Bear & Billet, Chester

One of a number of pubs on Chester’s Lower Bridge Street, inside the city walls, is The Bear and Billet, an attractive black and white timbered building, the type in which Chester seems to specialise. Outside, the seemingly mandatory blue plaque tells us that “this outstanding timber building was originally the town house of the Earl of Shrewsbury and it has been an inn since the 8th century” It’s a three storey 17th century building. Inside, on the ground floor, we find a bareboarded low ceilinged interior with unoriginal looking black beams. There’s a mixture of seating, including some low coffee tables and armchairs and, although there are several traditional wooden settles, there’s an overall impression of a somewhat modernised interior that is not wholly in keeping with the age of the building. There’s 2 upper floors, but these were closed for a private function on my recent early Thursday evening visit. Apparently, over the 3 floors, there’s a total of 5 large screen TV’s. The ground floor bar was pretty busy when I called in, mainly with the after work office crowd who, in typical fashion, had congregated in front of the bar counter, making it more difficult to get served than was necessary. An area at the back of the pub was showing the Young Boys v Liverpool Europa League Match to a smaller, but noisy, group of lads. Despite Thursday evening being “Grill Night” between 5 and 9 pm, there didn’t appear to be any takers. The Bear and Billet is an Okells pub with 6 pumps, one for cider. Beers on were Weetwood Cheshire Cat, Beartown Ginger Bear, Liverpool Craft Beer Co American IPA and 2 Okells beers – Bitter and IPA. Serving staff appeared noticeably off the pace, but my Okells IPA was in good nick. The pub is listed in the CAMRA 2012 Good Beer Guide. The pub was advertising its own Oktoberfest Beer Festival from Sept 22 to Oct 6 featuring German lagers and food. Flyers advertised that guest ales would be reduced to £ 2.75p per pit on Fridays from 5-9pm ( which seems odd – that’s when you might expect the pub to be at its busiest ). I suspect that I just came in at a bad time, but I didn’t particularly take to this pub much at all.

What an excellent pub, has to be on your list when visiting Chester. Friendly staff and regulars, the food served on our visit was the pie of the day. Six ales on handpump, I went for the Titanic Iceberg, Ilkley Ruby Cascade. Defo will return.

Located next to the Bridgegate on Chester's fine city walls, this pub once served as the gatekeeper's residence, before being converted to an inn called the Bridgegate Tavern around the early 1800's. In more recent times the pub gained a little notoriety for being the birthplace of John Lennon's grandmother before becoming popular as a biker's hangout in the 1970's, eventually falling into decline and ceasing to trade as a pub in 1999, before reopening as Benson's at the Billet in 2001. Eventually the pub was taken over by Okell's Brewery, who rightfully restored the Bear and Billet name and tidied the pub up to its present state. The exterior is, as you can see from the photos, classic Chester and this is pleasingly reflected in the interior as well, which is all dark wooden beams and fine wood panelled walls. The front room has the servery on the left hand side, a decent amount of seating and a fireplace on the right hand wall next to an attractive cabinet full of beer bottles. There are two more sections beyond this area, each with some nice mixed seating options around interesting old tables and access to a beer garden is possible through the rear door. There are two large TV screens in this part of the pub, both of which seemed to be showing an archaeology programme, which was a bit odd on a Saturday night. The place was absolutely packed on our Saturday night visit and it was about three deep at the bar, thanks in part to a private function in the upstairs room, which was so busy that it was impossible to have a look around. There were four beers on at the bar - Okell's Bitter, Phoenix Arizona, Moorhouse Blonde Witch and Exmoor Gold - as well as Thatcher's Cheddar Valley Cider. The staff dealt with the queues at the bar quite efficiently and seemed able to keep check on who was next to be served. My pint of Arizona was in pretty good condition and had it not been so busy, I would have probably tried some more. This is a nice historic pub with plenty going for it, but I suspect I caught it at a bad time, as it wasn't the most comfortable drinking experience with so many people crammed in. Still well worth a look though and a great double header with the nearby Brewery Tap.