The Lawrence Arms, Southsea

Larger than I was expecting ,the interior is now open plan,although given the number of doors I expect that originally this would have had multiple rooms.It's neat and tidy ,and popular with a mixed crowd.Sky Sports and BT Sports will be aired but thankfully the screens were either off or on mute on my visit. There were 6 handpumps and being a free house the choice looks to rotate quickly with ,on my trip, Frome APA,Bank Top Put & Call, Gadds Black Pearl,Harvey's Sussex Best and a very decent Mad Squirrel Big Sea. It's a GBG regular and current CAMRA branch POTY and I can see why.I would most certainly return for the excellent and varied ale line up ,although the interior doesn't have the charm of some other leading ale houses nearby.However not one to be missed on any beer tourism in Southsea.

A large corner pub with a couple of opened out internal areas, there was a good community feel to the pub immediately I walked in backed up by friendly service. Carpeted throughout there was gentle background music playing. Obviously a pub that is keen on its beer as evidenced by the beer clips mounted on the wall. The selection on the bar was reasonable as well with the six pumps providing a couple from Irving brewery, Langhams and one from Rudgate along with my choice of a rather excellent Thornbridge Sampo. I left very impressed with this pub.

Lively community pub with a good selection of ales and ciders.

A Edwardian back-street corner pub, and a GBG regular which serves as a good community pub and is LBGT-friendly. The public rooms are conjoined but remain distinct, and there is a games area with pool, darts and TV screens. There are TV screens in other areas, all showing live sports matches. WiFI is available, but dogs are not allowed in. There were 4 ales on draft plus 3 regular ciders and 2 novelty ciders in boxes. The ales were 1 from Harveys, 2 from 360¤ and 1 from Adnams, all in perfect condition and available to be sampled before buying. An essential part of a Southsea crawl.

I'd never heard of this place prior to my recent visit to Southsea and owe the discovery entirely to Quinno, who I bumped into in the nearby Leopold on his way to this fine backstreet boozer. You enter into a carpeted main bar area with a sizeable servery to one side. The bar has a nice, light panelled front to its angular counter and there is a tongue and groove bar back with some mirrors inset centrally. A good selection of seating options, mainly in the form of well worn padded banquettes and sturdy chairs run around the perimeter and a sensible amount of space has been left between the seats and bar to accommodate vertical drinkers on busy evenings such as our Saturday night visit. To one side of the room there is a dedicated darts area which was in full use and a small second room beyond the bar was mainly occupied by a pool table. This was a rather basic space with half panelled walls and a few interesting bits of décor included a signed Pompey shirt. Several TV screens throughout were showing live football to an appreciative crowd and I also spotted a juke box. Out the back is a basic garden area, partly covered, with some decent wooden garden furniture and a large mural on the end wall. On the bar, I noted Harvey's Sussex Best, Langham Arapaho, Dorset Jurassic, Irving Wee Malc's 80/- and Oakleaf Piston Porter from which I sampled the Arapaho, which I thought was a great drop of beer from a local brewery. There was a good atmosphere in here thanks to the decent crowd and I could have very happily spent much longer in here had circumstances permitted. This is a great little pub which I enjoyed all the more for having absolutely no expectations prior to visiting. The place seems to have a good, vibrant community feel to it and is exactly the sort of place I'd be delighted to have as my local. Another very good Southsea pub and one well worth adding to any crawl of the area.