Temple Bar, Brighton

This is a fancy looking craft beer bar on the busy main road between Brighton and Hove. You enter into a bare boarded room with an island servery directly opposite the front door. Beer taps can be found around three sides of the servery, and with no beer board in sight, you'll need to go on a bit of a wander to figure out exactly what you want to order. Low stools have been arranged under the front windows, with high stools down the right side of the room and some uncomfortable low benches along the back wall with more low stools in support. The bar has an excellent dark wood counter that boasts some smart, detailed woodworking, but sadly there is no bar back to speak of. Bare brick walls have been enlivened by colourful paintings of local landmarks, sparkling bunting, rainbow flags and glitter balls, which sounds a bit overbearing, but actually works quite well. Steps to the rear lead to an additional seating space with lots of mixed options in a brick and tiled wall area that lacks the vibrancy of the main bar space. Some of the lights illuminating the bar area were hung in old beer kegs, which looked pretty cool and helped to keep the lighting nicely muted. Upbeat tunes were playing in the background throughout my stay and there was a slow but steady stream of customers, without the place ever feeling remotely busy on a Saturday evening. There's no cask ale to be found here, but a reasonable range of craft and mainstream keg beer offers some degree of consolation. I opted for a pint of Tiny Rebel Clwb Tropicana, which a cheery barman sold to me for an eye watering £7.75. Its a decent enough beer, but I have no idea what justifies such an insane price tag. I thought this was a pretty good craft beer bar, that has a good location, making it easy to add to a varied crawl of pubs on this side of the city. However, the extortionate prices mean that there's little gain to be found here and punters would be better off getting their craft beer kicks from the likes of Bison Beer instead. Date of visit - 24th September 2023

Craft beer bar located in a corner plot on the busy Western Road. The friendly barmaid didn't get too flustered when a large group of us arrived and were struggling to decide what to order. The bar is close to the front entrance with seating either side of it and a slightly raised area with further seating to the rear right. Amongst the crafty beers on offer were Beavertown Gamma Ray, By The Horns Squeezer & Cosmic Warrior, UnBarred Casual Pale & Franciscan Well Chieftain. No real ales, but my Squeezer was refreshing. Not my usual sort of pub, but we were doing a crawl of a few Brighton pubs we hadn't been to before. Not too bad overall.

Facebook page of Temple Bar - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of Temple Bar - www.facebook.com

Official site of Temple Bar - www.templebarbrighton.co.uk

Another Indigo managed pub. This one seemingly trying to get the student pound, if the music and large-screen TVs are anything to go by. Succeeding in that aim, too, if the crowds at the bar are anything to go by. We were visiting in connection with the Festival Fringe: there's an upstairs room which was booked for comedy but would presumably see a few live music evenings from time to time. On the bar, you get a good half-dozen or so local ales: Bill King's new Firebird brewery had a solid presence when we popped in. The keg range extends sightly beyond the usual suspects. If you can deal with the aural & visual intrusions, this one's worth a look-in if you've overshot Brighton's shops and you find yourself heading into Hove.

Official site of Temple Bar - www.templebarbrighton.co.uk

Went in there again today 27/08/13. Had a pint of Dark Star Sunburst which was in reasonable form but was priced £3.90 which I think is rip off central. As this is a locally brewed beer I would hate to think how much a beer would cost if had been brewed in a far away land such as Bury St Edmunds. Twice bitten twice shy. If it closes like the rest do each week then they will know why!

This may be the Temple Bar, but I thought that it felt more like a pub with dark wood furnishings and conventional furniture throughout. Then interior consists of a large island bar with seating around it and more seating in a raised area to the right rear of the pub. There is also a flight of stairs that run up to the lounge bar that I did not visit on this occasion. I didn’t spot any televisions, but there was some slightly depressing background music playing. Standard and premium draught products are available from the bar that supports eight hand pumps. Two of these were unsued so the ale options were Molly Malone’s Brighton Stout, Hammerpot’s Shooting Star, Arundel’s Castle, Dark Star’s American Pale Ale and Ballard’s Nyewood Gold. The eighth hand pump was drawing Old Rosie for the strong cider fans. Pub grub is served all day and there are five picnic tables on the path out front. I’ve been in worse places, but there is a time and a place for soppy love songs and last night (Tuesday) wasn’t one of them. I’d still have no problem revisiting here for another pint.