The Pembroke, Portsmouth

An old fashioned corner pub, my first visit since the PuG trip to Portsmouth a few years ago. It doesn’t seem to have changed much it’s still an old sailors type of place. Much of the decor is ship’s shields and old prints of ships of the line. A very nice floral carpet and a great deal of dark tongue and groove apart from the pale pine counter front, that wants staining that does. On top are three pulls with London Pride, Abbot and a passable Bass, a low T-bar has a standard keg choice and there’s Stella and Heineken on another low T. Furniture is wheel back chairs at round wooden tables with a couple of benches. It had a good collection of regulars from a different age.

A traditional corner pub that's a bit battered round the edges. Staple shaped, with a pleasing half decagonal bar upper, a nice dark varnish corner area with some Pompey memorabilia and floor-to-ceiling tongue and groove panelling. Pretty busy for a Friday lunchtime. Three ales on; GK Abbot, London Pride and a warm, lacklustre Bass (NBSS 2). Shame it was a bit slapdash, a bit more care and it could be a draw.

The Pembroke is a proper backstreet no frills local’s boozer. The U-shaped interior houses a piano and dartboard to the right of the bar and seating under a plasma screen to the left. No live sport was advertised but there was some low background music playing. Standard keg is available from the bar that also supports three hand pumps that were drawing Abbot Ale, London pride and Bass. The food stretches to £1 rolls. I found the service to be polite. This place won’t be to everyone’s taste, but I would recommend to fans of old school pubs.

Small and very traditional, a cosy corner locals’ pub dating from at least the late 19th century, sporting a slightly nautical theme. A very friendly barmaid coped admirably with the hoard that had just descended upon her. There are cheap rolls from the bar by way of food, but the ale selection comprises Abbot, Pride and Bass which I last had in a can of shandy circa 1973. At £1.95 it was a little steep and not great, but this is ‘Old Portsmouth’, so you’re paying for the location. This isn’t a bad little place though some might find a bit blokey. It’s probably best appreciated as part of a crawl rather than event destination, but the choice of beer is a little lacklustre.

I really wanted to like this one as the Pembroke is the kind of old school traditional corner back street pub I really like, being a basic local’s boozer with a traditional pub carpet U shaped bar around a central serving area, a tiled fireplace with pub mirror above and various local club shields and historical prints of Portsmouth to give the place a bit of character. Three regular real ales are served in the form of Fullers London pride, GK Abbot and Draught Bass, and unfortunately my first visit on the official PuG crawl provided a very substandard sample of the Draught Bass that really wasn’t pleasant at all. But as our hotel was situated further up the Pembroke Road, we had the opportunity to walk past this one on a few occasions on the following day en route to explore the Old Town and Gunwharf Keys and finding it fairly well utilised throughout the Saturday popped in again to give it another chance, this time going for the London Pride, which was a lot better. But just to prove that pub appreciation is very subjective my good lady found the Pembroke far too “blokey” and found the Dolphin around the corner much more to her taste.

A cosy little old-time corner pub, sounding unchanged from the previous reviews and still with a carpeted U shaped bar, London Pride, Abbot and Bass on draught and a selection of nice rolls. Pleasant and relaxing.