The lone Belfast Spoons was boisterous, filthy and showed little signs of food trade, so I ignored the temptation top check out the Bridge House’s Norn Irish specialities and headed for some authentic Lebanese felafel in the heart of the student quarter.
Next door, Molly’s Yard remains the upmarket choice for your scallops, potted venison and fadge (look it up),
and a reminder of the time when the local GBG selection included a place where you had to come for a meal to enjoy a pint of Whitewater, an abomination in the Guide.
These days the entries seems to include quite a few entries that don’t even serve real ale.
Now, I don’t care whether Northern Lights , the Donegal Bay showcase on the Ormeau Road serves real ale (whatever that is) or not,
but there’s no pumps and I very much doubt anything here meets the exacting standards of the casketeers.
The hazy Althea was a gloriously (chilled) pint of murk, and the place packed with drinkers on a Thursday night. Lovely place, with Springsteen soundtrack, a bit reminiscent of that Blackpool Brewhouse, and that’s a good thing.
But should it be in a Guide to the best real ale ?
That would be an ecumenical matter.
retiredmartin 
An abomination indeed. Called in there about 10 years ago following the GBG and were told that we had to buy at least a basket of bread before we could have a drink. We didn’t have a drink as Whitewater beers are definitely not worth the price anyway, never mind with the cost of bread we didn’t want on top. The Bridge House JDW has been excellent whenever we’ve visited, must have a crap manager now!
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In fairness to the Bridge they were contending with the fallout from pre-gig Ed Sheeran fans. Beer no better than OK on my two visits, mind.
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Curious. Felafel to me is a chickpea ball. Your picture I would call a gyro. What do you call it? I wasn’t sure the term felafel is the restaurant name or the order. Wondering if we use different terms.
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The chickpea balls are in the gyro !
Yes, confusing pic. Falafel often dry, this was moist and tasty. The restaurant is called Umi Falafel.
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Interesting. Never seen one in a gyro. Looks great.
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I only know Northern Lights as a chip shop in northern Stafford.
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It’s Galway Bay brewery. And as you’ve noticed, the paucity of cask available in NI means that a pub without cask gets in our section of the GBG. But they do occasionally have a hand pump on the bar.
As for buying food to get beer, blame the awful alcohol licensing legislation in NI, imposed on us from across the water in the early 20th century. Getting an alcohol licence costs £100k+.
I think ShadowHider was there in its previous incarnation, BrewBot, and I assume they could afford to buy an alcohol licence and went with the much cheaper restaurant license option.
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Many thanks for that, Stephen.
Quinno said he found cask in Northern Lights but it was hidden almost apologetically, rather as it was in the Sunflower and the Errigle in different ways.
As I mentioned, the lack of purist cask doesn’t bother me, the keg was great, and the pubs a joy.
I’m interested to see what Tandleman makes of it (he’s posting on Belfast at the moment).
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Yeah, that’s how I ended up here. Been living back in NI for about 5 years now (after 17 years away), and now make up excuses to go to England to get good cask…
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