Épernay

The courtyard area is quite large.

Épernay is named after the home town of champagne, and with good reason. This place has a ridiculous number of champagnes to choose from. There are so many, the menu has a wheel at the back for narrowing down your choices.

Since this is a champagne and cocktail bar, we expected the beer selection to be dreadful, especially as a glance at the menu names Heineken as one of their favourite beers. Their main beer menu does indeed feature Heineken and a number of other standard lagers such as Asahi and Moretti, but if you ask to see in the fridge there are some other more interesting choices!

The bar. Ask for the pink one.

The barman was very nice but also quite clueless about beer. The fridge was stocked with many Ilkley bottled ales (referred to by the barman as ‘the pink one’, ‘the green one’ etc.) and Sierra Nevada Torpedo, which is one of my favourite American ales. The prices were a little over-inflated… ale was £4.50 and the Torpedo was £5.

Bland blandness.

The atmosphere here is what you’d expect from a champagne bar. It’s quite bland and uniform, with the only variety being that each table has a different champagne bottle with a candle stuck in it. The area in the courtyard is large and quite pleasant, but when The Electric Press is full it wouldn’t be a good place for a romantic drink. There is also a small selection of posh nibbly food but we didn’t see any meal-size food on offer.

Oh! A picture of me with my Torpedo!

We were surprised by the beer choice here, but given the prices and the lack of atmosphere, there are plenty of other places nearby we could go.