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Bar Review: Balliol

★★☆☆☆
Two Stars

Having reviewed a few bars by this point, I wanted to start the term off with a bang and so I decided to review the most frequented of all: Balliol. Balliol is in many ways the college bar to which every other is compared and every Crazy Tuesday it’s completely full.  With this in mind, I took my college daughter on a Tuesday so she could experience this rite of passage.

The first thing I must say about Balliol is that it isn’t particularly well-designed. The ceiling is too low, there aren’t enough toilets, it’s kind of grotty, and if you didn’t manage to nab that table early, there’s no hope of sitting down. The drawings on the wall of famous Balliolites are kind of take-them-or-leave them (I leave them) and the pool table is a nice touch but if it’s a busy night then it’s unlikely you’ll be able to play. It kind of seems like Balliol designed the bar for significantly fewer people and then became a victim of its own success when the crowds started showing up en masse.

However, the signature drinks are still fun (even if they do run out of the Balliol Blue all the time) and it is a fun place to be. The selection of alcohol is very impressive and it’s of course very very cheap here too. My beer was well-pulled and the bartenders are nice, if a little overworked and everybody seems to be in a relatively good mood. I’ve never been to Balliol bar and had a truly shitty time. The fact that it’s so central means bar-hopping is easy and if you’re there with someone who’s dull as fuck you can always ditch them easily.

But then other people can be slightly standoffish and people don’t chat unless they’re wasted which can make it an oddly lonely experience, especially if you’re relatively sober (as I was that night). The most social place to be is often smoking outside but unfortunately no one here is that sociable either, and everyone seems to be smoking alone (where’s the fun in that?).

In my mind, going to Balliol bar is as much an ‘Oxford Moment’ as matriculation or punting and this means it’s incredibly difficult to really give this bar a rating. It has its issues (overcrowding, claustrophobic-ness) but in the end it manages to get a very good blend of location, price, and atmosphere. So, to be honest, it is fair enough that this is the college bar to which every other bar is compared, but that still doesn’t mean that it’s the best bar in Oxford. My feeling about Balliol bar is that it attempts to be a typical student bar in a place which doesn’t really offer the typical student experience which is why it has become so successful. Unfortunately this has meant that it’s become slightly clichéd and slightly uncool. I personally feel that this really has become a place which is just for freshers, which was fine for my daughter but I really felt too old.

★★☆☆☆ (2/5)

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