Bennets Bar Tollcross – C.A.S.K.
Trying Moonwake's first cask beer.
Much like its neighbour Newbarns, Leith’s Moonwake Brewery was birthed during the early days of the pandemic. Having signed a lease for a brewery space by the Shore in January 2020, they spent the subsequent lockdown doing the space up before opening their doors in 2021.
The Moonwake stable is a beautiful assortment of extremely well-made beers. They range from IPA to stout to black lager, but it’s their Kolsch which really stands out to me. Beautifully crisp with a malty depth, it goes down very, very easily.
The brewery itself is the best place to enjoy its beers, its taproom up high on a raised platform overlooking the brewery’s impressive kit. But it’s also becoming popular at pubs around the city, too. More and more, I have been seeing the brewery’s distinctive semicircular branding around Edinburgh, while the cans are found in many bottle shops.
Last Friday Moonwake made an important addition to its roster: its first cask beer. C.A.S.K. is a very well-balanced British pale ale. In fact, it has quite an old-fashioned flavour, particularly because it doesn’t over-rely on the four hops it is named after (Challenger, Azacca, Simcoe, Kohatu). If anything, it is the Maris Otter malt which really comes out. It won’t blow your socks off, but that’s not really the point. It’s a pub beer, best enjoyed at leisure with close friends, maybe as part of a real ale session and maybe with a fire going in the background.
I was able to enjoy it on its launch night at Bennets Bar in Tollcross: An old Victorian boozer with a front room dominated by a long bar along one side.(Moonwake was debuting C.A.S.K. with events at three pubs which come under the Kilderkin umbrella: The Windsor, The Blue Blazer and Bennets.)
The pub appears to have retained much of is old interior, with stained-glass windows and ornate wooden alcoves displaying the pub’s extensive whisky collection. It still has a jug bar, a snug which is entered through a separate door and has a serving hatch directly on to the main bar. This was used for women who were not allowed in the main pub, or men who wanted a little privacy.
Bennets usually has a few cask beers on, though I have never had anything outstanding there. Moonwake’s C.A.S.K. was the best-conditioned ale I have had there, surely helped by the fact that it would only have been tapped a couple of hours before. Don’t confuse this venue with Bennets of Morningside, which has a far superior (and cheaper) range of cask on.
While the main room can get very busy and you may be sharing tables and bench space with other groups, the back room caters for larger tables and exudes a more modern vibe. It has a small bar in there which does a limited number of drinks, though you will have to fight at the main bar to get access to the full selection.
The back room had a good Friday-night feel to it, with an eclectic mix of students, older groups and some tourists. It’s slightly let down by an odd choice to deck it out with fake plastic leaves trailing along the walls and ceiling. This is a pub that is nearly two centuries old; let its history do the talking.
But it’s an overall thumbs up for both beer and venue. I don’t think the C.A.S.K. is quite up there with Moonwake’s other offerings – but that is because its keg beers are so good. And while Bennets is worth a visit for its impressive main bar, its cask can be variable and there are other decent options in the area.
Where is it?
Bennets Bar Tollcross
Open every day, midday until 1am.
Moonlike Brewery Taproom
Open from 5pm on Thursdays, 3pm on Fridays and midday on weekends.
Where next?
You’re a stone’s throw from the aforementioned Blue Blazer. Or, if you don’t mind a slightly longer walk, head through Grassmarket to The Bow Bar.
The chaser
I have a correction to make. One of my first reviews was of The Percy, a wonderful pub on Easter Road. I wrote about how I imagine its Victorian interior stayed unchanged over the centuries as Leith transformed around it.
Turns out, I was totally wrong. The Percy was only made into a pub in the 1970s.
In fact, it turns 50 this year – and before 1974, the building was a Co-op. It was in the early 90s that its current refit was done. Well, they did a fantastic job and it remains one of my favourite places to drink (and eat) in the city.
I read about this in Michael Slaughter’s article in Pints of View, the Edinburgh Camra magazine. Read the article here (PDF, page 10)
Read another piece on the Bennets Bar interior here (PDF, page 8)