Sam Jacks: The Gate Complex, Newgate Street, Newcastle

I would love to be able to rant about this bar, but the truth is I quite enjoyed myself there. If you’re on a Stag party (which I was) this is the ideal place to come.

When we arrived there was football on their many TV screens which we enjoyed watching. They had a reasonable selection of beer and a fairly wide variety of bottled beer which I stuck to. 

The highlight of the bar has to be the hot female dancers which the bar employs to dance next to the bar. Another novel attraction is the dentist chair. No they don’t fix your teeth for you! Instead they give you a ridiculous looking steaming shot in a test tube, which you drink as you sit in the dentist chair, and the bar’s fit dancers dance around you. Apparently it costs £5 for the dentist chair experience, although to be fair, last time I went to the actual dentist it cost me far more than that.  There is also a bucking bronco for more Stag/Hen night related hilarity.

Sure the music may not be to everyone’s taste (or anyone over 21 for that matter), and watch out for the guy in the bog who will try to fleece money off you for giving you a bit soap to wash your hands with and a paper towel. Some may even say this bar is tacky in the extreme – and they would be right. However, the bar provides entertainment, it is original, the bar staff and door staff are friendly, the alcohol isn’t overly expensive and therefore on a similar occasion I would certainly go back.

 

Certainly better than a trip to the real dentist!

Belushi's: 13 Market Street, Edinburgh

This is a backpacker bar attached to a hostel. If you go through to the hostel bar (to your right of the main bar) you can get more for less if you pretend you’re staying at the hostel. I only found this out after I’d blabbed to the Aussie barmaid I was from Edinburgh at which point she informed me that she would have to charge me the full fair for the drinks I’d ordered. Clearly they operate an Edinburgh resident tax. How rude! As a small consolation they do have a beer garden which was quite pleasant to sit in as it happened to be a freakishly hot night on the occasion I drank in Belushi's, but let’s face it, most evenings in Scotland you’re not going to want to sit in a beer garden.

To sum up probably a good pub if you’re a backpacker, but if you are a local there are cheaper and better bars!

These randoms are clearly overjoyed because they got the cheap booze deal! 

Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated!

Dear readers,

Some of you may have wondered why I have posted no new reviews recently when there are still so many pubs in Edinburgh to be commented on. Some of you may have been furious that you took the time to look at this site and received no new reading material for your trouble!

Well over the last month I have been out and about visiting many pubs in Edinburgh and beyond, experiences which I will share with you over the next few postings.

Highlights to look out for are;

The Murrayfield Hotel, Belushi's, Finnegan’s Wake

Belfast and Dundalk Pubs

Later this month – Newcastle pubs

To kick off proceedings for October I thought I’d begin with the Globe.

The Globe: 13 Niddry Street, Edinburgh

If this bar is not the cheapest in Edinburgh it’s certainly close to it. You can get a bottle of Carlsberg for £1.35 – which is certainly competitive! Unlike many bars that do drink deals only for students – this bar also passes the savings on to hard working punters. No student card or tying to blag it with a snap fax here!

It’s a sports bar of the Aussie ilk (you can get bottles of VB, Tooheys New – if you feel the need). So what better than enjoying some Champions League action with some cheap beer deals? A word of warning though, if you want to watch one of the less popular games – get there ahead of time, as changing the Channel on their many tellys seems as complicated as re-directing a satellite in space!

Some may say the globe is a dingy, tacky bar that plays questionable music and has a distracting light show next to one of the TVs. I would say ignore all that and rejoice in the cheap beer!

VB could also stand for 'very bad'!

The Villager: 49 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh

This is a cool bar full of ‘trendy’ festival goers (soon to be full of ‘trendy’ Edinburgh Uni students). There’s a good selection of pints at the bar including pints of Erdinger. I’m reliably informed that they also do good cocktails, and there are decent 2 for 1 food offers during the week.

If you get a table by the window you can people watch on George IV Bridge.

The Southsider: 3/5/7 West Richmond Street, Edinburgh

This bar grew on me during the time I was there on Saturday. There’s nothing particularly unique about it at first glance. It’s the sort of average cheap and cheerful pub that you could find anywhere in the UK. However, in some ways this is exactly what makes it unique in Edinburgh city centre. I got two drinks for around £6 and enjoyed my pint of Best. No doubt it is the cheap prices that attract the regular student element. There wasn’t any live music on the night I was there, but I have seen bands play here previously. They also seem to show a lot of live sport.

All in all, a good place to go for a cheap pint and catch up with your mates in the city centre.

The graph doesn't lie, students like a drink!

The Harp: 114-116 St Johns Road, Corstorphine, Edinburgh

This place used to be all about drinking and was a proper pub. These days it is all about the carvery. Indeed, I believe the pub has changed its name from ‘the Harp’ to ‘Toby Carvery Edinburgh West’.

If you go for the carvery, you’re likely to be happy with it, as it’s a fine meal for under £8.00. Going to the Harp just for pints though is a different story. It’s a bit like going to Pizza Express only for beer, and then feeling disappointed by the lack of pub atmosphere. Think of the Harp in the same way. They do drinks (in fact the Harp is still actually a pub) but their main focus is food.

I came to this conclusion one Saturday night recently, when some mates and I made just such a mistake and went to the Harp for pints. Sure, the Harp serves a reasonable pint of Best, but I could enjoy a ‘reasonable’ can of Best in my living room. If you think about the other reasons why you go to a pub; atmosphere, entertainment, people watching, the Harp delivers none of these things. They don’t even sell bar snacks. Clearly they think that by not selling a peckish drinker a bag of crisps, said drinker will then rush through to the carvery to buy an entire meal!  They seem to have forgotten though that salty snacks make people drink more beer which = profit.

There were only three other punters in the bar area, all men in their sixties. They looked as disappointed to be there as we were. Leaving the carvery part of the pub though were a group of satisfied looking customers who had clearly enjoyed their meal. So, not to ‘Harp’ on about it, but this place is all about the carvery!

Carvery - the clue's in the name people!