Halifax – Kobenhavn Bar

I didn’t realise at the time of visiting, but this is the sister bar of the Victorian Bar Cafe, which I’ve visited before and both of the venues are listed in the Good Beer Guide. The venue is positively reviewed on-line although one person was angry at the lack of Danish beer noting:

“Not a Scandinavian Beer on offer , not even a basic Calsberg or Tuborg”

There is certainly an argument that there should be a Scandinavian beer available, but a rather more limited debate about whether Carlsberg or Tuborg should be there. In my view, no, it shouldn’t.

There are two entrances to the bar, this is the former Blue Mountain cafe which they extended into in 2024, but they have a larger entrance on the Westgate Arcade which had opened a year before that.

The beer list is located near to the end of the bar.

The list on the wall isn’t the easiest to read, but fortunately, there’s a printed version as well. The downside of these, especially with 24 keg options and 6 cask options, is that they must need to be reprinted on a very regular basis. It’s a well curated list of options, but I note the review saying:

“Expensive, and serving bland, yellow beer, suitable for lager drinkers. Poor child.”

This is likely some sort of sneering about keg hazy pales and ironic that it is has one of the widest ranges of beers in the town. And:

“Not known drinks very student pub”

I think this means, not Stella.

The interior of the main part of the venue, which has very much of a cafe bar type atmosphere and they sell what looked like artisan coffees and the like. The service was notably engaging and welcoming, I rather liked the informal and laid-back nature of this whole arrangement. And the member of bar staff was positive about my faffing about on Untappd before ordering.

Beer one was the cask Shifty from Drop Project, a fluffy, gentle and soft pale ale which was nicely balanced.

Beer two was the keg Hecate from Tartarus Beers which was listed as being a chocolate and coconut stout, but I thought that it needed more coconut for my Bounty taste expectations. But, it was smooth with nice roasty and chocolate flavours. The Monster Munch helped with the flavour though and made up for the coconut deficit.

Overall, I felt that this was another excellent addition to the Good Beer Guide and I’m not sure that I would have visited otherwise as the door I walked by made it look like a cafe rather than a bar. I’m not sure that they’re doing food at the moment, or there weren’t any menus visible at least.