Junkyard, Nottingham

Bar to left with fifteen craft type ales, all described on the wall behind the bar. As with the Herbert Kilpin, I doubt if I will ever return, but worth a visit as long as you look at the prices!

It's a shame that this place is ripping people off. £3.30 for two thirds of a pint??? They do not sell full pints, just 1/3 and 2/3. If you can get past the price of the beer, the Junkyard is actually a decent place with a good selection of beer, however, proper prices are charged at the Herbert Gilpin next door. Probably won't go back in a hurry.

Hidden away down an easily missed passageway, but only a short distance from Fletcher Gate and the Lace Market tram stop, this is an L-shaped room bar offering craft keg and bottled beers. My visit, late on a Wednesday evening, found a relative sanctuary from the noisy bars and pubs frequented by the city's student fraternity, with a predominantly young crowd in generating a good buzz without the need for any raucous antics. The layout is pretty straightforward, with the room running from front to rear, before dog-legging to the right. The servery runs down the rear left portion of the room, with a white tile counter front and metal top making it look like a typical craft beer bar, as does the row of taps protruding from the back wall from which the keg beers are poured. A series of fridges and cabinets close to the entrance demonstrate the pub's good bottled beer range and I believe these are available for off-sales as well. Drinking shelves run down the right hand wall, opposite the bar, with adjustable height stools under angled lamps offering basic seating options. The room swings round to the right where one long padded banquette supplemented by some decent metal frame chairs run down one side and some padded bench booths can be found on the other side. A patio style door at the far end leads to an outdoor eating area with picnic bench seating. The décor throughout the bar is fairly minimal, with neutral paint scheme, a few bare brick walls and some simple paintings. The beer, rather than the interior decoration, is obviously supposed to be the main attraction here, so we find 15 keg beers listed on a board above the bar from the likes of Kernel, Buxton, Wiper & True, Williams Bros, Totally Brewed and Siren, as well as some from US craft brewers. I say that these are all keg beers, but there is actually no way of knowing for sure, as the taps and boards give no idea of the method of dispense employed. I tried the Kernel Citra which was pretty good and the Buxton Axe Edge Double IPA - one of my favourite beers and absolutely spot on here, despite clearly being the keg version. Food is available through much of the day, but I arrived too late and all the menus had been removed. I thought the atmosphere here was pretty laid back and a good place to experiment with good keg beers. The place is trying a bit too hard to be hip and trendy, but I found the staff friendly and the prices fairly sensible by craft beer bar standards. This was much better than I'd expected and is certainly worth a look if you want to try something a bit different.