Pubs and Bars / Pub of the Week
Pub of the Week: King William Ale House
Drinkers spilled out of the pubs onto the cobbles of King Street on a recent Thursday evening. All the pubs apart from one.
The King William Ale House may have an address within Bristol’s ‘Beermuda Triangle’ but it doesn’t feel part of the gang.
It doesn’t have its own microbrewery. It doesn’t have hundreds of bottled beers from around the world for sale. It doesn’t sell its beer in third glasses.
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But it is like one of your friends who is cool because she’s not trying to be cool. A friend who wears her grandma’s old coat because it is warm and comfortable, not because it is retro chic.
King William Ale House on King Street is the only Samuel Smith’s pub in Bristol
The King Bill is, surprisingly, Bristol’s only pub owned by Samuel Smith’s. Like all of their 200 pubs across the UK, all of the beer selections on tap and in bottles are from the Yorkshire brewery, with no music, no big-name brand drinks and since October 2017 a zero tolerance policy against swearing.
Stretching from King Street the length of Little King Street almost to Queen Square, the building the pub now occupies date back to the late seventeenth-century and was once part of a row of three houses.
A trio of booths that can fit in six people at a pinch are the most sought-after sitting spots, the type of seats pounced upon seconds after being vacated.
“We need a judgement call, who is the tallest?,” an unsteady-on-her-feet 30-something blonde in a denim jacket and big hoop earrings says soon after 8pm, measuring herself against a male work colleague wearing a novelty Christmas jumper.
“That’s a terrible photo. You’re bad at this,” she scolds after being shown camera phone evidence of their respective heights.
After ordering a round of Alpine Lagers, she goes outside onto the cobbles.
King William Ale House, 20 King Street, Bristol, BS1 4EF
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