The Bristol Pear

Although in Selly Oak and aimed at students given the More card (formerly Yellow card, something fondly remembered from my student days long long ago...) there's a mixed crowd here. They show most of the major sports events and the drinks selection is better than some bars in town, with standards as well as craft beers and cider. The food though is the winner for me. It's American style menu (which has changed in recent weeks) has plenty of options for the carnivore or vegetarian alike. The portions are generous. I'd recommend the house burger or the grilled cheese with salt beef. If you're extra hungry the deep fried gherkins are delish. Also best sweet potato fries I've had.

Pool tables are available, there are long tables with charging points you can work at, printing services, self serve water and a great selection of snacks on the bar. There's a snug section for more quiet nights, but with late opening at the weekend the atmosphere is fab then too. The secret dj app provides the eclectic soundtrack too.

Good beer, good ciders, lovely food to good prices!

Yesterday I was in the Bristol Pear for the first time.
Its a pub in a Students area, which means they have fitted
the prices and choice of food / drinks to them.

I had the chilly cheese burger. With every meal you got
5 different kind of sauces(free of charge) which are Ketchup, mayo, sticky tabasco, extra hot
and something else I cant remember.
I really appreciate it when the sauces are free of charge especially when they
are spicy!!!

I loved the location, they got many kinds of different lights and single seats
but I still had the feeling everything is clean and tidy.

I recommend this bar for young people.

Good old gem in an old area of the city. Close to Selly oak train station. Very nice combination of beer, other drinks and food. There are plenty of options for vegetarians. Very cool place for after work party with friends and colleagues.

Brilliant little pub in Selly Oak.

Love this place as I live in Selly Oak and as a student love a place with a good point system, they have a card system where you gain points by buying anything in the place. Buying a meal guarantees you a free drink from points, it's great for us students!

I think when we first moved here they had recently just refurbished the place and it looks amazing, really modern and quirky decor and really has a welcoming feeling inside. Pool tables is a plus and the major sport on the weekend is always on so is a great stop to watch things.

The best thing about this place is the wifi and casual student feel to it, you can bring your laptop and they happily let you do some work especially with their free wifi they have which isn't half bad.

The food is pretty good too, I would personally recommend the rib licker, its pulled pork with barbeque sauce, crispy onions and gherkins in a baguette with some fries. It's so good and they bring sauces round so you can always add more.

An amazing little pub! Great range of beers, ales and ciders and it's great to pop in now and again!.

The Bristol Pear is a pretty decent pub in Selly Oak. They recently revamped their food menu... they have some interesting things on there besides standard pub fare (katsu curry, for example). They have a lot of good craft beers on tap and very cheap cocktails.

The vibe is a bit weird for my taste... kind of feels like a trendy student lounge mixed with a sports bar, a strange mix of stools and chairs and very bright colors everywhere. They have a very nice outdoor seating area though, which is great during the summer, and pool tables.

A good option if you don't want to leave Selly and want a craft beer, but def better options in Birmingham.

The Bristol Pear is a really nice pub, that's good for both students in Selly and others. I've been here a few times and have rarely been disappointed with my meal.

The Bristol Pear has been done out within the past year, with bright colours, funky furnishings and really cool artwork on the walls. It still feels newly refurbished and has a really bright feel to it in the day time. The staff have always been very friendly and the service has been speedy (almost suspiciously speedy at times - you wonder how they even had time to make it!).

The menu is large and they do breakfast, lunch and mains. I love how much they have on offer for vegetarians here - they have some interesting dishes rather than just your bog standard mushroom risotto or goats cheese tart! I can also really recommend the veggie english breakfast, which was really big and came with re-fills on your coffee.

At night there is a great atmoshpere and it's always busy. They have a stock of board games that you can play and two pool tables. They also do a pub quiz that you play along on on an app, which is a great idea for a noisy pub! They have a great selection of ales and ciders which rotates quite often and they do do cocktails, though I wouldn't recommend these as they are a bit over-priced for an average pub-standard cocktail.

Overall the Bristol Pear is a really good option for a decent meal in Selly Oak. It may largely be a student pub but it's the kind of place students could also take their parents - it's not a shabby student dive!

The Bristol Pear is a petite pub located at the end of Selly Oak's high street. The Bristol Pear, or more commonly known as 'The Pear' isn't one of my preferred locations on a night out due to various reasons. It has quite a claustrophobic and restrictive feel to it, which is quite off-putting to me as space is always in small commodities on busy nights out and really isn't helped if the location is quite small itself. There are a few attractive aspects at The Pear such as multiple pool tables to enjoy at your own leisure and also the screening of popular football matches. However, these services are quite common across Selly Oak and it's other establishments and for these small propositions alone I wouldn't recommend The Bristol Pear due to it's narrow architectural layout whilst it's competitors along the high street offer more in terms of atmosphere.

This is one of the many pubs along the Selly Oak area of Bristol Road that caters for the huge student population that live in the area. As it's slightly further away from the main hub of Selly Oak it's one of the better ones.

It's situated on the corner of Heeley Road and right next to Selly Oak train station, so would be a handy start or end point if you were intending to experience a crawl of the bars along the Bristol Road.

As I found out recently, children are not allowed on the premises (something to do with licensing restrictions, rather than anything else, I was told) so it's not a good place for families. During the daytime it's fairly quiet and an OK place for a drink, but it is right next to a main road and quite dark inside, so there are better places for a daytime schnifter. At nights, and particularly at weekends, it is much more busy and offers various drinks bargains to tempt the poor students, such as pitchers of ready-mixed drinks like Pimms and Vodka and Red Bull. On summer evenings the front of the pub is quite nice as there is a small, reasonably enclosed garden area.

In short, don't take the kids (or dogs, for that matter) and expect a busy, noisy place if you go in the evenings.

I do like The Pear a little more than a middling three stars would suggest, but compared to Urban Village, The Gun Barrels or even The Soak, it is a small and somewhat cramped place. A friend of mine has refused to go for almost a year no matter how many people get together and want to visit because he finds it too claustrophobic and is sure of a 'bad energy' about the place.

While I'm not as susceptible to bad juju as my friend, I probably end up visiting The Pear more often because of its proximity to my own house. Like an estate agent would probably say, I find the size of the place to be quite cosy actually. The staff are also much friendlier than those in Selly Oak's second Scream pub - The Gun Barrels.

Again, like all Scream pubs, The Pear operates a 'yellow card' system which endows the owner with discounts on pints, pitchers and lots of other drinks and is a sound investment if you're living anywhere nearby. A fairly nice outdoor seating area is usually populated by chain smokers but is a nice spot to chill out when it's not raining.

Monday night's pub quiz is perhaps the only local pub quiz that I have taken part in regularly. Its a pound per person and is quite long, but always a pretty good laugh. Never managed to win sadly and eventually gave up in pure frustration. Tuesday is always The Pear's busiest night with the arrival of 'Crunch' - a standard cheap night where paid entry is in place, but doesn't stop the place from being packed. Bottles of Becks and pints of Tennents are a pound (Even for a quid, the Tennents is never worth it. You may as well get tap water for nothing and enjoy the same taste experience) If you fancy a lager but want to be more adventurous than Carling, then go for a Staropramen: A surprisingly decent lager and perhaps the only one I'll buy these days when I'm in the mood.

What with it being close to home, The Pear will usually be my choice for watching sport. You may want to get in way before kick off though, as the seating is hotly contested. The grub is the usual Scream fare: They get a bit of a mixed reception but I really rate the 'Scream Burger' and find it a lot more palatable than the average pub grub. Everything else is the standard gastropub menu and they usually do two dishes for £6 on classics such as sausage and mash, fish and chips, etc.

The upstairs section of The Pear is a more open space but is sadly not very well utilised. The odd band nights are easily the best in Selly Oak, although that's not exactly difficult.

All in all, The Pear is a place that I enjoy and that can serve a purpose if you want to go somewhere a little cosier, but you might have to rely only on luck alone as it can be a trying experience when busy.

It's a scream! Yes, another Scream pub in Selly Oak. This is the smaller of the two and is located right nextdoor to Selly Oak Station, which can be useful at times.


Of course, a Scream pub is never going to be that good. No real ale etc.. but it has a decent student crowd, decent music and sport on the telly.