Redhouse, Newcastle Upon Tyne

A pub with a maze of different rooms to explore. On this visit, we stayed opposite one of the bars, not venturing into the other bar to see what was on in there. I had settled on Animal Crow. Other beers we saw were Great North Eastern Dunston Rocket, RedHouse Pale Ale & Chapter 3 Dead Man's Fist. I did enquire with the barmaid as to who brewed the RedHouse Pale Ale and much to my surprise, she did know the answer. But surprise, surprise, I cannot remember for the life of me. Certainly worth a visit if in the Quayside area.

set in a seriously olde worlde building, this is a maze of a pub with about a gazillion different areas that are a nightmare to navigate when you haven’t visited before. The place has a trendy studenty air once you actually find the main bar, with the pie and mash menu proving very popular on a Wednesday evening. Good choice of six ales. Overall it’s worth a visit as it’s certainly an interesting place to enjoy a pint.

This is a very unusual pub spanning two different Grade II listed properties with a covered alleyway in between. Entering to the right hand bar, we find a stone floored room with the servery running along the right hand wall. Some high stool seating is available opposite, along a drinking ledge, some standard tables stand under the front windows and there is a booth of sorts at the far end of the bar with nice banquettes. The servery has pump clips along the bar back and a barrel end on the canopy advertising the drinks range. Some steps at the rear lead up into a passageway from where you can access a brick vaulted rear room with some barrels racked up at one end, comfy banquette seating and a couple of pillar capitals flanking the doorway. This area can be reserved for private functions and I found it quite a decent spot to relax with my pint. Turning left down the passageway leads you past the toilets (the gents contains an ancient looking iron fireplace) and out into the aforementioned alleyway, which has a cobblestone floor and is screened from the street by a large set of doors. On the other side of the alley is a rear seating area in a different property, which was very dark inside but offered a good mix of seating options. Further on, heading back towards the front of the building, you'll find the other bar, which has a counter on the rear wall and a small raised seating space with enough room for three or four tables under the front windows. The bar counter has some nice ceramic tiles inset into it and an unusual cabinet-style frontage. A good indie and rock soundtrack played throughout my visit although this was abruptly interrupted by a loud, unheralded fire alarm, which caused a bit of panic before being declared a false alarm. The beers in the two bars didn't quite match up, so you'll need to trek from one side to the other to see the full range, which on this visit was Durham Magna, Mordue Five Bridges, Tyne Bank Silver Dollar, Consett Red Dust, Moorhouse Bohemian Dark and a beer called Pale Face from the neighbouring Hop & Cleaver brewery. My pint of the Five Bridges was in excellent shape and I also enjoyed some food from the pie and mash menu. This is a very unusual pub and nothing like what I had expected to find. It has an enviable location in the shadow of the Tyne Bridge and seems a reliable spot for a good pint and honest pub grub. I'd like to return to explore this old building a bit more and feel it makes an excellent double header with the Hop & Cleaver next door.

It is difficult to know where to start with this place, a fascinated collection of two perhaps three old buildings which link together through inner corridors with two separate bars and even connecting with a different pub, albeit one under the same ownership I understand. The first bar in the red part of the building has a seemingly ancient brick floor, then it steps up a bit towards the rear, the floor becomes boarded and you end up in a barrel vaulted brick chamber with dummy casks on stillage down one end. A corridor branches out and takes you past the toilets to a tiled passage with a cobbled floor and with another bar leading off here. Some ceilings are beamed, some have lamps dangling in jam jars, one room has a full length wall of mini drawers that probably once contained some kind of indexing system. The food is centred on pie and mash, probably not as in the London style but described similarly with the choice of sauce being liquor. I saw a couple eating theirs which looked tempting but I had breakfasted only an hour or so earlier. The beers in the front bar were Pennine Brewery Hair of the Dog, Mordue Five Bridges, Hadrian and Border Tyneside Brown Ale, Tyne Bank Silver Dollar, Temptation Spring Wit Bier and Oakham Inferno. The other bar had yet further choices but I didn't appear to properly record these. There is so much going on in here it is tricky to adequately record it, you probably need an archivist, it is easier to say that it is a must visit pub, for the beer choice, the food, the atmosphere and the unusual old buildings.

Official site of Redhouse - www.theredhousencl.co.uk

A multi roomed pub with two bars that almost feels like two different pubs. Lots of nooks & crannies and loads of interesting stuff around the walls. The pub has been desribed below, so I won't bother. There were 6 ales available over the two bars on our visit, most of which appear to be changing guests. My pint was in good nick as was Ms CAMRA's half. We went and sat in the left hand bar. It was fairly busy in both bars on our Sunday early evening visit. We'll definitely call in here again.