The Four Horsemen, Bournemouth

The Four Horsemen doesn't look too promising from the outside and it's quite dark and moody inside. There is a single room with the bar to the rear left side. There were no other customers when we arrived and none when we left. One guy did come in, waited around 5 minutes for service and then gave up and left again. In fairness, the barmaid dressed all in pink was quite friendly and accommodating. She had just left the bar for a while to sort out some stock when the other customer had turned up. Live music looks to be a bit of a theme here. There are plenty of events promoted. Although, I'd imagine it could be a fairly intimate environment during a busy music night. Beers are all keg. The choice for our visit was Beavertown Neck Oil, Tiny Rebel Electric Boogaloo & Hazelnut Cracker, Vault City Strawberry Sundae, Boscombe Brown Ale & Piddle Coal Porter. My Hazelnut Cracker was quite enjoyable and we rounded a visit off with some shots. The pub has quite an extensive spirit selection. For cask ales or a more traditional pub experience, there are other options in Bournemouth. But this one is a bit more alternative and is still worth a visit.

A craft bar with a not particularly pleasant Green and Purple colour scheme, a single long room narrowing as it reaches the bar to the rear. a mix of high and normal seating. There are sixteen keg taps with a mix of craft ,premium lager and normal keg stuff also bottles and cans available and a wide range of spirits. Certainly one of the better places in the poor pub town of Bournemouth but in the bigger picture nothing particularly special.

Originally The Bakers Arms, this single-width Victorian terraced house has a ground floor bar, well described below, and a basement bar which serves as a function room; the bar counter in the latter only opens when functions or live music or DJ acts are in progress. Three gravity fed casks behind the bar, a selection of European and British beers and two ciders on draft. Food is the down-market burger style, not expensive and fine for a quick lunch or early dinner. The drinks were well kept, though the draught drinks were a bit too cold. Staff were pleasant, the customers a very mixed bag. It's a good place to include in a crawl and makes a useful day-time bolthole.

The big new noise on the Bournemouth pub scene (‘scene’ being a pretty flexible term here). It’s a fairly small main room with some additional (unexplored) downstairs seating. Mix of ledge, high table and sofa seating. Framed invertebrates on the walls plus a large snake skin. Busy and buzzy on our late evening visit, with students and hipsters making up a large chunk of the clientele. And well they might, as live music and DJ nights were heavily advertised. The bar area is at the far end, hosting four stillaged barrels with two ales actually on, Harbour IPA and Otley Oxymoron which both drank well (usually stillage in pubs = trouble). Also loads of upscale keg and bottle options. I quite liked this one and in a town as dull for pubs as Bournemouth, it’s well-worth checking out.

Formerly the Bakers Arms, this pub in Bournemouth's Triangle, at the top of the main shopping area, has rebranded itself as a craft beer outlet - the town's first foray into this expanding market. It's a surprisingly small affair, with a simple ground floor layout which sees the servery tucked away in the rear left corner. Large folding windows were open during our unseasonably warm November afternoon visit, allowing those sat in the standard seats to the front a good opportunity for people watching. Elsewhere, high stools and drinking ledges make up the alternative seating options. The walls have been painted white except for some bare brick sections and the place doesn't yet have that 'lived in' feel that new pubs take a while to acquire. The décor is pretty eclectic and included an awful lot of gig posters (live music is a regular feature here), one of BB King's guitars, framed and surrounded with ticket stubs for shows he played in Bournemouth, some large deer heads, framed insects, bats etc... and a huge snakeskin. There is a function room upstairs which I didn't explore, although I assume it is where the live bands would play, as the ground floor is too compact. A decent soundtrack played throughout our stay and covered a range of music from various eras. There were four casks racked on stilage to the side of the bar, but four of these were unlabelled and one of them (Hop Studio Prototype 1) was off, leaving Waen Brewery Landmark as the sole option. This was quite a strong brew which I didn't fancy tackling so early in the day, so I turned to the keg range which included beers from national producers like Brewdog and local micros such as Sunny Republic as well as a couple of ciders. The Sunny Republic Beach Blonde was fine but posed the usual problems faced when switching from drinking cask to keg. The barmaid was friendly enough and helped us decide what to try, whilst the clientele was mixed, including a young alternative crowd, football fans and a few old blokes probably wondering what the hell had happened to their pub. Hot food is available from a burger-led menu. This is an interesting venture into the world of craft beer in a town and county not particularly receptive to trying anything other than Ringwood and Badger beer. I'm not sure the location is ideal for attracting passing trade, but I suppose the premises is fairly small, so they don't want to get swamped. I hope the place beds in well and that the locals take to the place as it has the potential to make a decent double-header with the nearby Goat and Tricycle, but for now it's still a work in progress.