The Farside, Stokes Croft, Bristol

Official site of The Farside - www.thefarsidebar.com

Official site of The Farside - www.thefarsidebar.com

A recent opening in the redeveloped Carriage Works building on the popular Stokes Croft strip, this is another outlet from the local Left Handed Giant brewery who also have an adjacent café in the same building. It really doesn’t look much from the outside, lacking any windows and being covered in graffiti, and the presence of a couple of bouncers on the door did nothing to encourage us in. Once inside though, it’s not only considerably larger than expected, but also had a much more welcoming feel, even if it was a little unusual in style. In terms of décor, everything was a bit of a mismatch with rough wooden boards on the lower part of the walls in some places, painted black slatted wood elsewhere and various shades of paint including a deep green, cream, maroon, black with lightning strikes and even plain breeze block. The flooring was mostly wood strip, with the air conditioning ducting and other services on the ceiling, which was itself bare concrete in places and purple paintwork in others. Further artwork included some abstract and arty line drawings, a mythical beast of some sort, a strange Turbo Island mural type print, and someone in a space suit. Unusually for a brewery owned pub, there were no real ales available, although there were several of their own on keg as well as something from Anspach & Hobday and Hammerton. Ciders meanwhile were their own Carousel Dry along with Red Fin’s Meloncherry. Overall, whilst certainly not the sort of pub I’d normally go for, this was somewhat better than expected and I’d happily pop in again if in the area.