Yorkshire Bar @ The Monkbar Hotel, York

The entrance of the Yorkshire Bar & Grill leads to the bar counter where eight keg fonts are displayed, three of them being off during my recent Thursday evening visit. Carlsberg (x2), Marston’s Shipyard, Wainwright Gold and Somersby Apple Cider were the options. The interior is sprawling and mostly open plan, feels very corporate. I knocked back my half of fizz and left never to return.

Official site of Yorkshire Bar & Grill (The Monkbar Hotel) - www.bw-monkbarhotelyork.co.uk

Just to confuse things a bit the signage now says "Yorkshire Bar & Grill", no mention of Liberty's and the barman said Cloisters is another room. Anyway this is what I found: An odd shaped adjunct to the Monk Bar hotel and a separate place to Cloisters apparently, a sort of long thin bit down the side of the building with modern designer furniture at one end near the hotel part, and traditional leather armchairs at the other. The square counter is right in front as you enter although the 3 pulls are on the other side, beers are from Leeds, Great Yorkshire and John Smiths there are six keg taps as well. Competently kept and professional service but obviously a bit lacking in atmosphere.

Official site of Yorkshire Bar & Grill (The Monkbar Hotel) - www.bw-monkbarhotelyork.co.uk

We stayed at the Monkbar Hotel on our recent visit to York, and can confirm that the Cloisters bar and restaurant is in fact the restaurant area; and that The Liberty Bar is the hotel's bar area that's open to the public. Although the Liberty Bar forms part of the hotel, it does have a separate entrance to the street. Although it's a hotel bar, it's nowhere near the worst one I've been in. Although it doesn't have the traditional pub character that I like, it does do reasonably priced snacks - sarnies are around a fiver or so - and a real ale in Black Sheep Bitter at £3.90 a pint.

Large bar in the hotel, but I was told Liberty is the restaurant area and the bar is called Cloisters, despite Liberty being on the front window of the bar. There was no-one serving behind the bar which was not lit up, but there may have been Black Sheep bitter available.