Other Pubs In Brighton

As well as the usual suspects, I did visit a few other pubs whilst in Brighton. Most of these were in the current Good Beer Guide or on the local CAMRA branch's ale trail.

The exception to that was The Pump House in The Lanes which I visited twice. This pub sells five real ales, and the three different ones I had: Dark Horse Whip Cracker, Harveys Sussex Best and Taylor Landlord were all in really good condition. I'm told by friends that the food, especially the sausages, was excellent too. I do wonder why the pub doesn't currently feature with the local CAMRA bods.

The Great Eastern is at the bottom of Trafalgar Street, down the hill from The Lord Nelson, and sells three beers. I had a reasonable Ballards Best and an underpar Hop Back Summer Lightning. The pub does stock around 40 different bourbons if that's your thing.

Southover Street is in the Hanover area of Brighton and has the steepest street I ever wish to walk up. I went to two pubs; the interesting Greys being the first. Greys has a good selection of Belgian beers and promotes a different Belgian brewer each Tuesday. I stuck to the local stuff though with a reasonable Harveys Best, Landlord being the only other choice. Further up the hill is the ex-Gales, now Fullers, Sir Charles Napier. Four beers from the London brewer were available. my choice was Summer Ale as I rarely see it. It was OK. no more.

Near the London Road shops is The Mitre which is a Harveys pub, and sadly was the quietest pub I went in all week, which was a shame as I liked it. The Hadlow Bitter I had was good too.

Another pub in The Lanes is The Victory, three beers were available including two from Arundel of which Sussex Gold was my choice, and decent enough it was.

Finally I went to The Waggon and Horses near the theatre where I passed over the two beers on offer in favour of the Westons Perry (we all need a change sometimes), which was decent enough in an unchallenging manner.

There are countless other pubs to try and next year I'll do so. I may just uncover a gem.

Brighton Pubs - The Obvious Go-Tos

I enjoy going on my annual sojourn to Brighton, as there are a handful of pubs which I could never tire of, all of which sell beers I rarely see up here.

My first pub was The Lord Nelson on Trafalgar Street which is a Harveys pub. Harveys beers are not universally popular but I like them a lot. I had pints of Armada and the light mild Knots Of May, both were on good form. I didn't return there during the week but did sample other Harveys beers namely Sussex Best and Hadlow Bitter

I paid two visits during the week to The Evening Star. This pub is almost faultless. The cask beers, especially the Dark Star beers were superb (I tried American Pale Ale, Mild For May, Old Chestnut and Hophead); the guests are well chosen and the foreign list is superb. I really loved the Oaked Arrogant Bastard. This is one of the pubs I'd give anything to have in my town.

A pub I didn't get to last year, but I had to do this year was The Basketmakers Arms. This was a Gales pub, but of course is branded as Fullers now, and sells five from that stable as well as two guests. It is always very busy, but is definitely worth a brief visit.

Finally of the old favourites was my Brighton local, as I stay just around the corner, The Hand In Hand. I only went in a couple of times and am pleased to report that the home brewed beers are still available and are better than I've ever had them. There are three of fours guests too, which are in good nick.

These are the pubs I will go back to year on year, but there are others which are worth an occasional visit which I'll write about next time.

Ramblings In Brighton - The Evening Star

There can't be many pub or beer lovers in the country who haven't heard of The Evening Star near Brighton Railway Station. It is the only other pub I went to in Brighton. I wish I'd gone more often but it was a good walk from the hotel.

Back in the 1990s it was one of the pioneering real ale pubs selling rare beers from the length and breadth of the isles. Drinkers flocked there from all over in search of their ticks and scoops.

Then Dark Star Brewery and its offshoot Skinners went into production in the cellar, and guest beers were less prominent. Having said that though Dark Star and Skinners produced loads of different ales to keep the scooper satisfied. Skinners fell by the way side and Dark Star relocated, and their beer range diminshed but the pub still carried on as a beer lovers haven, still in the Dark Star estate.

Nowadays there are six or seven real ales available (about half from Dark Star), a couple of real ciders, a couple of keg Dark Star beers, a few foreign draught beers and a selection of around 50 bottled beers from Germany, Belgium and the US. All the beers are carefully chosen with definitely no crap.

To my mind as a foreign beer lover, the beer range now is better than it's ever been. Of those foreign draught beers two from USA were available when I visited last week: Sierra Nevada Bigfoot and Flying Dog Snake Dog IPA. I have never seen either of these beers available on draught in the UK before and suspect if they have been it has only been in The Rake.

It's testament to the excellent beer range that the pub always seems busy. The clientele is reasonably diverse but one thing they all seem to have on common is the love of a good pub and good beer. If you're reading this in the UK, the chances are you've visited the pub before. If you haven't been then what are you waiting for?

Ramblings In Brighton - The Hand In Hand

The Hand In Hand was my local whilst in Brighton, being just 200 yards or so from my hotel. For that reason it was the pub I visited the most and the pub I watched The Champions League Final in.

There is no doubt that the pub has some interesting clientele. I first visited the pub in the 1990s and shared the window seat with two old toothless soaks who seemed like a regular fixture. I've not seen them since; they are probably in boozy heaven, but there is still the odd fascinating character to make people-watching fun.

Before writing this, I had a read of Beer In The Evening to read their comments. A lot of those are negative, but I have always enjoyed myself and have only once had a dodgy pint. This week there was two of their own Kemptown Beers: Kemptown Bitter and Ye Olde Trout, together with two from Dark Star: Hophead and Festival, and Cains IPA, which was a long way from home compared to its companions on offer. There are a dozen or so foreign beers including draught Bacchus Kriek and Hacker-Pschorr beers from Germany.

I stuck mostly to the sublime Hophead although I did have a couple of pints of Kemptown Bitter as well for old times sake. Between our group all five beers were tried, and there were no complaints

You wouldn't know it if you'd never been before but the pub has actually been spruced up over the last few years, with the smoking ban making a vast difference. It used to be very dingy, now it's only pretty dingy! The picture at the top shows it being yellow; I'm not sure it still is, but not taking my camera doesn't help.

This is a really good pub well worth the twenty minute walk from the railway station. Like a lot of Brighton pubs it is small (it claims to be the smallest in the city), and is all the better for its intimate size. The pub has been for sale and still may be, I am lead to believe, so changes may occur in the future. It would be a shame if the pub were to change very much.

Ramblings In Brighton - Night One

I didn't get to nearly as many pubs as I'd planned during my five nights in Brighton. It's not easy when you're in a group who, in spite of being beer drinkers, are also reticent to walk very far for their imbibing. Fortunately we stayed within 200 yards of one of Brighton's better pubs so I was happy to spend a great deal of time in there.

Arriving first on Sunday with one travelling companion my priority was to get a few pubs in before meeting up with the others when they arrived. We headed therefore for the North Laines for a wander.

The first pub we nipped in was The Heart & Hand as pictured yesterday. This is obviously attractive from the outside, and quite interesting on the inside. One roomed and furnished with a rare vinyl jukebox, it's a little bit of a throwback to another era. The pint of Harveys Sussex Best was in great nick.

From there it was to The Great Eastern, entering by one of the narrowest front doors I've ever been through, this pub was long and narrow and the chap next to me's roast lamb smelled nice. My pint of Pilgrim Porter was really good.

Onwards to The Lord Nelson. This looks like a small pub from the outside but goes back pretty far. The real draw to this pub is excellent Harveys ales. I had a pint each of Knots Of May, a 3.0% light mild, and Olympia Golden Ale. Harveys brew some great stuff, and although these are not perhaps up to their highest standards, I still enjoyed these two.

We then sadly had to leave the laines fo the town centre. Two more pubs were visited: The Bright Helm, one of the worse JDW's known to man. Eight pump clips welcomed the customer, but only one of them was on. "Our area manager tells us to keep the clips showing", I was told. My statement that Tim Martin says otherwise was met with a blank face. I was in no mood to change the look on his face but wish I had.

We moved over to the very busy Fiddlers Elbow for more Harveys Sussex Best in the company of our now arrived colleagues. The beer again was in great form. Bed beckoned after this pub, but in night one I had visited five pubs. All the beers I had were lovely, and rarely found in my neck of the woods which is a nice treat.

I was only to visit two more pubs all week. I'll write about them both tomorrow.

Defunct Livery In Brighton

One of the things which sets me apart from pretty much all of the other British beer bloggers is my camera skills. Those skills can be broken down into two components:

Skill number one - the ability to take my camera anywhere with me.

Skill number two - the ability to take a decent picture even if I remember my camera.

Whilst out and about in Brighton last week, I saw three great examples of defunct livery on the front of pubs. First was The Kemptown Brewery (not the one still in existace) outside The Bulldog on St James Street. A distinctly drabby looking pub which I didn't venture into.

Second was the beautiful green tiled frontage of The Heart & Hand in North Road in the North Laines advertizing United Ales and Stouts which was actually The Portsmouth & Brighton United Breweries Ltd. I did go in to this quaint characterful pub and had a lovely pint of Harveys Sussex Best, which almost matched the tiles.

Third was the old Tamplins pub, The Victory in Duke Street. I've been in here before - it's crap, so didn't venture in this time.

There are plenty of other examples in Brighton, as can be seen here. They are all for another time. The photographs aren't mine, but borrowed from the aforementioned site.

Champions!

Watching United win The Champions League is sweet.

Watching United win The Champions League with six pints of Dark Star Hophead is very sweet.

Having fun in Brighton, but no time to blog properly. Normal service should resume at the weekend.

Off To Brighton

I'm off to Brighton in a couple of hours and won't be back until Friday evening. I may or may not post to the blog, apparently Brighton is the sixth most covered town in Europe for free wi-fi access.

I'm looking forward to going to The Evening Star where I haven't been for a couple of years, and I intend a quick trip to Shoreham where there are a couple of GBG pubs that look worthy of a visit. I shall also have a pint of two of Harveys Armada, one of my favourite cask beers,

See you all soon.