The Hanging Bat, Edinburgh

A trendy bar where the maximum beer dispence is 2/3rds and some craft keg is priced as thirds.It's all very modern inside,a shop converstion with a lower level and a mezzanine all to the right.The left side is the bar and some small tables and a huge blackboard describing the offer.It's a busy place popular with under 30's . There are 9 craft keg options and Hanging Bat do some brewing on site. The three cask options were Thornbridge Jaipur,Cross Borders Women do it Bitter and a collaberation between Hanging Bat and Simple Things called Special Belge (NBSS 3,not sure what style the brewer was trying to achieve.) There is a market for this kind of bar,but I'm not the target audience.Better pubs nearby.

The Hanging Bat is one of those twatty bars that only sells beer in 1/3 and 2/3 measures. During my brief stay both customers who walked in asked for pints and had to be schooled by the barman. What is the point? The bar along the left wall supports six handpumps, five of which were in operation drawing Thornbridge ENA, Wylam Brewery’s Fleek, Squawk Pavo and Solus as well as Cross Borders Heavy. There were also nine craft keg options from the 14 fonts. The serving counter faces split level seating down the right side of this thin bar. The toilets are downstairs, as is more seating on multiple levels, I get the hanging bat reference. This place isn’t on my revisit list.

Trendy bar and eatery with the usual quasi-industrial stylings. Too cool for Point of Sale labels so you have to look at the blackboard for the beer range. 3 of the 6 cask on with brews from Fyne, Top Out and Black Isle. At the bottom was a chalked missive stating that "cask beer is meant to be more flat than keg!". Now I thought surely that's just to deal with idiot customers and then I got my third (no halves or pints here, proles!) of the Yellowhammer which was flat and musty (NBSS 1) so perhaps the problem is with you, not them, eh? I decided that I couldn’t be arsed to quibble over a third as I had plenty of other pubs I wanted to tick, so headed off. It was interesting that in a couple of later pubs, when I got talking to the bar staff and was asked where I’d been and what I thought, this one elicited a general ‘not surprised by that’ reaction.

A good sized and very busy pub on the popular Leith Road, it is perhaps more one of the new breed of “craft ale” bars rather than your traditional pub, with an extensive keg selection and only ⅓ and ⅔ measures being available. It was pretty much full to capacity on our recent Saturday evening visit with a buzzy and noisy atmosphere, and we just managed to squeeze on to one rather small table with high stools rather than proper chairs. It’s divided across three levels internally, with the ground floor level being to the left and slightly lower and upper sections off to the right. Décor wise it’s got all the traditional touches such as a wood strip floor and exposed stone walling along the left hand side, but somehow all managed to feel a little more contemporary than might be expected. Elsewhere was pale green plasterwork whilst the light fittings were industrial in style and fitted with on-trend exposed filament bulbs. Seating was a mixture of Chesterfield sofas as well as wooden pews and the aforementioned high stools. The menu offered a basic selection of bar snacks, with “dogs” seeming to be something of a speciality, as well as Thai Green Curry, Chilli Con Carne and so on. My Hot Dog with Barbecue Pulled Pork was actually a pretty decent dish, with a proper Frankfurter style sausage, a generous amount of tasty pork and a side order of chips, although they were very disappointing being flabby, overcooked and greasy. The current beer options were all chalked up on a board next to the bar, and the cask options on this occasion were Cromarty Atlantic Drift, Fyne Ales Lost Causes, Tryst West Coast Wave, Top Out Smoked Porter and Tiny Rebel Denali IPA. The keg options ran to a further 14 choices and I tried the Fallen Chew Chew, a salted caramel milk stout although I was a little disappointed with there being no evidence of the caramel that I could detect. After almost 20 beers the cider choice was…..nothing! Very disappointing, with only bottles being available apparently.