The DRAM Magazine - April 2008

TEN YEARS AGO COLIN BARR OPENED
SCOTLAND’S FIRST BIER HALLE. THIS
MONTH HIS LATEST BEER HAVEN OPENED.

You might say that beer is the great Colin Barr’s great
passion. He’s the man who has made premium beer
fashionable in the west with his beer-focussed pubs. His
latest, the Bier Hof has just opened on Sauchiehall Street.
The £250,000 project was two years in the making and like his
other venues, Bier Halle Republic on both Gordon Street and
Great Western Road, it was designed by Barr himself. The
design has kept the functional and practical aspect of its
predecessors but has a much fresher feel. Says Barr, “They don’t
look like each other but they have the same soul, the same spirit.
“The bar is functional, industrial comfort with standards –
through style, food and beers.

“It’s based on bier halls, cellars and caverns but there’s no bars
like this in Glasgow apart from ours; it’s original. We create our
bars from our experiences of travel, it’s been built from a number
of ideas thrown into a melting pot.”

However, Barr has been feeling frustrated. His years of being an
operator have meant he has considerable gripes with many
aspects of the trade. Far from dwelling on these, however, he’s
decided to channel them into his newest outlet.

Says Barr, “This place has been designed through the
frustrations of 30 years of being an operator. The way I’ve
created everything is through the frustrations I’ve felt in my other
pubs.”

The basement bar is a snug wee space split into areas. The main
section has the bar to one side and on the other, a line of booths.
At the back of the venue is a small raised area, up several stairs,
with another seven small tables. Off the bar is an additional small
snug which leads through to their cellar space.

The bar has a very industrial feel, as expected. The walls are
exposed brickwork, the bar concrete and the other features are
predominantly either wood or metal. The bar completes the look
with the bar back being completely tiled in white with 12 silver
fonts protruding. What could have been a very drab space has
been brightened up, however, with the use of large bright alpine
prints on the back wall and on the wall opposite the bar. The first
thing customers see when entering the bar, the prints certainly
create a focal point and liven up the utilitarian feel. “They give the
impression of clean, crisp alpine,” says Barr. “I used to do a lot of
skiing and I love to go into the original hotels, they would have
images like that.”

The look of the bar, like the others, has designed to be
longlasting. The objective, says Barr, is not to have a bar that will
need constant maintenance but rather one that will last. The
booths are made of hard wood with leather upholstery. Explains
Barr, “The wood is all Douglas Fir, solid and hardwearing. If
people want to go up on a table they can. In nine years in Gordon
Street we’ve re-varnished it once. It can take lots of abuse.”
He must be expecting a lot of people on the tables because the
lights have also been designed with this in mind. The long hanging spotlights are not fixed and instead can be moved or swung out of
the way, if the mood takes you.

The back section has more tables, but the space could also be
used as a small stage. The exposed walls have been fixed with
wooden slats to give a softer feel. The space also features the DJ
booth and this has been designed practically too, without the need
for many lengths of wires.

The smaller snug area has a much darker and cosier feel to it.
One wall has been painted with a distressed Staropramen logo
and is lit by large plastic lights that look like they have come
straight out of an old hospital. Another wall has been designed to
look like it leads to the cellar and has been copied from the design
of the Staropramen cellars in Prague which Barr himself visited.
In reality, however, the cellar is like any other, although it does
feature a new concept from Inbev. Explains Drew McCall, Barr’s
right-hand-man, “Because we built a brand new cellar it has a new
concept from Inbev which keeps the beer 2 degrees cooler. We’re
the first in the UK to have this.” Another first is that the Bier Hof
is the first bar in Scotland to have Tiger Beer on draught too.
However, it’s the bar that is the real triumph of practicality. With
12 beers on tap and much more in bottles, the bar has been
designed with speed in mind. Because of this the fonts are
located on the tiled back bar rather than on the bar itself, a
feature which Barr believes is unique in Scotland. The white tiling
also means that menus can be written on in pen to save menu
costs and the specials boards are magnetic allowing for changes
to be made quickly. A large space has also been left dedicated to
the coffee machine as a large coffee and tea offering will featured.
A small window on the bar uses safety glass, continuing the
practical feel.

Although the bar has a functional look it still remains welcoming
and has a stylish feel that should appeal to many. As Barr, himself
says, “Our customers are snowboarders to suits, art-students to
business types and they all mix happily.” If his other successes are
anything to go by, Bier Hof should be just as popular with the
crowds.