While it may seem that we rarely venture south of the Liffey (true, really), we recently had occasion to be down in our old Ballsbridge stomping grounds, and so returned to The Bridge 1859 for the first time in quite a while. We last stopped into this beautifully-decorated pub just before we moved out of the area, and enjoyed a last fresh Pilsner Urquell from their gravity tank. This time, the welcome was just as warm, the décor on point, the food excellent – but the beer selection nowadays is, as the kids say, mid. Let’s review.
There has been much local discussion surrounding the launch of Changing Times beer; it’s something of a collaborative effort among a number of pubs, including some heavy hitters like The Long Hall, Doheny & Nesbitt and The Palace Bar. While it’s proclaimed as ‘brewed in Glasnevin,’ it doesn’t seem to have a single pub north of the river serving it, at least, so far. The beers offered so far are a lager (clearly for the Heineken fan), a hazy pale ale (not really sure who it’s aimed at beyond; it feels a bit unkind to say ‘people who don’t like beer,’ but…) and now, a stout. The stout is by far the most drinkable of the three on offer so far, and seems to be the only one served at any kind of ‘discount,’ but again, it’s essentially like a very light Murphy’s versus having much of its own character. It’s one thing to launch a new beer brand, but it’s another to launch it with the kind of ‘meh’ beers that gave early-2000s investor-driven ‘craft beer’ a bad name, especially in a market with comparatively little of the real thing, as it were.
And that may be all well and good for many customers, but these new brews haven’t (mostly) muscled out the usual macro suspects; it’s the ‘good’ beers that have been jettisoned to make space, including – really a loss here – the Pilsner Urquell. Removed from The Bridge’s menu now are Rye River Upstream Pale Ale, Warsteiner lager and, er, Madri. The Madri may be no great loss, but the others are keenly felt (especially if, say, A Friend were really looking forward to a Pilsner Urquell, sighed to make do with a Warsteiner and then realised that the only drinkable lager was Carlsberg). To add insult to injury, the hand-painted panel all about Pilsner Urquell has been partially, but not entirely, covered by a television. Ouch.
And I get it – it’s a pub that largely caters to a rugby crowd (albeit one of all ages – kids are quite welcome here), and so it’s not aiming to be a hangout for people who like good beer, but it did once have good beer, and now it…doesn’t. It feels rather like so many higher-end Irish restaurants do: there may be a well-curated wine list, amazing food and nothing but the most boring macro beers possible. And that’s not to say they should dump Guinness or Carlsberg – I like both Guinness and Carlsberg – but I’d much rather have the option to support other independent local breweries – at least before, there was the Rye River option. And with so many duplicate macro taps, there were plenty of spots to shuffle things around a bit instead of losing the others. Perhaps the most telling part of the visit was that our waitress didn’t even know what Pilsner Urquell was, even though it was painted behind her on the wall. As James once sang, ‘…if I hadn’t seen such riches, I could live with being poor.’
That said, it’s entirely possible that other publicans will see this effort and, perhaps, give another local beer a shot on one of their taps – we’ve previously discussed Four Provinces appearing at The Tolka House – and there are still plenty of usual suspects there for everyone – so let’s hope that some are a bit more open to experimentation. The prices are more likely to suit everyone involved, too.
But again, there are many positives at The Bridge 1859: excellent food, a lovely atmosphere, very cosy seating and attentive service. Shame about the beer – pour one out for the Pilsner Urquell…
Where: 13 Ballsbridge Terrace, Dublin 4, D04 C7K6
Access from the city centre: Buses 4, 7, 7A, 38A, 39, 39A, 70, 120, E1, E2; 35ish minute walk
Food: Gastropub offerings & snacks
Sport: Rugby, football, the usual big event sports
TVs: All around the pub
Music: Veered toward the MOR
Family-friendliness: More-interesting-than-most kids’ menu
Pub-crawl-ability: Low – The Horse Show House is down the road, and a further walk to The Old Spot and The Bath Pub
Local sites of note: RDS, Aviva Stadium, various embassies, National Print Museum
Haunted: Something something Pilsner Urquell…
Other notes: Beautifully-appointed rooms upstairs for private events
Socials: Facebook, Instagram