The Bull Inn, Battle

I found the Bull Inn to be the busiest pub during my recent Tuesday evening crawl of Battle’s public houses. The bar on the right wall faces an open plan seating area that sits between the front windows and a large inglenook. All of this seating was taken and the bar was lined with locals so I ended up having to sit at a table in the deserted separate rear area. In this area is an inglenook, which is the back of the chimney that runs up the centre of the pub, and a plasma screen that was switched off. Two dartboard cases, minus the dartboards, were chalked up with food specials (Around £10 per main) and kitchen opening times (18:00 til 21:00, although I would be surprised if there was no lunch service). Standard and premium draught products were available from the bar and I counted three hand pumps. Due to the crowd I could not read one of the clips, but the other two hand pumps were drawing Harvey’s Best and Old Dairy Brewery’s Summer Top. Jazz, folk and blues is played here every Wednesday evening from 20:00 and theme nights are advertised throughout the summer. Also advertised was ELF (Every Last Friday) which is a clever idea where various acts play sets at various pubs and restaurants around the town. For more details see their Facebook page that is easily found. At the rear is a small enclosed beer garden complete with seating. Children are welcome. I found the service to be friendly and all of the locals seemed to be harmless enough. I would have preferred to sit in the bar area because the rear was sedate with barely audible background music, but I cannot fault a pub for being too popular! This is a worthy of a stop off if wandering through the town.

Official site of The Bull Inn - www.thebullinnbattle.co.uk