College Bar Crawl: Sidney Sussex

The Tab finds Sidney bar cheap as chips if a little pokey.

Bar Cambridge Cindies Clubbing College College Bar Drinking emma Sainsbury's Sidney Sussex Student Students the tab

Sidney (opposite Sainsbury’s) has another of Cambridge’s remaining student run bars and the ethos is to match. Pricing is now definitively ahead of The Regal (99p pint – how we miss you) and probably winning the battle against Emma bar, although by mere pennies in some cases.  This bar is not really the most impressive at the first glance; it’s fairly pokey, one (small) floor high, and pretty much a rectangle, giving the perhaps accurate perception that this is more of a room that contains some alcohol for which you can exchange money rather than a bona-fide edifice to drinking.

Being a college bar, attached to one of the smaller and less filthy-rich colleges (by my calculations assets of somewhere just under £100m, the paupers!) this is fairly excusable, and the well-run and well-stocked, if small, bar itself backs up the Sidney students’ claims. While the booze is cheap, it is also pretty varied, and Sidney must be commended for currently running its very own College ale (Porcupine, by Milton, a decent session beer at 4% abv, to be specific), which is a distinction very few colleges can claim.

At this point I tried to work out why exactly Sidney’s college animal is an electric blue porcupine (a relative of Sonic, maybe) – but my strenuous research has only informed me that porcupines apparently float in water. So now you know.

Back to the bar. Also noticeable (and taking up a fair amount of the limited space) are some pool tables and a dartboard – apparently at various times in the near past, Sidney has had fairly successful pub sports teams. Suggestions from assorted academics that this may indicate where undergrads’ time is being spent, and pointing out potential correlation to their current, fairly dire, standings in the Tompkins Table, are not for me to comment on. Point of the matter is, Sidney bar is pretty well kitted out for a good visit and if this breaks the bank, you may have to give up and just have some cans in the park.

Which isn’t such a terrible idea.

How green in my dollar?
Pint: £1.30
Double Vodka + Cranberry: £2.40
Wine: £1.20