Pubs and Bars / Pub of the Week
Pub of the week: The Crown
Squeeze past the perennial queue for Eat a Pitta and the exterior of The Crown in St Nicholas Market is quiet on a showery Friday afternoon. Benches that seat smokers late into summer evenings have been vacated in favour of a table inside for a bite to eat, or a seat at the slightly sticky wooden bar for the first pint of the weekend.
The L-shaped bar is packed with boozy offerings to suit every customer: hand pulls hooked up with the likes of Arbor Ales, Bath Ales and Butcombe, ice cold pints of Stella, Amstel and Red Stripe pulling through the taps, spirit optics sparkling under the red lights and ciders, both traditional and modern, ready for the drinking. The fridges bulge with bottled lagers, Cornish Rattler and cartoon-colourful cans of Beavertown Brewery’s Gamma Ray and Neck Oil session IPA.
A vintage Green Day poster guards the bar
At ceiling level on the carved wooden bar back, old bottles of Jaegermeister and Kracken Rum line up next to skulls of all descriptions, from a black sparkly one sporting a gold plastic crown to one that lights up and flashes through a psychedelic range of colours. Below, a box with the vaguely threatening bright orange outline of a deer caught in the headlights on it, a shining crucifix suspended between its huge antlers, proclaims that its contents is ICE COLD. An upturned bottle of Jaegermeister drips into its black belly, ready to dispense shots at short notice to anyone in need of a pick-me-up.
is needed now More than ever
Something fast with an angry guitar riff beats out at a low level, not yet turned up high enough to offend the the older couples perusing the menu of burgers and nachos. Framed posters of gigs past – Korn, David Lee Wroth, Saxon – and rock icons through the ages hang on the walls, the sort of things you could only buy from The Rock Shop, just a little way further into the maze of tiny shops in the market, in the years before Amazon existed. A metalhead in a band tee sips a dark pint at a table on his own and nods along appreciatively.
At the very back, behind the pool table that gets packed on Saturday nights, billiard balls thundering out of it when the money drops in, is a poster running through the history of The Crown. A pub has occupied this site since 1741, trading from the vaulted cellars below where there remains a bar. It might look pretty different since the years that drinking beer was safer than water, but approaching 300 years later that ethos still stands for some of the clientele who return here every weekend.
The Crown, 10 All Saints Lane, Bristol, BS1 1JH
www.thecrown-bristol.co.uk
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