Highbury Vaults, Kingsdown, Bristol

I love this 2011 Good Beer Guide pub for its off beat character and the multiroomed feel about it. You could spend a day standing at the bar looking round all the bits and bobs slotted in and around the bottles and glasses, and wandering round the different seating areas which all have interesting features. Good beer on sale and a variety too which is brilliant for what appears to be a Youngs house. We chose Plain Ales Inncognito and Bristol Beer Factory Exhibition. Lovely beer garden at the back. Have to watch the step on the way out though.

Situated in the studenty area of Kingsdown and a short stiff climb up St Michael’s Hill from the City Centre, is The Highbury Vaults, a pub with something of an olde worlde feel, created by a bare boarded, wood panelled interior with wooden tables and chairs and rather dark subdued lighting. The pub dates back to the mid 19th century. The main bar is pleasantly broken up into different areas. Walls are decorated with pictures of old kings and queens. There’s also several photos of the pub itself in olden days when it was branded as “a United House”. Rather incongruously in one corner is a bar billiards table, but there’s no other distractions such as fruit machines or music. Unusually, a model railway track runs the length of the pub at around head height. There’s a small basic snug bar on the right at the front of the pub which is, so I gather, the original old part of the pub. A pleasant walled garden may be found at the rear. The toilets are down a steep staircase. It’s a Youngs house, but one that is effectively run as a free house with an adventurous guest beer policy. In the main bar, there’s 2 banks of 4 pumps each which, on my recent lunchtime visit, were serving Youngs Gold, Bitter, Brains SA, St Austell Tribute, Bath Gem, Hop Back Crop Circle, Moor Beers Peat Porter ( sounds interesting ) and Southville Hop ( a 6.5% beer from the local Bristol Beer Factory ). The Bath Gem - £ 2.90p – was in good form. The pub is a CAMRA Good Beer Guide regular. The uphill climb to the pub seemed a bit longer and steeper than when I last came here ( probably about 10 years ago ) , but I enjoyed the visit and I’d happily do this one again.