bath bars: best bars in bath

Welcome to the Drink in the Sights guide to the best bars in Bath. Not too surprisingly the Bath pub scene has a proper Ye Olde feel to it with lots of nice old little bars serving good quality ales. It was noticeable that pretty much every Bath pub had a gluten free beer or two on which is always great when you're travelling with a cealiac who doesn't really like cider. The obvious brewery to look out for is Bath Ales, and they are well stocked around the city, which is always a nice touch. Their Gem beer in particular is an excellent bitter which has become my Bath Ales beer of choice despite also enjoying Dark Side Stout which is more to my usual taste. My light beer drinking companions would also recommend the Wild Hare and Cubic pale ales. Bath is one of the best cities for proper English pubs. So lets get on with finding out where to drink in Bath.

Best Bars in Bath

The Raven

What's not to love about The Raven? It's a gorgeous Georgian pub in a gorgeous Georgian city, serving an excellent selection of Somersets finest beers. It's wonderfully decorated with lots of bird pictures, and wall paper which matches the glasses with pictures of ravens in waistcoats and top hats, which adds a bit of fun to the scene. They also have two beers brewed just for them, The Raven, and Raven Gold by Blindmans Brewery, they are both excellent beers, a little reminiscent of Hobgoblin and Hobgoblin Gold, but a bit nicer. I could happily spend many an evening in this Bath pub. Just as a quick update this pub recently made the national news when the owner chased Kier Starmer the current leader of the Labour party out. I guess your views on this will depend a little on your political views.

The Salamander

Salamander is another quint essentially Bath pub and even better it's a Bath Ales pub so you know you're getting a quality selection of beer. It's a lovely small pub, with a barman who clearly knows and loves his beers. A nice touch is the Gaudi Salamander from Park Guell in Barcelona behind the bar. The beer was actually pretty cheap, and the atmosphere was that of a proper British boozer. Everything about the place from the wooden floor boards to the church pew seats just make it feel homely and warm, a sense that was only increased by the heating been inexplicably on when it was 20 degrees outside!! This is certainly one of the best bars in Bath.

The Boater

This Fullers pub is the biggest building on the list, it has the biggest beer garden in Bath and it's beautifully positioned next to Pulteney bridge giving excellent views down the River Avon. On top of this it has a surprisingly good beer selection at reasonable prices. It's another one of those homely Bath bars which makes you feel so welcome it's like walking into an old friends house for a drink. The inside really is lovely but on a sunny day you really do have to experience the beer garden, there's few better places to relax with a decent beer.

The Saracens Head

This is the oldest, and one of the best bars in Bath. It really does have the authentic ye olde pub feel, but then it should having been a pub for over 300 years. Sadly one thing I'm becoming quite aware of is how much I'm repeating myself in this guide. We have wooden floorboards, nice ceilings, great bar staff, good beer selection, homely feel, it's all very familiar, it's all very nice and quaint, and typically Bath. I should say this is a Green King pub so the selection is slightly more limited than some of the others on the list, but it's still one of the best bars in Bath and it's well worth visiting.

The Pig and Fiddle

This one could, and probably should be higher on the list as it's certainly one of the best bars in Bath. There's wood everywhere, which is nice. There's a great selection of ales, which is also nice, the bar staff really know their stuff, which is nice, but best of all it's a Butcombe pub. This is good for two reasons, number one they genuinely do some excellent beers with Rare Breed probably been my favourite, but you also get to say Butcombe a lot, and I can't help but find it hilarious. There was also a jewellers in Bristol we found the same week called Titcombe, now I know this is all very immature, but you do have to enjoy the little bits of amusement life throws at you these days.

Ring O Bells

Having done ye olde English Bath bars to death I think it's time to move on to a ye olde Irish bar instead, and this is a beauty not far from the train station. It has all the best traits of an Irish bar, it's friendly, it's fairly lively by Bath standards, but it also has some of the best traits of an English bar, most notably it has beers that aren't Irish, so no need for a Guinness or Murphy's. They had a really good selection, and they were predominantly from Bath and the surrounding area which is something I always look for in a bar. This is well worth a visit and one of the best bars in Bath.

I hope you found my guide to where to drink in Bath useful. Now I've introduced some of the best bars in Bath for you it's time to go visit them all. There's also some wonderful pubs in Bristol which is only 10 minutes away by train so why not check out my guide to where to drink in Bristol.

Why not check out my guide to the best Bath Sights