Machair, Hillhead, Glasgow

Just a short distance from Inn Deep, this is another Williams Bros pub specialising in craft keg beers and with a few real ales thrown in for good measure. The pub is effectively a two room set-up, although the front part of the pub sees the two rooms merge together somewhat. You enter into the lower of the two rooms which has the servery along the right hand wall. The bar counter is decorated with some funky caricature style artwork which can also be seen adorning significant parts of the wall space. The bar back meanwhile, is a much more sober affair with white tiles brightened up by each having a single pump clip attached to them. Opposite the bar there is a row of high bench formed booths each serving a glass topped table under which you will find a selection of hops and grains, gig tickets, business cards, sports memorabilia and so on, all of which is quite fun to look through. You follow a display of bottled beers along the front window ledge to move up into the left hand room where some rather comfier seating options can be found in what felt like a relatively plain room. A TV screen was showing some sort of weird fitness programme from continental Europe which seemed highly incongruous with the bunch of blokes lazing around drinking beer that it was being aired to. There was some sort of blues music open mic night going on, so I was treated to a revolving bunch of musicians and singers running through some old standards which was highly entertaining and kept me here longer than planned. Unlike its sister pub, this place had some Williams Bros beer on cask, with Joker IPA, Birds & Bees and Seven Giraffes making up the ale selection on this occasion. I think I counted fifteen craft keg taps which included around ten or so from the local Drygate brewery, but I was happy enough with my Joker IPA, which was a reasonable £3.50 a pint. The barmaid here was very friendly and I was able to settle down and enjoy watching highlights of my team beating Arsenal, which fortuitously replaced the aforementioned fitness show on the TV. I quite liked this place and thought it was one of the better craft beer type bars I found in Glasgow. I found the beer and service to be very good and enjoyed both the live and televisual entertainment on hand, whilst managing to settle down here much more easily than I did in their other pub down the road. A decent addition to the local beer scene and worth popping in if you're in the area.

Now called Crossing the Rubicon