Crossbar, Brighton

L shaped interior as described below. In the region of 9 real ales and 15 "craft keg" served.

Only a short walk from the bustle of Brighton’s shops and seafront, the first Craft Beer Co bar outside London nevertheless has a location slightly off the beaten track, meaning that it’s invariably frequented only by those who were looking for it. The pub has quite a small interior, occupying an L-shaped room with bare floorboards and neutral coloured walls. There is a mix of high tables and stools and lower copper topped tables with standard chairs, plus one particularly long, sturdy looking table which runs under the side windows, ideal for a larger group to occupy. At one end of the room, a large Whitbread mirror is suspended above a small brick fireplace, whereas at the other end, a raised section offers a few more tables, a tiled fireplace and a Craft Beer Co mirror. Throughout the pub there are large black and white photos showing various scenes from a brewery and an interesting soundtrack played in the background for the length of my visit. I found this place to be more pub-like than some of the London outlets and would liken it most to the Islington branch thanks to a rather warm ambiance that doesn’t always exist in this type of establishment. This extends to the staff as well, who I found to be very friendly and who were very helpful to another customer who had requested something very specific, which the barman eventually found a bottle of somewhere down in the cellar. I counted nine hand pumps which were dispensing beers from the likes of Magic Rock, Fyne Ales and Harbour Brewing. I opted for a pint of the latter’s Amber Ale but I have to say that I was a bit disappointed with the quality – maybe the summer heat was causing problems. As always with this chain, a vast array of keg beers from brewers you’ve never heard of occupied a long row of taps and the, by now, familiar beer menu could be found for those prepared to fork out for imported bottles. I did wonder how this format would fair outside the capital, but I think they’ve done a pretty good job and this should hopefully become a solid fixture in Brighton’s beer scene.

First visit to the fairly new southern outpost of the Craft Beer Co and will agree it is certainly a different vibe to the London outposts I have visited. On entering you get more of the vibe of a proper split floor corner local with a fairly smallish corner bar serving area that they have done remarkably well to squeeze 9 ale pumps and 21 keg taps onto. Will agree that there was a good range of high AVB foreign keg offerings and the prices seemed to be less eye watering than in the London outlet. And on the Ale front as well as the house Pale Ale there was a good choice of non local micro brewery beers with Blonde and XS from the York Hop Studio Brewery, Tyne Bank Brewery Pacific Pale and Marble Brewery Manchester Bitter as well as the more local Brighton Bier Red Rye and Oakham Ales Scarlet Macau, and the couple I tried were in good condition. As in Clerkenwell the food menu is top class bar snacks including meat pies, pork pies, scotch eggs and Sussex cheeses, but at slightly more reasonable price levels with a home made scotch egg coming in at 15% under the London price level at £3.00. Liked it here and can see myself making the effort to visit again when next by the seaside.

Fairly small corner pub with an L shaped bar and a small raised seating area.Up to 9 real ales on offer and the ones I tried were in very good form.Very friendly staff who will always give you a taster.

I don't know how the Craft/Cask people decide what to name their outlets. The recently opened Craft Beer Co in Brighton seems, to me, to have more of the relaxed, lounge bar kind of feel of Cask in Pimlico than the beery intensity of Craft in Clerkenwell. Having said that, there's still a lot of Brighton about the place. It's not a large pub - the main room is L-shaped, bare-boarded and on 2 levels. On my visit, the beer menus were dotted among the tables, so I had a read through, admiring the prices. At the bar, it's more reasonable. Slightly cheaper than the London venues, in fact, for cask ales, but the usual £3.95 a half for the kegged exotica. 9 handpumps are available, one devoted to the house Pale Ale (cheapest beer of the lot). 18 taps (3 devoted to cider) are also present and, as you'd expect, avoid the usual suspects - 'lager' comes from Camden & Leeds, not from Australia or Belgium (or Northampton). A worthwhile addition to the Brighton beer scene; close to the shops, but sufficiently removed to avoid getting mobbed. I'll be back, I'm sure.