The Piper, Kettering

I popped into the Piper early on a recent midweek evening to find the left hand lounge / dining area empty and ten or so locals in the right-hand bar area. This area is open plan with banquettes around the exterior walls. A couple of locals were playing pool and the dartboard was unused. A jukebox on the wall was supplying some rock background music which helped make the bar feel less like a social club, but only a little. The bar counter supports four hand pumps and there are more in the other bar. Between them they were drawing Fullers London Pride and Oakham’s JHB alongside Westons Old Rosie and Rosie’s Pig ciders. Standard keg is also available from the governor who seemed a bit wary of a non-local, as was the pub dog that kept sniffing around like it was in the local plod. This isn’t somewhere I plan to revisit.

Official site of The Piper - www.thepiper.net

Official site of The Piper - www.thepiper.net

Located near Wicksteed Park, The Piper serves the local estate and is a rather unattractive pub as such. Called in on a Sunday afternoon. As you walk in there is two separate rooms. One for dining and one bar area. The food did smell lovely and I did enquire but the lady behind the bar was quite abrupt and said "You need to book in advance" to which I replied it was only for future reference. There were 5 hand pumps in the food area and another 4 in the bar. I had a Jeffrey Hudson Bitter at £3.80 which was nice. In the bar area there was a darts board, a pool table and rugby on a small TV. The decor is very dated. In the car park outside was two large gazebos with tables under them. Would happily return even with the rude service due to the large choice of real ale.

Called in while on a coAch trip round Northamptonshire pubs and enjoyed 2 beers from Potbelly brewery. They also had beers from Skinners, Castle Rock, Fullers and Anams

The pub is situated close to Wickstead Park. It serves real ales from the SIBA local delivery scheme, including local ales, does lunches, and sunday carvery