Accidental Brewery & Micropub, Lancaster

Pub SignMan left this review about Accidental Brewery & Micropub

This compact first floor bar sits above what I assume is the eponymous brewery, although the ground floor had been locked up on my Saturday evening visit, so it was hard to be sure. After climbing the stairs from the small lobby, you enter into a tidy parquet floored room with a high gabled ceiling and walls painted in warm colours, except for the exposed stone on the end wall. The servery is in the front right corner and has a similarly painted counter, with a simple bar back, a map of the local area printed to one side and a TV screen detailing the beer range to the other, above a promising looking beer fridge. Plenty of tables and chairs fill the space beyond the bar, with some high tables and stools directly opposite. The walls have been decorated with a mix of brewing themed pictures, decorative crockery and old maps of the local area. Boxes full of crisps and other such bar snacks are stood on the bar counter - a prominent position that makes resistance much trickier than it might otherwise have been. It's also worth noting that there are a few high stools along a ledge in the lobby space downstairs, but who wants to drink down there alone? Quite a loud 80s and 90s pop soundtrack was playing throughout my stay and the place was doing a good trade - I grabbed the last available table on this Saturday evening visit.
I was a bit surprised to find no cask ale on the bar and even more so to discover that there was no home brew on the keg lines either. There were eight craft keg options in all, from which I decided to try Buxton Axe Edge which cost a hefty £5.00 for two thirds of a pint. Other keg options came from Pomona Island, Verdant, Thornbridge, Brass Castle and other well respected craft brewers. The barman was very friendly and did his best to talk me through alternatives once he realised I was hoping for some cask ale.
This is a nicely presented taproom, with comfortable furnishings, friendly service and proper separation from the brewery itself. However, it was pretty disappointing to find none of their own beer at the bar, and with nothing on Cask either, this ended up feeling like a bog standard craft beer bar rather than a taproom. Worth a look to see if they've got anything interesting on, but I'm not convinced that this is an essential port of call for anyone crawling Lancaster.

Date of visit - 13th January 2024

On 22^nd March 2024 - rating: 6
[User has posted 3114 recommendations about 3114 pubs]