The Jolly Coopers, Epsom

Home of the Fuzzchat Brewery, who I'd previously not heard of. Their 4.7% Bracken Pale Ale was among the 5 well chosen cask ales on the bar, which also featured Surrey Hills Ranmore and one from Thornbridge. Admittedly, the home brew could have been served with a bit more love, and to slightly nearer the brim, but it did the job on a hot afternoon. There's a bit of parking and some seating to the front of the pub, while, out the back, the beer garden is sheltered and smartly paved, though suffers from a noisy fan outlet out of the kitchen. It nevertheless served as a fine place to sup my pint and consider the trek back to the station.

The Jolly Coopers was finally a pub that offered both a warm welcome and a decent selection of ales, a combination that seems to be increasingly difficult to attain. There is plenty of seating available at the front of the pub, including a marquee need the roadside. I assume what would have been the car park has been used for this seating. I also believe that there is a further outdoor garden area at the rear. 5 ales were on - Surrey Hills Ranmore is the regular ale. Guests were Oakham JHB, Portobello Star, Long Man American IPA & Fuzzchat Lane End. We both tried the Fuzzchat beer, as it would have been rude not to. This place has a quiet residential location, a warm welcome, a proper pub atmosphere (despite only outdoor seating currently permitted) and a good ale range. Best pub of the day.

A short walk out of town, not too far from the train station, this is a nicely modernised local’s pub set in a smart Common-side residential area. You enter directly into the main bar with the servery along the rear wall, opposite the front door. The bar area is carpeted and has limited tables and chairs along the front wall and in a small, open space to the left. The bar has a square ended dark wood counter and a simple bar back, with hundreds of pump clips adorning the surrounding wall space. Décor elsewhere is a little muted, with a few framed pictures and a string of fairy lights struggling to liven up plain painted walls. Through to the right there is a restaurant area where you are expected to wait to be seated, although on a weekend afternoon where the bar was packed but the restaurant was all but empty, we just plonked ourselves on the nearest table and protested our innocence when a waiter tried to take our order! The restaurant has a nice herringbone floor with a darker paint scheme, banquette seating down the right-hand wall and nice padded chairs elsewhere. A large plain mirror dominates one wall and has a small stove in a fireplace next to it, whilst retro advertisements and abstract art fills up the wall space elsewhere. Pop tunes were playing quietly in the background and a door to the rear leads out to a beer garden which also contains the pub’s own brewery, ‘Fuzzchat’. Five handpulls on the bar gave us a choice of Cronx Kotchin, Red Willow Headless, Surrey Hills Ranmore, Park Secret Sunrise and Fuzzchat Westhill. Unfortunately, it was only after I ordered the Headless that I discovered that the Fuzzchat was a home brew, so I wasn’t able to sample it. The pint I ended up with was thankfully in good condition and went down well after a long walk around the common. There was a great atmosphere in the main bar area and the locals all seemed really friendly, offering us a cheery welcome as we entered. This place definitely has more of a food-led feel to it than I had anticipated, but I think it has been handled pretty well by creating two very distinctly separate areas, one of which is a lively bar area. I’d say this place is worth heading out of town to check out and definitely makes a nice start/finish point if you’re walking around the common.

Set back in one of those areas where suburbia meets the country, this is an old pub with a fairly modern interior. The long front room holds the bar, with a restaurant area in the side building. At the back is a large patio area, but more importantly the Fuzzchat Brewery is housed in an outbuilding. Draught beers were from Surrey Hills, Pilgrim, Thornbridge and Hop Back, as well as one of their own brews, which was dark and delicious. Worth seeking out.

Smashing little pub and very appealing looking from outside.Small bar(busy) and larger dining area(empty).Warm and cosy.Cask beers were Black Sheep-Baa Baa,Surrey Hills -Ranmore and 2 from Fuzzchat brewery who will be brewing in the basement sometime soon.Liked this one.

Official site of The Jolly Coopers - jollycoopers.co.uk

Official site of The Jolly Coopers - jollycoopers.co.uk