Bottle & Stoat, Southampton

Upmarket micro done to a high spec; bare brick, sodium style lighting, squared ceiling. Gentle Xmas choral music on the go enhanced the atmosphere nicely. Little purple side room with old tin signs. Now run by the same people who have the rather good Olaf's Tun over the other side of the city. Friendly staff presiding over five cask and my Quantock Plastered Pheasant Porter was sensational (NBSS 4.5) with a follow-up of Flowerpots Goodens Gold still good but not quite hitting the same highs (3.5). Minor quibble is that the halves are served in silly glasses. Southampton is really quite impressive when it comes to pubs, albeit they are spread out quite a distance around the city and suburbs. Try and do this one.

After a few beers (and ciders) at the nearby Beer + Boards, we moved up the street a few doors to this fairly new micropub. Although whilst it's a new one on me, the current proprietor has been here several years through the various guises of the premises. It appears to be under the same ownership as the excellent Olaf's Tun. It now consists of a tastefully decorated front room and a tiny room to the rear, where the single unisex toilet can be found. Beers and ciders are all listed on a blackboard to the left-hand side of the bar. On cask, there was Flowerpots Extra Special Bitter, Electric Bear Ancient Astronauts, Escapist Laws of the Game & Three Acres Easy Going. Bag-in-the-box ciders could be found in the fridge to the right of the bar, with Snail's Bank Rhubarb Cider, Thistly Cross Whisky Cask, Sandford Orchards Devon Mist & Hogan's Wild Elder all available. The craft beer options were Anspach & Hobday London Porter, Siren Soundwave, Bristol Beer Factory Milk Stout, Disruption Is Brewing Maelstrom, Wiper & True Kaleidoscope, Left-Handed Giant Sky Above, Arbor My Little Sabrony & Yonder Rhubarb Cheesecake. In addition, Ilford Wild Juice was a draft cider. Dogs are welcome and apparently a CAMRA discount is offered. I could quite happily have spent much longer here. With Bears + Boards nearby, as well as the new Raven & Bine, the BrewDog and the Cricketers, this isn't a bad area for a few drinks.

A tasteful shop conversion with a cosy interior, a main drinking room with a small semi separate room to the rear. The seating is mostly of normal height tables and chairs.Six handpumps of which five were operational on my visit from which I chose a pint of Blue Monkey Cinder Toffee, NBSS 3.5, in addition there is twelve keg taps for Craft and Belgian beers as well as Cider, Rivington Never Known Fog Like It was my keg choice and was excellent. A pretty good micro this one.

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