That Beer Place, Chester

Called on a Monday afternoon, which meant that it was really quiet, with only two other punters apart from us. Just the two cask ales and we tried both of them. Both were in really good nick. The barmaid was friendly, despite having to put up with loads of kids trying to sit on the outside tables with their McDonalds. Liked it in here and will call back next time we're in Chester.

That Beer Place is the current (2024) CAMRA National Cider Pub of the Year. So unsurprisingly, it was the pub I was most looking forward to visit on our day trip to Chester. This bar can be found at the end of one of Chester's main shopping streets. With it being a reasonably warm days, windows were open onto the street with a little more seating on the pavement. It is a cafe-style bar with the bar itself to the rear left. Bench seating makes it good for groups. There appeared to be some kind of beer tasting session in progress during our visit. It was lunchtime and already very busy. There is a larger room upstairs which was almost empty. There are just a couple of cask ales - Salopian Escalation & Farm Yard Haybob. I was expecting more ciders on draught, but there was just one - Nightingale Love Bird. Although, there were a couple of perries - Ross-on-Wye Hellen's Early Single Varietal & Little Pomona Table Perry. It seems that the vast majority of the real ciders offered are in fact in bottles, with some very unusual ciders found across the various fridges. I opted for the Ross-on-Wye perry, which was much sweeter than I would expect from this producer, with a dry aftertaste. There are plenty of craft beers on offer too - Rivington Fall Out of the Sky & Never Known Fog Like It, Salopian Escalation (keg as well as cask), Factory & Friends Common Factor, Hudson Valley Blackberry Peach Glycerin, Tartarus Chocolate Brownie Stout, Factory/Track On Track & Donzoko Donnie's Nitro Dark Beer. There were plenty of other bottles and cans of beers in the fridges too. Staff were coping well with the number of customers. This is certainly a place that I'd like to spend a little more time in with some really interesting beers and ciders, but without the wow factor that I was expecting.