Beerfly, Bedford

This is a small craft beer bar and bottle shop with a good central location that makes it easy to add to a crawl of the town centre. The pub occupies a typical shop-converted space with plain painted walls and large shop windows that help create quite a bright and cheery drinking environment. The front windows have been filled with interesting displays that seemed to snare the occasional passerby and look good in continuity with the wine merchants next door. The bar is immediately to the right upon entering and has a glazed tile counter front and an unusual beer board composed of laminated A4 sheets of paper, each detailing one of the beers or ciders available on draught. Opposite the bar, there’s a good row of fridges beneath a sign saying ‘Wall of Wonders’, that are well stocked with interesting craft cans and bottles for consumption on site or take out. Further into the room, some limited seating is available, with a hard L-shaped bench to the right, supported by a few metal frame chairs, and a drinking ledge with high stools along the left-hand wall. Decor includes a few paintings from local artists, which each included a little pen portrait about the artist, a fly mural, a pub poster and a few fly-themed movie posters (The Fly, Super-Fly etc…). Beyond this there’s a storage area where various keg inserts and pump clips have been displayed alongside some pub t-shirts and various crates and other such odds and ends, but it’s not really a space to linger in. An esoteric soundtrack played in the background throughout my visit and there was a modest crowd in attendance, including one particularly self-absorbed customer who was trying to get a reaction from various other customers with his ignorant drivel. There is a handpull on the bar, but it was out of action on this occasion, leaving me to choose from one of the five craft keg options, with three or four real ciders also listed. After scanning the very informative beer board, I settled on the Three Hills Baby Bpavik Hazelnut Stout, served in a two-thirds measure, as beer is only served in ⅓ or ⅔ measures. This was a pretty extreme beer that was weighted a bit too heavily towards the hazelnut for my taste, although it certainly did what it said on the tin. I added this place to my itinerary at the last minute, assuming it would be a bit of filler between better pubs, but it ended up being one of my favourites. It’s easy to end up drinking a lot of middling cask ale in Bedford, so this place offers a genuine alternative and a nice way to vary a town centre crawl.

Official site of Beerfly - beerflyshop.co.uk

Official site of Beerfly - beerflyshop.co.uk