floor and a large canvas awning. It’s a messy spot but could be okay if it were filled with a lively crowd. The whole building is painted in very bright blues and reds which make it almost impossible to miss when passing – the colour scheme also extends to the bar area. A really helpful and cheery barmaid talked me through the four keg beers – Pilsner, Session IPA, West Coast IPA and Dark Rye IPA – which were available along with a Stowford Press cider. Based on her descriptions, I ordered a pint of the Dark Rye IPA, which wasn’t quite to my taste but went down well enough in the baking sun, nonetheless. This is a quirky little taproom that probably needs a bit of fine tuning to make it feel a bit more comfortable and worth making the effort to find. The separate bar seating area and garden ensure you don’t feel like you’re drinking in a factory unit, which is a failing of many taprooms like this, whilst the service was top-class and made me wish I had time to try a couple of their other beers. One to keep an eye on and definitely worth a look in passing.

Official site of Fierce & Nobel - www.fierceandnoble.com