Brass Monkey Leith.

Brass Monkey Leith

A pint of Cross Borders Heavy off the regular pump, and the bar runs to one in the morning.

Why go

The original Brass Monkey is a Drummond Street bar with a weekly film screening. It worked well enough to earn a second bar on Leith Walk in 2011, just past Pilrig Church, with the same wall of posters and more room for them.1 The Skinny's account of the difference is the useful one, more beer, more spirits, and more space, and a bigger kitchen behind it. The kitchen is what separates this branch from the original. Burgers run £12 to £15 and the menu heads the section with a choice of beef, chicken or veggie and vegan patty at the same price, which is a stocking decision most pubs still will not make.4 CAMRA's branch calls the bar a very welcome addition to the real ale scene on Leith Walk, which is a specific claim about a street that had little cask before it.2 Two handpumps carry it: Cross Borders Heavy, a 4.1% session bitter logged as the regular, and a changing line that usually runs Cross Borders or Tempest.2 Around them the operator counts eighteen keg and cask lines. The kitchen stops at nine and the bar runs to one in the morning, which is a longer tail than most of Leith Walk.3

Order this / avoid

• Order: the Cross Borders Heavy, the 4.1% session bitter on the regular pump. The second handpump changes and usually carries Cross Borders or Tempest.2
• Order: the Crunch burger, £14 with a tortilla crumb, jalapenos, sriracha mayo and applewood cheddar, and £14 again with the vegan patty.4
• Order: the Korean fried chicken, £14.50, strips with bbq sauce, bacon and applewood cheddar.4
• Order: on a Tuesday, when the branch runs any burger on the menu with a draught pint from £14.50.7
• Avoid: arriving hungry near closing. The bar runs to 1am and the kitchen does not.4

What locals & experts say

• The Skinny, on what carried across from the original: It's got the same feel as the old Brass Monkey – laid back, good sounds, lots of film posters – but with more beer, more spirits, and more space. On the room, cloud-like rooms of couches, loyalty to a good wall of movie posters and strong live music game. The same page says the point of the bigger kitchen was a greater selection of pub grub (and an impressive vegetarian menu).1
• CAMRA, Edinburgh & South East Scotland branch: A welcoming howff with a broad cross section clientele. Howff is Scots for a haunt, the pub you end up in without deciding to. The same record notes the two handpumps carry an ever-changing selection of real ales.2
• The operator, on what the Leith branch is for: 18 keg and cask lines, offering a diverse range of firm favourites and rotational local breweries.5
• Nobody has reviewed the food or the room here. No critic, guide entry or award covers this branch. The two evaluative lines above are a CAMRA surveyor's and an undated Skinny listing's, and that is the whole of the outside judgment on it.

Good to know

• Which Brass Monkey this is: five separately registered premises trade under the name in this city. The bar on this page is 362 Leith Walk. Drummond Street is the original, and the one the group gives its weekly film screening to, Grange sits by the Meadows, Shore is on Queen Charlotte Street, and Gorgie Road registered in June 2026.
• Hygiene, and read both lines. The bar's own registration holds a Pass, but the inspection behind it was on 23 November 2022, which is three years and eight months ago, so the hygiene register says nothing current about it. A separately registered catering business at the same address, Arek Catering @ Brass Monkey, holds a Pass from an inspection on 2 July 2026, one month old, and that is the one attached to the food.6
• Hours: Monday from 3pm, Tuesday to Sunday from noon, and 1am every night.3 The kitchen closes well before the bar does, at 9pm most days and 8pm on Sunday.4
• What's on: Dr Paul's Monday quiz at 6.30pm with a jackpot of at least £50, and the Tuesday burger deal. The branch takes table bookings for both through its own site.7
• Getting there: on Leith Walk at Pilrig, roughly halfway between the top of the Walk and the Shore, with the tram running past the door.

Verdict

could-visit — RUNG MOVED BACK UP, listed to could-visit, and it is a correction rather than a re-weighing. Round 2 dropped this pub for two reasons. The first was that the daily film screening that carried its Experience score belonged to the Drummond Street original, a branch misattribution. That reason is still correct and the claim is still gone. The second was that the beer fact did not hold: round 1 had named Cross Borders Heavy as the regular cask pump and round 2 could not extract it, so it was struck. That reason was wrong. The CAMRA national record carries it in full and I read it directly on 2026-08-04: Cross Borders Heavy, Session Bitter, ABV 4.1%, 'This beer is served regularly. Spotted 5 times.' The changing second pump typically runs Cross Borders or Tempest. The branch's own node publishes what the national record does not, Mon 15:00-01:00 and Tue-Sun 12:00-01:00, so this bar trades to one in the morning seven nights a week. Half the case for the demotion has evaporated, and what is left is a pub with a named local cask regular, a rotating second handpump, eighteen keg and cask lines the operator says carry rotational local breweries, a £12 to £15 burger menu that stops at nine, and a 1am licence every night on Leith Walk. That is the could-visit definition almost word for word: solid, does one thing well, go if you are passing, skip it without guilt. It goes no higher, and the ceiling is set by the offer itself rather than by missing coverage. Two handpumps rotating between two local breweries is a modest list, not buying depth and not a programme, and in fifteen years of trading not one critic has written about this address. Someone in Edinburgh who cares about beer is sent elsewhere; someone already on Leith Walk at eleven at night is sent here.