Old Town craft-beer room with 14 rotating taps, a shop attached, and burgers worth ordering twice.
Salt Horse opened on Blackfriars Street in 2016, a short Royal Mile detour into the Old Town. Fourteen rotating taps and over two hundred bottles and cans from the UK and beyond sit alongside an attached bottle shop, with a clever £2 corkage rule that lets drinkers buy from the shop and open it at the bar. The kitchen runs grass-fed burgers, chips that arrive over-the-top topped, wings, and a vegan section that is more than an afterthought.
The room is small. Brick, stone walls, wood, a feel that the Travel Mentor called modern with traditional twists, and a bar staff that Tripadvisor reviewers consistently describe as knowledgeable. Anyone after a quick lager and a clean tablecloth is in the wrong room; anyone willing to ask the bartender what just came on the new tap will be at the right end of the conversation.
Vaulted brick walls, a small open kitchen visible from the room, and a tap wall with chalkboard tap takeovers that turn over weekly. The shop runs off the back and is part of the room rather than separated, which means you can browse the cans while waiting for a table.
Order whatever IPA the bartender flags as the current most-asked-for. The bottle list goes deep into Belgian sours, Scandi pale ales, and the Scottish breweries (Brewdog excepted) that the bar champions. The £2 corkage on shop bottles is the move regulars use for the rarer cans. The burgers at £14 use 100% Scottish beef and are the menu item Spotted by Locals named as the city's best in 2024.
Mid-twenties to mid-forties craft-beer drinkers, a steady stream of off-shift hospitality staff late on, and a quieter Sunday-afternoon trade that turns the room into a proper local. The Travel Mentor's review captured the pattern: "craft beer and burgers in Old Town Edinburgh."