Getting To Know Bristol: The Green Man
Posted on: 29 Nov 2016We pay a visit to The Green Man for a chat with its general manager Philo Sinnett about their booze, burgers and the best roast in Bristol - probably.
The Green Man is a charming pub nestled away just off Kingsdown Parade, with a strong collection of lego characters and an even stronger selection of gins. Allowed, by their free house status, to champion a fiercely independent spirit, they offer their customers electically eccentric alcoholic choices as well as doing the simple things incredibly well. We meet general manager Philo Sinnett (pictured below, far right) to discuss the pub's history and his plans for its future.
Can you tell us a little bit about The Green Man and its history?
The Green Man became The Green Man nine years ago, where beforehand it had been called The Bell - they changed the name because people were getting it confused with the pub of the same name down on Jamaica Street. The name was changed when it was taken over by Dawkins Brewery because they were a bit more organic: when the pub became The Green Man it became the first fully-organic pub around. It stayed like that for a couple of years until there were shortages with buying hops, which sadly made it impossible to sustain. I took the place on 16 months ago, but it has been a pub since 1891.
What does The Green Man specialise in?
Booze! We always have six real ales on cask and we’ve recently started doing real ale kegs as well, so we get things in from Dawkins and other people as well. We keep the Best of Bristol blonde on permanently, but the others change every couple of days. We’ve also got a very good selection of gin - at present there are 102 bottles of gin behind the counter, which is slightly more than most places have! We don’t stock many major brand names, we try to stick to the more local and unusual stuff; so you won’t find a Gordon’s or a Beefeater or a Bombay Sapphire there.
Same with our whiskeys, we’ve got a lot of single malt ones. We just like to keep it a bit more unusual, because you can get the same old stuff everywhere else you go. We’re a free house so we can buy from wherever we want - that’s the beauty of being one, we can seek out the more weird and wonderful and offer it to our customers.
What would you recommend eating or drinking here?
We’ve do fantastic burgers, done by the Bear Grillz Boys. They started out as a pop-up kitchen here 18 months ago and never left, because they’re spot on. They’ve also just begun a Winter menu, which features four different wintery burgers, with things like four-cheese and port burgers, things like that. They also do a banging Sunday roast as well which has been getting busier and busier to the point that we don’t take walk-ins now, it’s bookings only.
Drink-wise, we get a lot of fantastic beers in from Bierhaus, which we import from Germany. But I’m a gin-drinker, that’s why we went a bit crazy on the gin front, so I’d recommend a nice G&T or a negroni.
.jpg "Roast at the Green Man")
Are you from Bristol originally?
No, I was born in Aberdeen. I moved away in 2000, when I emigrated to Australia for eight years before returning to Edinburgh. I’ve been in Bristol since 2011, so for five years.
Other than at The Green Man, where do you like to eat and drink in Bristol?
I try and get out to lots of other places, there are great spots on Chandos Road, No Man’s Grace and Wilks, obviously. I was down The Old Bookshop in Bedminster the other night which was excellent, the new chef there is really good. The Lansdown, that’s a good one. They’ve got the gin distillery Psychopomp just round the corner, so I like to pop in there for what they call Half Time. I like to try and support the other pubs in the area as well, so The Hillgrove, The Kingsdown Wine Vaults. What’s good about this area is the more good pubs we’ve got, the more good venues we’ve got, the more restaurants and gin distilleries etc, the more people it brings up the hill. No one’s in competition with each other, we support all of the other pubs.
I understand you’re in a band - could you tell us a bit more about that?
I play in a band called The Montgomerys, I’m the lead singer and guitarist. We play country and rock’n’roll. We’re having a bit of a break at the moment until next year, but we’re going to start recording again next week to get a single ready for a March release. You can check us out at Freak City or on Facebook.
What does The Green Man have in store for 2017?
Same old same old really. We’re going to try to build on what we’ve done so far. At some stage I’d love to build a beer garden, that would be my main aim as that’s what we’re really lacking. Summertime in Bristol is a difficult period in this industry, so having a garden would definitely improve everything - but that would cost a lot of money. If we can make it happen we can make it happen. Otherwise I’d just like to keep on going as we are, keep on pushing through and enjoying what we’re doing at the moment - we’re doing better than we ever have before, so we’re just going to continue to ride that wave.
If you were mayor of Bristol for the day, what would you change?
I quite like Bristol the way it is, to be honest. Or actually, I’d have cable cars to get the people up here, especially up Marlborough Hill. That would make life a lot easier!
For more information about The Green Man, visit their Facebook page. Or if you would like to book in for one of their infamous Sunday roasts, call 0117 9258062.
Article by:
An ardent Geordie minus the accent, Sam seemingly strove to get as far away from the Toon as possible, as soon as university beckoned. Three undergraduate years at UoB were more than ample time for Bristol (as it inevitably does) to get under his skin, and so here he remains: reporting, as Assistant Editor, on the cultural happenings which so infatuated him with the city. Catch him at sam@365bristol.com.
