The Fat Cat, Ipswich

Real Ale available

A permanent beer festival type pub, or “Free Mouse” as it calls itself, about a mile and a quarter from the Tower Ramparts bus station, it's near the hospital so buses are frequent if you don't fancy a long publess walk uphill from the Dove or Lilly's Bar. A very basic drinking house, a disappointing two handpumps on the bar but you may have noticed some racked barrels in a side room as you entered. This so called Tap Room holds about 15 beers on gravity, details of which are naturally given on boards above the bar counter, all normally from smaller breweries including Kelham Island as it appears to be linked to the Sheffield and Norwich Fat Cats. The main bar is a large square room with one corner walled off to form the counter and tap room, painted in garish yellows and with red tongue and groove. To one side is a wide corridor room with benches, tables and chairs and at the back a shed like, flag floored but still a little posh, drinking / eating room. You may have take-away food delivered for consumption on the premises and the pub will provide cutlery and crockery as well as fine ale to wash down your curry, pizza or Chinese, this service is quite rightly not available Friday and Saturday nights. In addition the pub does pub-like food of its own. Décor is enamel brewery signs, mirrors and other beer advertising ephemera, the staff are great and the punters certainly not as CAMRA like as I expected considering its GBG listing and range of excellently kept beer. No dogs or children are allowed in.

In my opinion, this is the best pub in Ipswich, it has the edge on the Dove as both the staff and locals are really friendly and you get a real warm welcome when you walk in. It seems to look after its locals and has lots of events going on. There is a large selection of beers all gravity fed from an air conditioned Tap Room at the back of the bar. We had the most perfect pint of Oakham Inferno and all the other beers we tried were in top-top condition, why can't more pubs be like this, really focussed on providing a great service to its customers and really focussed on top quality beer at a reasonable price. If you like beer, you must try this place!