The Stockbridge Tap
Unusual UK cask on a Stockbridge corner, and since the refit a sliding front window that opens onto Raeburn Place.2
Why go
CAMRA's Edinburgh branch files this as a specialist real alehouse and says the ales come from all over the UK, with occasional beer festivals and tap takeovers between them.1 Branch members then voted it onto the Edinburgh Pub of the Year podium four years running, first in 2025, second in 2026, third in 2024 and runner up in 2023, and a pub only reaches that ballot by holding good enough member beer scores to qualify.5 The room splits front and back: a bright front with seating and standing space, a rear with low tables and sofas, and brewery mirrors from Murray's and Campbell's in both.1 It sits on the Water of Leith path, which is how most people arrive on foot.
The pub is now owned by The Raeburn hotel along the same street, and the 2026 refit darkened the wood, took the walls to an oxblood red and hung framed William Younger cartoons.2
Order this / avoid
- Order: whatever unusual cask is moving. The branch's whole case for the pub is the buying, and the list is national rather than local.1 Imran Rahman-Jones ordered the cheapest on the bar in May 2026, a Bass at GBP 5.40, and the staff forgot the sparkler.2
- Avoid: weekend evenings if you want to sit down. Rahman-Jones describes
the throngs of people spilling out of the pub at weekends,
and the window seats go first.2
What locals & experts say
- Imran Rahman-Jones, Edinburgh Pub Reviews (27 May 2026) on his pint:
It's OK, no more than fine, not helped by the fact that they forget to put the sprinkler on the tap.
He watched them pass the beer glass to glass to revive it, decided it was a bad pour, and still finished withthe Tap is worth a journey up to Stockbridge.
2 He also reports that readers had complained about rude staff after the takeover and that the ones who served himwere delightful.
- CAMRA Edinburgh & South East Scotland, Edinburgh Pub of the Year: first in 2025 ahead of the Jolly Judge and the Abbotsford, second in 2026 behind the Dreadnought, third in 2024.3 Four straight years on the podium, on a members' vote that reads beer scores first.
Good to know
- Timing: noon to midnight Monday to Thursday and on Sunday, noon to 1am Friday and Saturday.1
- Booking: none to make. Walk in.
- Under 18s: not admitted.1
- Getting there: the corner of Raeburn Place at the foot of Stockbridge, on the Water of Leith walkway.
- Hygiene, and there are two rows at this door. The bar's own Food Hygiene Information Scheme rating is a Pass inspected 17 February 2022, four and a half years old, which says little about the premises after a change of owner and a refit.4 A second registration at the same address, filed as The Stockbridge Tap Kitchen Franchise, holds an IMPROVEMENT REQUIRED inspected 11 September 2019.6 Nothing read this pass establishes whether that kitchen still trades, so both rows stand on the page.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: Not one of my saves.
Verdict
should-visit — Edinburgh CAMRA members have put this pub on their Pub of the Year podium four years running, first in 2025, second in 2026, third in 2024 and runner up in 2023, and their vote is gated on beer scores rather than on a ballot, so it reads as a cellar record and not a popularity one. The branch calls it a specialist real alehouse and says the list ranges the whole UK, which is a buying policy a drinker can act on. Imran Rahman-Jones went in May 2026 after the refit and told his readers to make the journey, which is the one bylined verdict on the room in its current form. Two things hold it below the top rung and both are real. The same review got a flat pint that the bar tried and failed to rescue, so the pour on the day did not match the record. And the pub changed hands between the 2025 win and that visit, which puts a question over how much of the podium run describes the operation you would walk into now.