The Bow Bar
Seven Scottish air-pressure founts stand on this bar, which CAMRA's Edinburgh branch records as more than any other pub has.3
Why go
Air pressure is the old Scottish way to serve cask, and the fount pushes the beer up the line on compressed air rather than on a hand pull. Hardly any pub has kept the gear, which is what makes a bank of seven worth crossing the Old Town for.3 Behind them the gantry holds more than 400 single malts, and the pub now fills its own casks, most recently a peated Highland aged nine years in an Oloroso hogshead and then ten weeks in an Oloroso octave, bottled at 56.9% and sold in the bar only.6 The room reads as Victorian and was built in living memory. CAMRA's branch survey is blunt that the premises has only been a pub since the 1960s, and the national record files the interior as an outstanding pub conversion.4 The mirrors and the enamel signs are genuine salvage.
Order this / avoid
- Order: whatever Scottish cask is moving fastest. Three sit permanently, Cromarty Whiteout, Loch Lomond Silkie Stout and Stewart 80/-, and CAMRA's national record puts five more on rotation beside them, mostly from independent Scottish brewers, with tap takeovers between them and festivals in January and July.4 On the whisky side, take the pipette. Keith Davidson found it on the bar and explained what it does:
It's used to add just the right amount of water to the premium single malt whisky you ordered.
1 A pipette lets you add water a drop at a time and stop at the point the malt opens up. - Avoid: arriving hungry in the evening. The pies run noon to 5pm and the kitchen behind them does nothing else, so eating is a lunchtime decision here.
What locals & experts say
- Keith Davidson, Time Out Edinburgh (2017):
The Bow nestles in the Old Town and is among Edinburgh's finest whisky destinations,
with the drinkever-rotating with excellent representation from small breweries across the British Isles.
He counted more than 300 malts then.1 - Time Out Edinburgh's best pubs list (2024, updated by Chiara Wilkinson): the same judgment with a bigger number,
offering more than 400 ranging from familiar names to real rarities.
Seven years of buying, and the list grew by a hundred.2 - Rosalind Erskine, Food and Drink Editor, The Scotsman (31 July 2025): picked it into the city's nine best whisky bars for
a traditional bar that offers more than its fair share of real ales,
and notes the dog-friendly door.5 - CAMRA Edinburgh & South East Scotland Pub of the Year 2011. The pub's own awards page is the record for the year; the branch publishes no winners archive that surfaced this pass, so treat the date as the pub's own claim. What is current is the survey: the branch last walked in on 19 January 2026.8
Good to know
- Timing: noon to midnight, seven days. Beer festivals run in January and July, and tap takeovers land between them.
- Booking: none to make. One room, walk in, and it fills from the Grassmarket crowd.
- Under 18s: not admitted, at any hour.
- Getting there: West Bow is the curved lower half of Victoria Street, two minutes up from the Grassmarket and five from the Royal Mile.
- Hygiene: Food Hygiene Information Scheme Pass, inspected 24 February 2012, fourteen years ago. The register has no current reading on these premises, so a 2012 result says nothing either way about a kitchen serving pies in 2026. Treat it as missing information and judge the room yourself.
Jeff's take (his words)
The case for it rests on the CAMRA branch survey of the founts and the whisky gantry, and on Time Out's reviewer twice putting it among the city's best whisky rooms.
Verdict
should-visit — The drink is the whole argument and it is deep on both axes at once. Depth: 400-plus single malts on the gantry and a house bottling programme filling its own casks, the current one a peated Highland given nine years in an Oloroso hogshead and then ten weeks in an octave. Evolution: cask rotating through independent Scottish brewers, tap takeovers, and two beer festivals a year. On top of that sits a piece of equipment almost nobody keeps, seven Scottish air-pressure founts, which is a way of serving beer you cannot go and try in most of the country. That is a genuine standout on the axis that carries the most weight here, and it makes the walk up West Bow worth taking on purpose. It stops short of must-visit because the food is pies until five, and because the strongest current evidence is a CAMRA branch survey, with the last bylined review of the room dating to 2017.