The Black Jug, Horsham

Nice comfortable L-shaped room with chunky reustic furniture.

The Black Jug is the first pub you encounter when making your way from the train station towards the centre of town and the double gabled building is quite striking on approach. The pub has an opened out interior which runs around what is now an island servery. The decor is a mix between gastro-pub and gentrified boozer and I was immediately put in mind of the Brunning and Price chain, who I later found out are the owners of this place. The front and right hand side of the pub seem to be the best spots for drinkers to congregate, although seating here is notably more limited than in the larger left hand dining area or the bright rear space that was full of families on this late Sunday afternoon visit. There was the usual mishmash of paintings, maps, drawings, photos, certificates and the like that B&P seem to specialise in across the walls and a collection of board games was available in the rear room. We stopped off here for a bite to eat after a long walk around the surrounding countryside and the food was of a high standard whilst portion sizes were more than enough to satisfy the appetite we’d worked up. There were around five or six ales available and the one I sampled was in pretty good shape. Several other customers were trying the ales, so throughput looks to be pretty good, certainly by food-led pub standards. This is a pleasant enough pub with a decent enough ale range to merit a look, and it felt like one of Brunning and Price’s more ‘pubby’ outlets, although I did leave thinking that the place probably worked better for us because we happened to be eating here.