The Curious Hop Biere Café, Otley

Official site of The Curious Hop Biere Café - www.curioushop.com

Official site of The Curious Hop Biere Café - www.curioushop.com

Small shop conversion with 4 pulls on the end counter. Seating is on padded plastic chairs at scaffolding tables.Being music themed one wall has an eclectic collection of LP records for sale plus there's a few singles on the counter. Decor from music photos (for sale) t-shirts and amusing signs. Function room upstairs and there's live music couple of times a month. Handy for bus station.

Finally managed a quick twenty minute ‘look-see’, just before Christmas. Much more of a straightforward bar than I was expecting, given the advance publicity promoting a venue combining vinyl, comics and craft beer. (I think I expected to see something along the lines of the Sound Bar, in Skipton, where you have to negotiate several record racks, before reaching the bar). However, it’s a pleasant enough small room, very much in the modern style with orange plastic chairs, tables covered in planking and lit by Edison bulbs (naturally). At the bar there were four beers on cask: Saltaire ‘Triple Chocoholic’ & ‘Blonde’, Elgoods ‘Golden Newt’ and Titanic ‘Black Ice’. Also, a T-bar dispensing a range of keg beers and a solitary craft pump dispensing something from Beavertown (?). Unfortunately, the only other punter in the place was very keen to share his knowledge of beer and pubs and so it was difficult to make a note of things. However, the Black Ice was in good enough shape for me to consider trying something else, if time had allowed. The young barman was friendly and welcoming, but, atmosphere wise, it was pretty dead, at 6pm, on a Friday evening. I suspect the fact it had only been open since October had something to do with it, plus, it was probably a little early for its target demographic to come out to play. On the basis of this visit, I wouldn’t place it on my essential list when visiting the town, but there’s enough promise to possibly call in and see what’s on the pumps. I couldn’t imagine an extended session here, though.