1010802 Bow Lane

This begins with a bit of a rant.

Dublin is slowly being overrun with Heineken Ireland near-exclusive tap lineups - Press Up, most of the gig venues and now Bow Lane too. It isn't part of a group, as far as I know, so Heineken are not just focusing on them. 

Its near-exclusive, as there's always Guinness, but otherwise these premises just sell Heineken Irelands Cork-made (Heineken, Coors, Orchard Thieves, Islands Edge) or generally Heineken owned and imported (Lagunitas, Moretti, Tiger) draught products. There's no independent taps, no craft taps and usually this monoculture continues in the bottle fridges too.

I really don't think this is a good thing, and while Heineken Ireland were really the only group with the range of products to do this sort of exclusivity, both Diageo and C&C are close - Diageo missing the premium import products, C&C missing those and a stout - so its not something I want others to try copy. Tied houses via the back door aren't good and could lead to it being done more directly too - Heineken do this in the UK and Netherlands, C&C sort-of do it in Northern Ireland.

Anyway, rant over.

Bow Lane is an replacement for the last of the traditional locals pubs on Aungier Street, run by the operators of the adjacent Whitefriar Grill. I liked the Whitefriar Grill, and Bow Lane itself is fine - the drinks monoculture nonwithstanding.

There did seem to be a push to get the outdoor seats filled up first for some reason, with the staff running the door deferring to what I presume was a manager who was entirely willing to scan me in and let me sit inside - it was one of those rare cases of being too warm to sit outside!

My pint of a Heineken imported product was fine, the interior is nice enough as the fairly uniform mid-10s pubs of Dublin go and I'd be happy enough to go back again if the reason arose. But I'd like to see some variation on the taps.