The Cauldron, Brighton

The Pull and Pump was very quiet when I visited on Monday evening last week, but the very close proximity to Western Road and the high street chain shops leads me to believe that this pub is busier during the day. The cutlery and condiments on a shelf to the left of the bar also gives it away that this is a busy lunchtime setting. This is a traditional single room pub with a half oval bar on the back wall that supports four hand pumps that were drawing Sharp’s Cornish Coaster, Theakston’s Best and Hepworth’s Old Ale. The final hand pump was unused and the draught selection consisted of Becks Vier, Grolsch, Stowford Press, Red Stripe, Aspall’s cider, Stowford Press and Guinness. There is also an extensive tequila menu that would down any size bull. The barmaid was friendly even though severe boredom must have set in, maybe the random background music helped a little. There are some picnic tables out the front for warmer times and smokers. This pub is handily placed for a quick beer if shopping, but this is certainly not a destination pub.

In a side street off Western Road, one of Brighton’s principal shopping thoroughfares, is The Pull and Pump, a smallish pub, which, like The St James Tavern, is part of the pleasure.com pub group. A horseshoe shaped bar serves a bare boarded wood panelled bar with wooden furniture and traditional bench seating around the perimeter of the room. The overall feel is of a rather contrived ale house ambience. A prominently positioned blackboard on a side wall advertises an extensive tequila and cocktail menu, although, on my recent afternoon visit, I didn’t detect much trade in these drinks. By the entrance, a sign lists various translations of “Pull and Pump” – eg – Tirer et Pompe – and the pub appears to have that rather cosmopolitan transient feel that one associates with London pubs. A silent TV up in one corner was showing motor racing. Beers on were Wadworths Bishops Tipple, Cottage Brewery Elsie, Sharps Doom Bar and, notably, Salopian Twister, which was an excellent pint. Brighton has a good number of pubs which are not showstoppers by any means, but to which I wouldn’t be averse to revisiting and The Pull and Pump sits in that category