Portwall Tavern, Bristol

looks like its going to be more from the outside, has the feel of a micro pub inside, one room, not much character, map mural on rear wall. Well kept beer and worth visiting for that

Facebook page of Portwall Tavern - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of Portwall Tavern - www.facebook.com

Portwall Tavern is a thin single room pub with bar counter in the left rear corner that supports a premium keg range alongside four handpumps. One of these was off which left Unity Brewery’s Summer Pale, Good Chemistry Time Lapse and Twisted Oak Long Hot Summer as the cask options. Food is available, the basic menu revolves mainly around pizza and ciabatta. Some chilled dance music was playing in the background and the television was off and projector screen rolled up. Not sure what they’re used for as this place doesn’t advertise live sport. Out the front are some jumbrella covered picnic tables that were busy than inside the pub on the sunny afternoon I visited. The service was polite and I’d pop back in if passing.

A narrow fronted pub but hard to miss as it is now painted in a bright azure blue. Inside its a fairly basic single room with some ornate floor tiling, normal tables and chairs provide sensible seating, the bar is at the far left hand side of the room and boasts four handpumps, my visit was about 10.00 in the morning for a decent breakfast and just two beers were on from Goffs and Bristol Beer Factory. I was the only customer in at that time so I can only imagine there would be a decent atmosphere with a few punters in.

Something of a hidden treasure, this small single-room Victorian back-street bar has survived the urban renewal around it and provides a great contrast to the nightclub next door. The floor is boards, the décor sombre, the staff pleasant and the food good value. It's especially busy at lunchtimes, though for some reason it's quiet most evenings. There are various tables for diners, space for drinkers and convivial atmosphere. Of the 5 handpumps only two were on; I had a pint of WTF which was in excellent condition, and had I not been driving, I would have had many more. Convenient for the City centre and very handy for the marina, I'm sure I shall be back.

The Portwall is a narrow fronted pub that is fairly close to Temple Meads station. Once inside there is a single oblong shaped room which runs to the rear,the room is carpeted and has comfy bench seating and some normal tables and chairs. There were four real ales on the bar,i had a drink of Bath Ales Jem,which went down very well,i only noted one other real ale which was Electric Bear Red Bear. There was a TV on showing rugby and the pub was fairly busy on my early Saturday evening visit. I really took to this pub,one i could stay in for a good session,a good pub to end my Bristol crawl in. Pub visited 4/2/2017

Well, the attractive two-tone blue paintjob has been replaced by... battleship grey of course. The interior seems to be unchanged from previous reviewers' visits though, it being still a basic drinkers' pub as far as I could tell. It's effectively a single, fairly narrow room, with the bar counter at the end on the left. It has something of a 70s feel about it (nothing wrong with that, although I'm glad it doesn't still sell 70s beer!) with a red carpet and red upholstered benches along the side facing the bar. There were a couple of tall tables/tall stools, but the majority of furnishings were of the more traditional kind. A brass oche in the middle of the carpet indicates the presence of the dartboard behind some seating on the left; and on the walls are some prints of local scenes as well as some (modern by the look of it) cut glass mirrors. I also spotted a newspaper rack on one of the walls, but containing no newpapers when we dropped at Saturday lunchtime. The beers don't seem to have changed much in the last year or so either, with Bath Gem, Butcombe Bitter, Cotswold Spring Brewery Codger, and Prescott Hill Climb on. This is a pretty good selection by any standards. I saw pizze advertised at £5.95 a pop, plus 50p for extra toppings. This is the sort of pub where you can stop off for a quiet and relaxing pint - which is exactly what we did.