The Drapers Arms, Horfield, Bristol

The much-lauded micro, I was keen to see if it really justified the excessive pixels spilled online on its behalf. The short answer is, generally, yes. The interior is a rectangular room with bare board floor and green walls and traditional seating, with enough creature comforts to give it a fairly homely feel. Six cask available, my Brentwood Marvellous Mild was an NBSS 4 *despite* coming off stillage. Busy and buzzing on my visit with a great atmosphere. One oddity, what’s the thing about amount of the padded mattresses hanging from the ceiling - to help baffle the noise? Anyway, this one is worth the bus ride out from town, you could easily do a session in here. 8.5

Bristol’s original micro-pub and still going strong based on a recent Saturday afternoon visit, it is as it’s name suggests, housed in a former drapers shop but they do seem to have made a little more effort here than many micro-pubs to make it in to a comfortable and welcoming environment rather than feeling as though you’ve walked in to some temporary or pop-up establishment as is often the case. Internally it’s all one open plan room with sanded wooden boards on the floor and dark green paintwork on the walls. Seating looks to have been designed to encourage conversation with a long counter running almost the whole length of the pub and stools either side being an unusual feature. Elsewhere the seating consisted of padded wooden benches around the walls as well as conventional chairs. Two shelves around the top of the walls housed a collection of old beer bottles as well as various knick-knacks such as model ships, toby jugs, teapots and jars. A few pictures were dotted around the wall including old photos of the locale, watercolours and some old brewery mirrors. Strings of hops were hung above the bar counter. The bar counter too was unusual, being more of a low desk than your normal counter with no pumps or anything else on it, other than a couple of towels and an odd ham roll or two. Drinks were all dispensed from barrels racked up behind the bar, and then the glass brought to the counter. Beers on tap were all listed on a board next to the bar, and on this occasion were Ashley Down Red Stoat, BBF Dakota, Downton Quadhop, Arbor Boomtown, Moor Confidence and XT1 Blonde. Prices were a reasonable £3.50 per pint of £12 for a four pint jug. Ciders meanwhile were all Wilkins Farm cider in dry, medium or sweet varieties.

Six ales on stillage and a choice of two ciders. Their policy here is that they always hand you a sample of their beer before they serve. We went for the Combined Brewery Stunner and the Cotleigh Brewery Cotleigh 25, both were in excellent condition. Features here include a large central island for vertical drinking and socializing. The bar is out of a church, which was used for resting coffins on. Small mattresses suspended from the ceilings to keep noise levels down and lots of hops were also hanging from the ceiling. Another important feature was the stack of freshly made cobs on the bar at £1.50 each, so I went for the cheese and onion which was delicious!

The Drapers Arms is a micro pub that is set in a row of shops. Once inside there is a small square shaped room with the bar to the rear,there are barrels behind the bar which dispense the beers,the seating is wood bench seating,plus a drinking shelf. I had a drink of Ashley Down Sideways which was a very nice and well kept beer,the other beers noted were Yeovil Glory plus some other that i could not read my notes of. The pub was very busy on my late Saturday afternoon visit. I quite liked the vibe in here. Pub visited 2/4/2016