Going to Wales next week.
Any suggestion for good places and beers in Snowdonia area, Gower Peninsula and Cardiff?
Chop it off and set it adrfit into the Irish sea !
Theres your independence… enjoy!
Hi Marko, I can’t comment for south Wales but for Eryri (Snowdonia in Welsh) and surrounding area I can recommend the following:
Stori in Bala - very good, extensive range of Welsh beer and cider and they also make their own gin
Purple Moose Brewery Shop in Betws Y Coed - full range of their beers, merch and a few shelves of other Welsh craft
Bottle & Barrel in Aberystwyth - excellent little craft beer bar, almost all Welsh beer on draft, with a decent range to take out including some Welsh mead and cider. They do a flight of 6 very small pours if it’s maximum ticks you want.
Hop in - in Brecon - very small, narrow bar but a decent range of stuff and best option in this area
These are my picks for craft. There are one or two other micropubs in Barmouth and Llandrindod Wells and much more on the North coast in places like Conwy (which is a lovely coastal town). Most other traditional pubs serve at least 2 or 3 local cask so definitely search out a traditional old pub or two as well.
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A lot of my top rate places have apparently subsequently closed.
Swansea
No Sign Bar - Liked it but more for the space than the tap list.
Gower
The Pilot in Mumbles was quite pleasant.
Cardiff
City Arms - Biased having gone during the Rugby World Cup but i liked it. tap list was a bit less impressive upon a return visit three years later.
Of the other places I have rated there are lots of nice pubs with crap beer lists.
Check places and trending beers on Untappd when you get there. Our trip to Wales was actually the first time i saw real value in doing this. There was a pub that we wanted nothing to do with based on our impression from the outside, but then i saw their tap list on untappd and we ended up checking it out. (It has since closed lol)
Only been to Cardiff. I can recommend the City Arms, was less impressed by BrewDog and Tiny Rebel, but they can give you a few ticks. Queens Vaults is fairly decent.
Thanks for the ideas.
One more question - which Welsh breweries should I be on the look out a.k.a. which Welsh breweries are considered to be the best?
In the south, Crafty Devil and Beer Riff are getting a solid foothold in the scene, both have taprooms. Tenby are decent in Pembrokeshire and also have a bar. Pollys are fairly ubiquitous throughout Wales, and quite prolific with new releases (you could visit 10 bars and have 20 different Polly’s beers on draft)… in mid / North Wales Wild Horse Brewery are very good, very dependable.
Wilderness do more experimental / wild / saison type stuff. Purple Moose tick the traditional box, as do Gower Brewery. These are the main players (Although i’m sure I’ll remember a few others).
There are a LOT of smaller breweries with unreadable labels entirely in Welsh… Stori in Bala will sell many of these. It’s entirely pot luck with these, some are poor, some are decent, some are average… personally I’d take a chance but fresher the better.
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Sounds good to me, but a bit of an odd response to this thread.
The labels would obviously be unreadable if you don’t speak the language, but no less unreadable than in any other country in which you don’t know the language. Obviously.
Cardiff: Avoid the City Arms now unless you just want to give Brains a try. It used to be interesting but they stripped out all the good stuff (change of ownership, presumably).
I’d recommend Tiny Rebel in town. Scaredy Cats is also good in the city centre - a cafe that has 6 taps, always good stuff from across the UK. Crafty Devil cellar is worth a trip - they’ll have half a dozen of theirs on tap and they are solid these days.
Pop n Hops is the best bottle shop, although a bit out of town it is worthwhile and has some good restaurants nearby. You could also check out Cathays Beer House which is in a similar-ish area. The Bottle Shop has a good bottle/can selection and has two branches in Cardiff, both a bit of a walk out of town but good options for take-away especially (you can drink in if you like too)
If you’re after cask specifically there are a few decent options, my favourite is The Cricketers in Pontcanna which has Evan Evans beers on, always in superb condition and you can also normally grab a local tick or two at the Pontcanna Inn which is a couple of doors down. Tiny Rebel have a decent cask offering in their place too.
In terms of breweries I’d agree with the post above; Polly’s, Wilderness, Crafty Devil and Wild Horse are the big four. They are the most consistent by far.
I’d put the likes of Beer Riff, Dog’s Window, Tiny Rebel and Tenby in a second tier - capable of putting out really good stuff but a little inconsistent.
Anything else is pot luck really, there is a lot of decent traditional beer about but for more modern stuff, these are the best.
Was there really any need for that comment?
