Barley & Grapes - Bangalore

Quite like watching the sequel of a movie after you have watched the prequel, we decided to visit Barley & Grapes after Blyton’s last week. Both have the same ownership and are situated on the Sahakar Nagar Main road like Siamese twins, sharing the same campus. A small yet beautifully decorated place with friendly and courteous staff, this pub attracts quite a nice crowd every evening.

Ambience:

This Quaint, rustic and cozy little pub ideally can be distinguished in two different sets –

• An open roof area with huge umbrellas covering the sitting area, a palm tree growing right through the pub and
• Another with wooden flooring and set right in front of the bar counter with beautiful overhead lights.

The music is light and lights are dim. Absence of loud music and dance floors makes you feel it to be more of a café than a pub. The crowd here likes this subtleness and keeps the evening calm and going. Just order your drinks and the evening passes by slowly and magically leaving behind empty glasses. Rainwater Harvesting is the most unique feature of this place, they literally use rainwater and an automated sprinkler to keep the temperature of the place regulated. We decided to sit outside and enjoy the cold breeze while sipping on our beers. Ideal for a little unwind and catch up with your near and dear ones. 

The Menu:

Do spend some time going through the left hand side pages of the Carte du jour, believe me, it’s fun. The Menu is basically continental and Italian. Although options are quite less, they do have enough to offer in chicken and poses a good wine selection. Quesadillas are just delectable here. The dainty fries are not something to be missed at all, even the pastas are ambrosial [I won’t recommend the pizzas though].         

The beer menu is good and it ranges from King Fisher to Hoegarden with a couple of uncommon names like Asahi, Estrella, and Stella Artois etc...

The draught chilled section offered King Fisher and Budweiser and to add the elation in our eyes they also offered Geist.

Being Micro Brew lovers, we wanted to go with Geist and they had two options for us.

·         Geist Weiss Guy [A/V – 5.3%, IBU – 10]

·         Geist Stouter Space [A/V – 54%, IBU – 29]

Two micro brews made us think hard and we were in between Scylla and Charybdis. Propitiously our attendant noticed our quandary and got us samples [Shot glasses for Beer – in case you didn’t know] to try and decide - ‘Our knight in the shining armour’. We tried both and a 29 on the IBU was certainly not we had in mind that day so we went with Weiss Guy.

A/V – 5.3%, IBU – 10

Weiss Guy – The German Hefeweizen. This golden beer goes very well with spicy side dishes and is the perfect concoction for the weekends. The taste of banana and clove in the drink is like an added aromatic supremacy to the froth making it the perfect summer afternoon companion.

The quanta this time was simple... The BnG mug, The Bruce three Pitcher, The Five Wire Pitcher, and finally the Antoine’s Pitcher which is basically their way of saying a tower [9 pitchers] plus complimentary French fries. We [me and my friend] decided not to drink a lot and so ordered the Antoine’s Pitcher.

Unfortunately enough they almost served our beer in frosted glass, when we asked them not to, they changed our glasses.

Overall, it was a lovely place and a lovely evening spent. We had a word with the manager in charge just before leaving and shared our views. When he heard that I am a blogger he quickly noted down my Instagram id and the blog link to follow [not sure why I am feeling so proud].

Hasta la vista Barley & Grapes... We’ll meet again.