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Barbara's Bier Haus, Bristol

Pub added by adam bell

The South Buildings
Bristol
BS1 5UH

Correct details

Served areas

Bristol Central, Harbourside

Reviews of Barbara's Bier Haus (Average Rating: 5 of 10) Add Review see review guidelines

Blackthorn _ left this review about Barbara's Bier Haus

Renamed and extensively renovated since my previous review, this now models itself on a Bavarian après-ski lodge and does have something of an alpine look about it I suppose, as well as barmen all dressed in lederhosen.

Internally it consists of one single, open plan room, although segmented in to different areas by the use of raised flooring in places and woodwork creating booth seating areas. Décor wise it’s a little difficult to make out much in the way of any detail due to the low light levels, but there appeared to be dark wood strip on the floor as well as shiplap style wood cladding on much of the walls. The wooden joists that partitioned off the seating areas were painted with foliage, and further fake foliage was adorning the beams at the top. The lighting, such as it was, came from brass chandelier style light fittings and old “gas lamps” etched with the pub’s name. A couple of TV’s were dotted around although these did not seem too intrusive, and there were also a few pictures, inset in to the wall and illuminated with coloured LED lighting, including a portrait of the eponymous Barbara. Although clearly not a traditional pub, the overall effect was not unpleasant and it certainly had some novelty value.

Predictably enough there were no real ales on tap, or indeed anything in the way of any ale as far as I could make out, with Guinness being about the closest thing to an actual beer. Perhaps that is what you would expect from a Bavarian ski lodge, but on the other hand there was no glühwein either, which has certainly been a staple in all the après-ski bars that I’ve ever been in. Ciders meanwhile were Thatcher’s Gold and Kopparberg Strawberry & Lime. Besides pints and steins, drinks were also available in seven pint towers, and a number of punters seemed to have opted for these.

On 29^th May 2025 - rating: 4
[User has posted 2070 recommendations about 1970 pubs]

Please Note: This review is over a year old.

Alan Winfield left this review about Steinbeck & Shaw

Steinbeck & Shaw is a bar housed in a modern building.
Once inside the bar faces in a large L shaped room,the floor is bare boarded,there are tall tables and chairs to the front and bench seating to the rear right,there is a DJ booth on a raised are to the right.
There were no real ales on the bar,i had a drink of Guinness,which was as bland as usual.
The background music was crap.
Not my sort of place.

Pub visited 15/7/2017

On 27^th October 2017 - rating: 5
[User has posted 6113 recommendations about 6113 pubs]

Please Note: This review is over a year old.

Blackthorn _ left this review about Steinbeck & Shaw

Since my previous review this has had two changes of name and undergone something of a refurbishment, although I use the term loosely. It’s definitely more of a bar than a pub and had a bouncer on the door even on a recent Monday evening visit. The clientele were almost entirely in their teens or early twenties. Staff were friendly enough, but somewhat on the slow side.

The interior decor is, shall we say, unusual. Half the walls look as though they have suffered from an explosion in a paint factory, and I mean that quite literally. The term is often used to simply describe a multitude of garish colours, but here it really does look as if the paint has just been thrown at the walls. In a nod to Bristol’s urban art scene, the remainder of the walls were liberally covered in graffiti. A red neon sign at one end said “time to pony up” and nearby was a life sized pony suspended upside down from the ceiling. Unfortunately the significance of this escaped me. The flooring was a mixture of screed and wood strip, and seating a mixture of booths, wooden benches and a number of leather sofas that had also been liberally sprayed with graffiti. A curved seat just inside the door had been fashioned to look a little like a dodgem car with a couple of beer barrels strapped to the front. A number of exposed filament light bulbs, which seem to be de rigueur in all pub renovations these days, looked a little incongruous suspended from bare metal cable trays. A DJ booth was in one corner and a projection screen opposite, although neither were in use on our visit. The menu offered a concise selection of burgers, dogs, nachos and sharing platters, and these were mostly priced somewhere around £8 - £10.

Unfortunately there were no beers on tap, real or otherwise, unless you count things such as Punk IPA which I did spot as well as a number of premium lagers. Ciders fared slightly better with Thatcher’s Gold being available. Various other drink options were listed in the menu including a few packages such as a platinum package which consisted of a bottle of champagne, a bottle of vodka and 12 cans of Red Bull. A snip at only £300, and were it not for that fact that I only had about 20 minutes before my bus was due, I would have no doubt been sorely tempted. Unusually a vodka & orange was served in an old baked bean can rather than a glass (actually it could have been a can from chopped tomatoes, spaghetti, chicken soup….who knows? But you get my drift). All in all, an odd place and not somewhere I’ll be rushing back to, although it did have a certain appeal for it’s novelty factor.

On 27^th September 2016 - rating: 4
[User has posted 2070 recommendations about 1970 pubs]

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