North Bar Social, Otley

Official site of North Bar Social - www.northbrewing.com

Official site of North Bar Social - www.northbrewing.com

Been coming into this fine bar since it opened very good beer and atmosphere well worth a visit if in the area

North Bar Social is a newish bar that is very close to the Bowling Green and Otley Tavern. Once inside there is a small oblong shaped room with the bar facing,the room is bare boarded with the seating being normal tables and chairs. There were four real ales on the bar,i had a drink of North Prototype which went down well,the friendly bar woman also offered me a taster of Roosters Yankee which is a drink i quite like,i failed to note the other beers. Very quiet background music was playing during my Saturday dinner visit. This pub was a bit too quiet for my liking. Pub visited 8/11/2014

With a few successful bars already up and running in and around Leeds, the North Bar team opened this, their sixth venue, midway through 2013. It's quite a small, functional bar with no frills except perhaps its most distinctive feature - a huge circular window on the front wall. The ground floor bar is a simple rectangular room with the servery on the rear wall and seven tables spread either side of the entrance. The left hand wall is exposed stone and displays a rather odd collection of 16 different wall lamps, all of which were illuminated on my visit although ironically, the room was so gloomy I had to go upstairs to read my paper. Stairs at this end of the room lead up to a small bare boarded room with walls painted in pastel shades and some nice button backed banquette seating. A large beam, heavily padded to protect unsuspecting heads, runs across the room, which has flowers in beer bottles on each table and a whole load more of those light fittings, just in case those downstairs weren't enough. The gents toilets, which have been decorated with retro children's football-themed wallpaper, can be found upstairs and opposite them there is a door which allows you a glimpse into the 'cellar'. Annoying lounge style music was playing when I first arrived but thankfully this improved as the evening went on. What this place lacks in charm and character, it soon makes up for at the bar. Four handpulls were dispensing Kirkstall North Prototype (£3.00) and Black Band Porter, plus a real cider, with the final pump unused. I'd previously enjoyed the North Prototype in the Cross Keys in Holbeck, so I gave it another try, but found it falling short of the mark this time. The keg fonts had all sorts of interesting stuff including a brew from Ilkley, some Belgian fruit beers and a German Wheat beer. I don't remember too much about what was available from the fridges, but my notes described the bottled beer range as 'epic', so I presume it was pretty extensive. I was a little disappointed by this place, perhaps because it was very quiet compared to a lot of the neighbouring pubs or perhaps because its lack of 'pubiness' didn't sit well with the Otley drinking scene. Having said that, I think it's good to have something a bit different to the traditional alehouse in town. Worth a look if you fancy drinking something a bit more adventurous or if you want to know what sort of light fittings are on the market without making the trip to Homebase.

latest in the small chain of Leeds based North group bars, like most of their places it isn't particularly big inside but the choice is wide and quality is high. Four handpulls of traditional ales backed up by 6 fonts of "Craft" beers. The ladies is downstairs and the gents upstairs off another room with tables and chairs, you can also see into the beer "cellar" on the first floor. A pleasant bar that doesn't open at lunchtime.