Gorilla Taproom, Mexborough

This is a brewery tap with a riverside beer garden, and fairly busy late Sunday afternoon. There is a large door with closed shutters, which I assume is the brewery entrance, and a small door in the corner, but this has the words "fire exit" on it, so I went through the benches in the beer garden looking for the entrance, but there isn't one, so I had to return to the fire exit which in fact also gives access (past a gorilla) to the stairs leading up to the bar area. There's a smell which I couldn't identify - was it carpet? unwashed jock straps? my shoes? yeast? I soon got used to it, just like everybody else, and made my way to the bar. There's a bit of a bottle-neck here, as the bar is in a corner between the staircase and a window, and a table and four chairs has been placed by the window, partly blocking access to the bar. There are five hand pumps featuring the brewery's own product, plus a couple of keg fonts with Thornbridge Lukas (a lager) and a cider. I took my half of Monkey Magic 4.5%, a rather disappointing smoked wheat beer (well, what was I expecting? - see photos for complete range) and sat in the back room, which seems a bit bigger than the front room and would surely be a better place for the bar. The background music was teeth-grindingly awful, and when David Bowie and Mick Jagger came on, singing their version of "Dancing in the Street", someone turned the volume up. Possibly one of the worst cover versions of any song ever, and this was a pretty bad song in the first place, so why did they do it? I'm willing to accept that they just did it to piss me off.

Current opening hours are:= Wednesday 1.00 pm - 10.00 pm Thursday 1.00 pm - 8.00 pm Friday 1.00 pm - 10.00 pm Saturday 1.00 pm - 10.00 pm Sunday 1.00 pm - 8.00 pm

Open Saturdays 1pm - 8pm, Sundays 1pm - 6pm.

Official site of Gorilla Brewery Tap - www.gorillabrewing.co.uk

Official site of Gorilla Brewery Tap - www.gorillabrewing.co.uk