Horse and Groom, Derbyback to pub details please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
Another backstreet pub that it takes an effort to find. But this one is better known because it’s in the GBG. Entering from the door on the street corner, the first impression is of enormous space (the pub has been much expanded over the years). You have to through at least 2 seating areas before you get to the bar. There were 5 or 6 real ales available, though none of them were wildly exciting. I tried the Double Maxim – which was OK, but too cold for my liking. This pub appears ot specialise on live music, and there was a long list of forthcoming acts. Hope they are better than the rubbish piped music that was playing when I was there ! Football was being shown on a big screen TV. I sat in one of the plush seats and watched for 5 mins
|
Set on a relatively modern estate, on the northern outskirts of the Derby City Centre CAMRA crawl. A couple of large rooms with a pool table in one and at the bar about four real ales including Salopian Lemon Dream.
Very much a Community pub, quite busy for early Friday evening. In one room, a family with young children running about freely put us slightly on edge; in the other room, the noise of Sky Sports competing with background music created a different kind of din. Overall, probably fine if this is your local, but a little too noisy for us to feel relaxed or stay long. One to try if in the area, but not to travel for.
Roy22 - 21 Aug 2014 18:42 |
Vastly improved from a few years ago. Good selection of ales and welcoming landlord.
|
Great back street local. Exactly what a pub should be, serving its local community well but providing interesting beers and live music to entice people to travel from elsewhere. Look out for the occasional beer festival which is worth travelling for.
Is a good starting point for a west end crawl.
|
Fantastic community pub, hidden away in a pleasant residential areas.
Quiet on a Monday, but exceptional quality Bass and a decent atmosphere.
Good to see Derby CAMRA focuing on beer quality (the Royal Standard is a didfferent story !)
|
jarofporter seems to have rather missed the point as to why the Horse & Groom was so highly rated in this year�s Derby CAMRA pub of the year. Just look at the facts �
It is NOT a Punch Tavern or Enterprise Inn or owned by a national or a locally based brewery.
The Horse & Groom was a long closed and semi-derelict pub that would probably have been demolished by now if a young couple, Adam and Sarah, had not had the courage and foresight to invest their life savings to buy and refurbish it.
In the �good old days� pubs were at the heart of the community, but as we all know, that has all but been destroyed by the greed of many brewery and pub groups.
Yet, against all the odds, in just a year, by dint of sheer hard work and running the kind of pub that people ACTUALLY want, Adam and Sarah have put the Horse and Groom back to where it belongs � in the centre of Derby�s West End community where everyone from 18 to 80 can be sure of a warm welcome and be served with top quality beer.
There is an object lesson here for the money grabbing morons who think that they know how to run pubs. In reality they haven�t a clue, which is why so many pubs the length and breadth of the country are sadly being closed and boarded up with alarming regularity.
|
Not bad. I would say there are some Derby pubs more deserving of the title of pub of the year runner up. The beer was great though, that's the most important bit.
|
The Horse & Groom is a Victorian street corner pub which has been serving Derby�s West End community for well over 150 years. Remarkably, although virtually all the buildings around it were razed to the ground in the 1960�s as part of a slum clearance programme, the Horse & Groom lived on to serve the residents of the replacement housing in the surrounding area.
More recently however the pub fell on hard times, but after a period when it was closed and boarded up and its future looked uncertain, it was bought by the former landlord of the nearby Woodlark. Following a complete and tasteful refurbishment, the Horse & Groom reopened as a free house in July 2008.
It is purely a drinking pub and music pub. No food, but the beer is first class. Pedigree, Bass and Theakston�s Mild are the regulars, plus a guest, often one from Hartington.
|
|
