The Red Lion, Cromer

Almost a permanent beer festival in a pub at Cromer's Red Lion, with 14 handpumps lined up along the bar: the first 3 serving ciders and the rest local ales (albeit one clip was turned when I was in). It's Norfolk CAMRA's pub of the year you may not be surprised to hear and what a busy place it is. Internally you have a bare boarded though cosy drinking area with a second room devoted to dining. Ale and cider are in the main bar, and you have to go round the corner to find a fairly mainstream keg selection (cask is where it's at here). The pour lacked a little finesse and the top of the glass lacked a little beer first time around, but these drawbacks didn't stop me returning for a second pint - there's no problem with the quality and the £5 pint seems reasonable these days.

Facebook page of The Red Lion - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of The Red Lion - www.facebook.com

The Red Lion has been well described below. It was certainly the best of 6 pubs we tried in Norfolk on a Monday afternoon and seemingly the best pub in Cromer. As you enter at the street corner, you a greeted by a large number of pumpclips. 8 ales were on - Green Jack Summer Dream, Mahseer IPA & Trawlerboys Best Bitter, Grain ThreeOneSix, Lacon's Legacy, Woodforde's Head Cracker, Moon Gazer Jumper & Mr Winter's Vanilla Latte. In addition, there were 6 ciders - Abrahall's Lily the Pink, Snail's Bank Orchard Dry & Rhubarb Cider, Lilley's Crazy Goat & Apples and Pears & Weston's Rosie's Pig Strawberry Cider. I was instantly drawn to the far pumpclip, which was the Vanilla Latte, with Mrs S also selecting quickly. The friendly barman remarked that it made a refreshing change for customers to come in and know exactly what they wanted! A fine traditional pub which is well worth a visit.

This is an iconic pub and fourteen room hotel set slightly back from the seafront in the centre of Cromer. You enter into what appears to once have been a corridor but is now opened out to form part of the dining room in the left-hand portion of this building. The effect of this opening out is that the dining room now has direct bar access, whereas presumably in the past, the corridor would have been a legitimate drinking space in its own right. The dining room is full of formally set tables and provides a nice carpeted area within which to enjoy a meal and admire the fine views out to the pier from the large front windows. There is a nice stonework feature wall to the left and the corridor area retains its excellent Victorian tiled flooring which is very colourful and vividly decorative. You can follow the corridor past the hotel reception and another smaller dining room with more pre-set tables but less of a homely atmosphere, and on to the pub’s rear entrance. The main bar is in the front right part of the building and is a bare boarded room with the servery along the rear wall. The bar has a nice dark wood counter with a kink midway along its length, a glazed canopy decorated with childhood photos of the pub’s locals, and a traditional bar back. A fireplace and chimney breast splits the room in two and above the fireplace there was a large blackboard which lists some wacky facts about Norfolk. Lots of interesting bric-a-brac fills the windows, which again look out to sea, and there is a big collection of pump clips on the end wall. The pub has a good selection of cask ales – perhaps the most you’ll find anywhere in town – with options on this occasion comprising Lacons Encore and Legacy, Shortts Blondie, The Cure, Indie and Skiffle, Humpty Dumpty Lemon & Ginger, Jubilee Mild and Branch Line Bitter, Green Jack Masheer IPA and Lurcher Stout, Wolf Prairie Gold and two real ciders. My pint of the Encore was in great shape and served up by a very friendly barman, whilst my other half enjoyed a half of one of the ciders. We stopped here for some food and found the menu to be interesting, with good quality ingredients and creative options, although it may be judged a little pricy by normal pub-grub standards. I had no expectations about this pub, having not researched it in advance, but found it to be one of the best we encountered across several days on the North Norfolk coast. The interesting building, friendly staff, wide ale selection and quality food are all worth recommendation and I’d be straight back here were I to return to Cromer.