Blackbird

Blackbird is a free house on Foyle Street, in Derry's city centre, run by Sarah Simpson with a rotating list of Northern Irish and further-flung craft beer alongside cocktails and spirits. Being free of any brewery tie, it pours what it rates rather than what it is contracted to, which on this island still counts for something. It has become one of the city's better rooms for a considered drink — the sort of independent bar that takes beer seriously without making a religion of it. A free house doing the simple thing well.