The Grafton Hotel, Worksop

The pub is well described by Alan below, and I must agree with OB's assessment too. There was a friendly welcome from staff and customers alike, and this felt like a great pub to be in - and that's before we'd even looked at the beers. There are now 11 hand pumps - two banks of five on the bar counters, facing and just around the corner, with a cider on the corner itself. Although this is the Grafton Brewery's tap, their beers do not dominate; there were interesting (i.e. never heard of before) breweries from Scotland to Cornwall represented at the time of our visit. Faced with such a range, it's difficult to know where to start, so we went for the house beers. Each hand pump has a description of the beers on a plastic-covered card leant up against it, and a small sealed jar of a sample to give an idea of colour. Tasters are enthusiastically offered, but we just decided to jump right in. I had the two 5% beers - Dark Lady, an aniseed flavoured porter, and Black Abbots, another porter with strong roasted barley in the after taste. Both were just £1.80 a pint, and that's before taking off the 10p Camra members' discount. The aniseed was a novelty and I wouldn't want to drink that regularly, but the Abbots had me thinking I'd died and gone to heaven - and I'm a lifelong atheist. Later we tried Holly Green, a winter warmer from Lincoln Green Brewery of Nottingham, which was also very good. Landlady Susan Hale told us that they get a lot of their guest beers fairly cheap because people who know them pick up a barrel if they happen to be passing. Their own beers are from recipes that she devises herself, with husband Richard doing the brewing. They test the beers on the lucky punters in this pub before making them available elsewhere. Worksop is a half hour train ride from Sheffield where I live, but this is going to be one that I'll be coming back to again and again.

My favourite of the Worksop pubs I visited on a short pub crawl, décor is as described by Alan W and the atmosphere is welcoming and friendly. It is the brewery tap for Grafton. There is a good choice of well kept beers including on my visit, two from the Grafton brewery itself, the legendary Sarah Hughes Ruby Mild and a couple from the excellent Blue Monkey Brewery.