Hare & Hounds, Brighton

Newly renamed, refurbished and reopened, The Hare & Hounds is a big room on a busy corner at the far end of the dowdy London Road strip. The bar is a central island; the floor is tiled here, but bare boards rule elsewhere. Furniture is a mix of high seats and stools alongside the main road with lower seats and sofas elsewhere. Pub company Indigo seem to like a different theme for each of their pubs and here we've got two. The more obvious is the pair of tanks holding a thousand litres or so of Meantime lager - this is the first pub in Brighton offering brewery-fresh lager. I tried it and it's good - not as gassy as your regular lager; mind you, at £4.95 a pint it needed to be good! The other theme is a kitchen operated by La Choza offering Mexican street food. Back to the bar and, in addition to the lager, there's 2 more Meantime taps, as well as a couple for Brewdog and several others that I didn't note. Pilsener lovers should note that there are also cheaper and fizzier lagers available. Ales are local (Firebird & 360 were noted) from 6 pumps. This is a classy update and makes a good option if you're visiting the Duke of Yorks independent cinema across the road.

Official site of The Hare And Hounds - www.hareandhoundsbrighton.com

The Hare and Hounds changed its name to the Hydrant a couple of years ago and is a live music venue. There is an upstairs area that was hosting a £12 entry event last night (Saturday) that went on until 3am. The downstairs bar also has a stage area for live music and there are all sorts of flyers for upcoming events. The plasma screens were showing a music channel and there are a couple of pool tables. It was very quiet at 19:30, but a medley of Mohicans seemed to be assembling. The bar is stocked with draught products and the service was polite enough. Being in my mid-thirties I was at least ten years older than most and I don’t have a penchant for live music so I didn’t hang around long. I saw nothing here to have me rushing back.