Stroud Brewery Tap, Thrupp (Stroud Brewery Bar)

Stroud Brewery’s third home since it was founded in 2006 occupies a purpose-built new steel-framed building clad in pale grey profiled steel cladding. Or, if you prefer, a crinkly tin shed. It sits beside the towpath of the Thames & Severn Canal (in course of restoration) only a few yards from the site of its first brewery, on a trading estate off the main A419 Stroud-Cirencester road.

The large brewery taproom shares the functional industrial character of the rest of the building, with steel columns, beams and ceilings. It is fully glazed towards the canal and opens onto a small gravelled and paved terrace beside the towpath with a range of seating. The bar is at the back of the room and an open kitchen with an authentic Italian wood-fired pizza oven sits to one side.

Seating consists of sturdy wooden picnic benches towards the terrace with flimsier trestle tables and benches towards the bar. It’s somewhere between a diminutive Bavarian beer hall and Wagamama’s. This seating is augmented by squishy leather sofas for sprawling and large oak casks for vertical drinking.

Above a long battered painted church pew. the wall features a large pockmarked Godsell and Sons enamel advertisement—Godsell’s was Stroud’s ‘other’ brewery, based at Salmon Springs and acquired by the original Stroud Brewery in 1928. A smaller enamel advertising panel for the latter presides over the snug, a small raised and enclosed area between the kitchen and the door. At the other end of the taproom—and with small windows allowing glimpses of the brewery—is a small stage with an upright piano nearby.

The combination of wood-fired pizzas and its accessibility from the canal towpath makes the taproom a very popular destination for walkers, cyclists and families on long summer days, when this is often the busiest pub in the Five Valleys. Children are welcome and there is a box of books under the church pew to keep them entertained, but they must be off the premises by 8pm.

A second bar on the first floor caters for peak numbers, with a large balcony overlooking the canal. This gives a direct view of the main Cheltenham-London railway line beyond. The line through the Golden Valley from Stroud to Kemble is a very popular route for steam train excursions and this has to be one of the best places to watch them pass, pint in hand.

The industrial/brewing theme extends to the Gents where the urinals are cut-down and repurposed stainless steel casks.

Astonishingly for such a modern building, there are only six accessible power sockets—and they’re all clustered together in the corner to serve the stage. So make sure your phone is fully charged. If not you can find additional sockets in the lobby and on staircase landings.

Aside from the five hand pulls there are eight keg lines and you can buy canned and bottled beer to take away.