The Chintz Symposium, Falmouth

The Hand Bar is in a courtyard off High Street. We were both expecting to go into a fairly smart bar. So once inside we were surprised to see a very basic two roomed bar,that in my wifes opinion looked a bit scruffy. There are two rooms we went in the room to the left as this is where the bar was,there was a rough stone floor,there was bench seating and chairs and one normal table and chairs where we sat,the room to the right did not look much better with normal tables and chairs and one settee. I went to the bar to see a sign saying NO Real Ales,i turned round to look at my wife for help,no chance of that,i looked at the keg things on the bar,none i had ever heard of like Bondary Imbongo,too strong for us,the others had stupid names and too strong,so i asked for two halfs of Verdant Some Fifty Summers,expensive and it looked like no other drink i or my wife have ever had,it looked like sludge,we both tried it and agreed it was vile but not off,as we drank more of it the taste got worse. We both could no wait to get out and into a proper pub,we went up to Wetherspoons and the first two drinks did not take the taste away,after two more we were almost back to normal. I said to my wife we have just done a craft beer bar,she said "they can stick them,i prefer proper pubs". This place is best left for those who like to pay a high price for something very different to what normal drinkers like me and the wife like to drink. Pub visited 13/8/2017

Situated in a pleasant courtyard just off the main High Street, HAND is a very contemporary small craft beer bar. The pub comprises of two rooms with bare concrete flooring and fairly limited seating options. The bar is in the left hand section which sees a couple of cafe style tables give way to the main bar area with an ancient battered sofa to the right of the servery and a marginally smarter banquette opposite, all supplemented by a few pouffes and some rickety looking old chairs. I'm not entirely sure what sort of look they were going for with this choice of furniture, but it feels a bit like my old student flat which isn't the greatest compliment. Beer credentials have been put on show in the shape of a poster detailing various hop varieties and a collection of beer bottles over the large front windows as well as the ubiquitous blackboard listing the full range of available beers. The bar has a very simple short counter of the sort you see in most craft beer bars and micro pubs, tucked away in the far left corner of the room. A second room to the right seemed to be an overspill for the main bar area, offering some more standard and sofa seating options, although it was empty on a dismal, wet Sunday evening. Some decent blues music played fairly quietly before Lou Reed's Transformer was given a spin by the friendly bar staff. Various bar snacks were available, including some extremely tasty looking cake which was perched on the end of the bar as some sort of cruel test of willpower. The pub was enjoying a tap takeover from the Lervig Brewery from Stavanger in Norway, so their beers dominated the nine keg taps, with only Left Hand Brewing Duel and a Sandford Orchard cider bucking this trend. There was also a single handpull offering Harbour Light Ale. The Lervig beers included two sours and a few at very high abv's, so I settled on the Duel instead, served to me by one of the very friendly and helpful bar staff. I thought it was a pretty good brew but a little over carbonated for my taste. Falmouth seems like an unlikely outpost of the craft beer movement, but the town (or perhaps more accurately, the town's student population) appear to have embraced the idea and places like this will no doubt continue to do a decent trade. I found the bar to be pleasant enough, if perhaps a bit tatty in places and lacking the character of a more traditional pub. Worth a look if you're feeling adventurous but cask ale fans will be better served by plenty of other pubs around town.

I went to find this bar on Thursday in Falmouth as I had heard there was a beer festival there for the Sea Shanty weekend, and found it set back from the High Street up from the pier with a few tables outside. Inside there were 3 keg fonts on the bar each with 3 beers. The bar was still getting ready for the festival and although there were no cask ales on in the bar, they had a stillage set up ready for the festival starting on the Friday. When we went on Friday the stillage beers were on and we enjoyed beers from Five Points brewery, Bristol Beer Factory, Ilkley and Magic Rock breweries, and I also tried one of the key keg beers now on the fonts in the bar, Beavertown Gamma Ray APA. I had no problem with any of the beers served here. Inside there are two rooms. The bar area looks a bit basic, but there is another room set out for a bit more comfort. It is big on foreign bottled beers.