Pubs and Bars / Pub of the Week
Pub of the Week: The Green Man
The tiny Green Man in Kingsdown fills up fast after 6pm on a recent Thursday evening with old boys coming for a nightly pint, local couples having a nice glass of wine and students looking for a quieter night than at the Highbury Vaults.
A pair of friends who have come straight in from nearby Kingsdown Leisure Centre lay their badminton rackets on the table as they go to get a pint at the bar in their shorts.
A measure of the gin of the week, the fragrant small-batch Silverback, comes in a balloon glass with a fresh slice of orange and a Fever Tree tonic for a fiver (with a pound off any gin on Mondays). It’s poured from a choice of more than 130 bottles that line the back of the bar.
is needed now More than ever
“We’ve got a lot of gin,” laughs the barmaid. “We’re thinking of toning it down now.”
As one of Bristol’s five Dawkins pubs, including fellow Kingsdown local the Hillgrove, there’s a strong selection of cask ales on the hand-pulls. The Dawkins logo is also immortalised above the bar in stained glass next to the pub’s name.
Below a blackboard listing the roast dinner options for which the pub is famed, framed pictures of Indiana Jones, Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars and a newspaper from an early Glastonbury Festival sit next to a towering stack of boardgames.
Merle Haggard’s country blues croon over the sound system, and the barmaid and a buddy move the tables around to make space for live music later on, the right hand speaker crowned with a straw hat
With flowers in empty gin bottles along with a candle on every table, it’s only missing an open fire to complete the feeling of a pub you want to while away a night in as the street grows darker outside.
An open fire would also help with the just-too-cold-to-take-your-jacket-off temperature of the pub. Perhaps the answer is to sink back into the old leather seats, worn out by many backsides over the years, and have another drink.
The Green Man, 21 Alfred Place, Kingsdown, Bristol, BS2 8HD
0117 925 8062
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