Queen's Head, Chelmsford

Crouch Vale pub a few yards away from the GBG Orange Tree. A nice old-fashioned interior, wood heavy with plenty of panelling and fairly interwar in feel. A friendly landlady stood behind the bar with three of the brewery’s cask offerings. “A small brewery taphouse with a nice interior not in the GBG? But why?” I pondered. The answer was soon to become apparent as my pint of Extra Gold tasted more like Extra Mould, rank and aspiratored for weeks (NBSS 1) which I had to discreetly tip away in the garden. Quite how Crouch Vale can allow this to happen is a great unanswerable but they need to get a grip here, fast. No wonder I was the only customer. What happened to the pub that was scoring 8+ a few years ago?

The Queen's Head is one of a number of backstreet pubs near the cricket ground. The pub is run by Crouch Vale and has their Brewer's Gold & Essex Boys Best Bitter on as the regular beers. Yakima Gold & Ten Forty Six were also on. But I was disappointed not to find a dark beer. My Yakima Gold tasted like vinegar. The barmaid was apologetic and did offer to replace it. But I didn't really fancy any of the others. The traditional bar at the front opens up slightly to a brighter more modern feeling area towards the rear. But with just a handful of customers, it felt reasonably full.

This is a surprisingly small back street boozer run by the local Crouch Vale Brewery. I initially walked past this pub, thinking it was shut, such was the uninviting external appearance, but upon consulting their opening times in the local CAMRA magazine, I turned round, gave the front door a push and lo and behold, I was in. The main bar is quite a cosy space which sees the servery to the left and a staple shaped room running around it. There are exposed floorboards throughout and the majority of the seating to the front and right comprises fixed banquettes and standards chairs. There is a nice, decorative tiled fireplace to the front left with a beer glass collection to one side and a set of framed aviation-themed cigarette cards on the other. A bookcase on the back wall houses a collection of paperbacks and the day's papers. The servery has a rather basic bar counter under a lovely stained glass canopy with some unusual colourful CAMRA plaques on the beam above, each detailing various Pub Of The Year awards the place has won. There is some decent wood panelling to the right, along with another attractive fireplace underneath a huge 'Mann, Grossman & Paulins Ales mirror. A TV screen was showing muted Sky Sports News, but no-one was really paying any attention to it, with most punters chatting loudly amongst themselves instead. The room opens out a fair bit beyond the bar into a brighter area with a lot of additional bench and chair seating plus a dartboard on the rear wall. A board in the front right corner of the pub lists the full ale range which on this visit comprised Crouch Vale Brewers Gold, Essex Boys, Yakima Gold and Essex Blonde, Tiny Rebel Full Nelson, Acorn Barnsley Gold and Calvors Session IPA. Brewers Gold was a bit of an 'epiphany' beer for me back in the day, so I was keen to try it here and I got a very nice pint for a very reasonable £3.25, served to me by a rather frosty barmaid. I've always been a big fan of Crouch Vale beers, so I'd long been wanting to visit this pub and it certainly didn't let me down on the ale front. I thought it was quite a nice, cosy pub and could imagine settling down to try a few more of their beers, but it was let down somewhat by the cold welcome I received, which didn't really make me feel like staying too long. Still, a very nice pub and one I'm sure I'll return to in the future.

This is a pleasant back street corner local which was once for some reason called Partner's. It is Crouch Vale Brewery's only tied house which makes it worthy of attention in itself. Inside it is a smallish wooden floored bar but an area stretches back towards the garden where there are more formal tables and chairs. Although this area looks like it is meant for dining this certainly isn't a gastro pub. The food is only served at lunchtimes and is hearty pub grub rather than a few morsels in the middle of a huge plate. On my visit there was an assortment of dogs at the middle of the pub that were lying on the floor by a roaring fire. Six beers were available, from Crouch Vale their Essex Boys Bitter, Brewers Gold & Anchor Street Porter and the others were Fat Cat Cougar, Dark Star Winter Meltdown & Milton Sparta. I felt obliged to go for the Brewer's Gold (£3.10) a beer I hadn't tried for years and which went down a treat. This is a good solid back street local that has been GBG listed more or less since Crouch Vale took it on.