The Westbourne, Aldrington, Hove

With its dark grey external paintwork, this looks like a gastro-pub as you approach, but the large, light and unfussy interior sparsely furnished with modern furniture turns out otherwise. Also has some tables along the sunny main facade with established trees providing welcome shade. Four cask ales on handpump, including Dorking's 1886 Dark Mild (£4.50), along with 11 craft beer and cider keg taps. Mostly popular with a younger crowd by the look of things, but I didn't feel out of place.

This pub felt more of a food led pub on our Thursday afternoon visit. The bar area was completely deserted of staff as they were concentrating on serving the food out from the kitchen hatch down at the far right hand side. We waited patiently and didn't get any apology, plus I found for all the free space in the pub, that the seating was very limited, however the exterior was excellent. Four handpumps Vibrant Forest PUPA and Black Forest Porter, Gun Brewery Zamzama IPA and Dorking Brewery DB ONE Best. There was also a choice of ten craft beers along the bar front.

As Paul says below, the Westbourne is a trendy local on the Portland Road. The brightly painted blue exterior has "Westbourne" painted in large yellow letters, just in case you're struggling to locate it. The bar is on the right-hand side as you enter from the corner. There are 4 handpulls, which were dispensing Dorking Vestri, Only With Love Dodger, Burning Sky Export Stout & Sunken Knave Firebreak. Craft beers were Bristol Beer Factory Black Gates, Burning Sky Vatted Porter & Arise, Wiper & True Third Time's A Charm, Hand Mono, Hammerton Quaff & Only With Love Bantam. Keg ciders were Little Pomona Little Miracle, Sandford Orchards Devon Red & Umbrella Cider. This is a pub which has dropped out of this year's Good Beer Guide. But I thought the beer selection was very good and my Sunken Knave Firebreak was in a reasonable condition. Defnitely one to include on any Hove crawl.

The Westbourne is a trendy neighbourhood local at the Hove end of lengthy Portland Road. A large bar supports plenty of empty space, but also 4 handpumps serving quality ales from Long Man, Thornbridge & Brew York plus an exceptional New Zealand Pale from Burning Sky. There's considerably more keg but, again, these are well chosen, featuring Burning Sky, Unbarred, Iron Pier and more, with a solitary Guinness badge catering for the mainstream. The menu fits easily onto a single sheet of A4, divided pretty much equally between Light Bites, Mains and Burgers. The pub's popular late on a Saturday afternoon, both inside and out, and it's easy to see why.

Official site of The Westbourne - www.thewestbournehove.co.uk

Official site of The Westbourne - www.thewestbournehove.co.uk

The Westbourne was the last pub I visited on a crawl from Fishersgate to Hove on FA Cup Saturday a few weeks ago. My visit was around 22:00 and I don’t remember the pub being that busy and I got the feeling that this pub sells a lot of food. A standard and premium draught selection was available from the bar and one of the three hand pumps was unused leaving Harveys Best and Arundel Sussex Gold as the two ale options. I noted that the weekly quiz is on Tuesdays from 20:00 and that there are two bars with lots of seating at the rear where there is a food serving hatch. I didn’t walk away from here raring to return.