The Taps, Lytham Town Centre, Lytham St. Annes

Single storey pub, it says Greene King on the sign but inside there is a far wider choice on the 12 pumps, two with cider. A long single room with a small slightly separate room at the rear left housing a screen and the toilet entrances. Mainly exposed brick walls with a few pictures as decor, tile and parquet floors apparently showing where walls used to be. Banquette seating mostly, it’s even got a piano. Obviously a Camra favourite there’s a discount, awards and various leaflets.

Greene King pub that seems to be pretty much independently run. Cosy dimly lit alehouse interior with a nice calm feel, no TVs or electronic distractions, just some quiet modern indie background music. Food is offered and there are a few reserved tables. Overall it’s a pretty good place but I felt there were a few too many similar beers on. Is there really a need for so many bog standard national ales to be on at once? Is anyone really drinking Greene King IPA or Old Speckled Hen in here? My breakfast stout was only in fair to middling condition.

We really enjoyed our visit to this proper drinker's pub, with no sign of any food service in sight. The pub had a good atmosphere and the beer quality was excellent. 12 handpumps on this visit, serving 10 ales and 2 ciders. We went for the Fixed Wheel Wheelie Pale and sat near the wood burning stove briefly before running for the train.

Proper beer drinkers pub, good space, wood boards, good beer, quality

Tucked away down a quiet side street between the market and seafront, the Taps is a classic, traditional alehouse set in a couple of former ostler's cottages. The pub was previously known as the Captain's Cabin, before being taken over by landlord Ian Rigg in 1992. He restored the pub's traditional look by removing all of the plasterboard and exposing the brickwork beneath, organised beach parties when the pub would be carpeted with sand, laid turf throughout the bar whenever the Open Championship came to Royal Lytham St Annes and introduced an ale policy which saw the pub win numerous CAMRA awards, culminating with a final four place in the 2010 National Pub of the Year award. Having retired in 2012, the pub is thankfully still in very good hands and I was pleased to find an excellent ale selection at the bar. The options on my visit were Moorhouse Pendle Witches Brew, Bank Top Dark Mild, Arbor Motueka, Great Heck Amish Mash, Northumberland Touchdown, Portobello Market Porter, Everards Tiger, 1643 Viscount Golden Ale, house beer Titanic Taps Bitter and one solitary Greene King brew - IPA. One final handpull was set aside for a real cider and the beer range was expanded upon across a keg range that eschewed the usual national brands. I tried the Dark Mild, which was outstanding and the Motueka which was also very good and seemed very popular with the locals. Boards above the bar detail some of the drinks options with some creative arty images to illustrate them, whilst a board to the side of the bar lists all of the ales, complete with tasting notes. The service was excellent and the barman who poured my second pint was a friendly chatty bloke, up for a bit of banter with his customers. The pub is bare boarded, with a simple, single room interior and the servery running along the back wall. the front doors have stained glass with the pub's logo in them, which is a nice touch. The dark wood servery is notable for the vast collection of pump clips that are suspended from above and the beer credentials are added to by a large stack of CAMRA magazines from around the country which are piled up on a shelf to the right of the bar. There is an open space directly opposite the servery, broken up by a couple of brick pillars surrounded by drinking shelves (one of which has an old punch-card clock on it) and high stools. The majority of the seating options are arranged around the perimeter of the room, mostly comprising standard tables and chairs and the odd pew. The right hand side of the room displays a lot of rugby memorabilia - a nod to the former landlord's passion for the game and the fact that ex-England and Fylde RFC star Bill Beaumont is a frequent customer. Elsewhere there are nice bits of breweriana on display, book shelves, lifeboat memorabilia, a dartboard and a jug collection. There is apparently a small yard to the rear of the pub, amusingly known as the 'Yard of Ale', although I didn't get a chance to see it. I really loved this pub and thought it was the sort of place you could happily lose several hours in - had I not needed to catch a bus back to Blackpool, I would've probably stayed until closing time. This is easily the best pub in Lytham, from the warm, welcoming atmosphere to the great beer, it wins hands down, and it makes a good case for being regarded the best pub on the Fylde peninsula.

In the wealthy seaside resort of Lytham, in a side street inland from the green and the much photographed windmill, is The Taps, arguably one of the best known pubs in the Fylde region of Lancashire. It’s a rather uninspiring looking red brick building which, according to my Lancashire’s Historic Pubs book, was previously several cottages which housed ostlers employed at the nearby Clifton Arms Hotel, a former coaching inn. As we enter The Taps, we see, high up on the whitewashed, plastered wall immediately in front us, the inscription “ Welcome to The Taps – The Theatre of Ales”. The interior consists of one largish, bare boarded, rectangular, open plan single room with traditional wooden tables and chairs around the perimeter. Several brick pillars break up the interior and, with ledges for drinks and high bar stools for perching, provide much needed additional seating. There’s much exposed brickwork and something of a rather blokeish, ale house atmosphere. One particular area of the pub, by the fireplace, has a collection of rugby memorabilia, including framed programmes, a Fylde R F C rugby shirt and a framed painting of Billy Beaumont, the former England captain, who is apparently a regular here. At the opposite end of the pub, a corner is devoted to the RNLI, with a number of framed photos and prints relating to the local lifeboat station and the various crews over the years. In summary, it’s a rather unremarkable, no nonsense, functional interior, but the RNLI and rugby memorabilia provide some interest and focus for the passing visitor. It’s a music free zone, but there are several small TV’s dotted about ( for rugby only ?) and a dartboard. The Taps is a Greene King owned pub, but branding is discreet and it is clear that, to all intents and purposes, the pub is effectively run as a free house. There’s a strong commitment to real ale and blackboards above the bar servery detail what’s currently on which, on my recent November visit, included Bank Top Flat Cap, Robinsons Dizzy Blonde, Welbeck Abbey Red Feather, Pendle Witches Brew and Butcombe Haka. Titanic Taps Bitter is brewed specially for the pub by Titanic Brewery in Stoke. Greene King were represented by the ubiquitous IPA, plus XX Mild. Also on was a brew called Trial Brew No 1, which, if my memory serves me correctly, was also a Greene King beer, in this case a Porter. There’s 11 pumps in total, including one for cider. At the time of my visit, a blackboard by the bar told us that 851 beers in total had been sold in 2013 to date. The pub is a CAMRA Good Beer Guide regular, has won numerous local branch awards and has twice reached the last 4 of the CAMRA National POTY competition. Well worth seeking out when in the region

Visited again (June 2012) after a couple of years. My review below still stands. Great pub, Great Beer !!!