The Best Beer Bars Near Sebb's, by the Record
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Rank 1. The Pot Still
Beer Bar
The shelves behind the bar run floor to ceiling with whisky, row after row, and the staff are used to fetching bottles down when your dram is out of arm's reach. The Pot Still is an old-school Glaswegian whisky bar, one room, Victorian cornicing, original dark varnished wood, and a raised rear gallery that the regulars treat as prime real estate. The baby-pink ceiling is a surprise nobody seems to argue with.
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Rank 2. Ben Nevis
Beer Bar
Stacked slate, bare stone, and wood salvaged from the Highlands line the walls of this resolutely old-school beer and whisky bar on the Finnieston strip. No cocktails, no fuss: it's what Glasgow calls a half 'n' half pub, which means you order a pint and a dram and mind your own business. The Highland interior is genuinely surprising behind an exterior that looks like it has never once considered reinventing itself.
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Rank 3. The Canny Man's
Beer Bar
Stuffed birds, stacked crockery, and several lifetimes of collected oddities cover every wall and ceiling of this old Morningside pub, making it feel less like a bar and more like a Victorian curiosity shop that somehow got a liquor license. The shelves behind the larger bar hold what may be Edinburgh's deepest whisky selection, and Caledonian and Belhaven come on draught for anyone who finds the malt list overwhelming, which is fair.
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Rank 4. Blue Blazer Pub
Beer Bar
The antique brass water tap at the end of the bar exists solely so you can add a splash to your dram, which tells you everything about this place. A proper old Edinburgh pub on a corner you can spot by its blue exterior from halfway down Bread Street, it has the dark wood, mosaic tiles, parquet floor, and ornate fittings that only come with serious age. Eight Scottish real ales on traditional hand pumps, no pretension, and nowhere better to be on a wet afternoon.