The Tiger Inn, Beverley

My first visit to the Tiger Inn, which was on my list to do because it was in the Yorkshire edition of Camra's Real Heritage Pubs, which I've been ticking since 2017. The reason I didn't have a drink on my previous visit was because they had run out of beer! Anyway, it's changed hands since then... My first hint that something was wrong was seeing the hanging sign. No longer featuring, as you might expect, a picture of a Tiger, there was now a picture of the pub hanging outside the pub. The front door was open but a sign said that this was not the way in - this was over a week after the Covid restrictions were lifted, but they were still operating a one-way system. I went round the back, through the car park and the seating area at the back of the pub, turned left and went past the semi-open snug, and round the corner to approach the bar from the opposite end to the front door. The bar was protected by two big perspex screens that had the same picture of the building as the hanging sign outside. Almost immediately I got into a contretemps with the licensee about whether I had obeyed the one-way system and where I could sit. I was a hair's breadth away from just walking out, but I remembered the tick I had been waiting four years for, and I settled on one of the small seats against the front wall. The Timothy Taylor Landlord, when it came, was in very good nick - so, a plus point at last. I asked about ventilation, as the strong smell of fish indicated to me that it was not very effective, and good ventilation is the best way to avoid Covid-19 infection. The windows are all open already, I was informed. To be fair, he found the time to make me a non-apology - "We seem to have got off on the wrong foot" - and made an unaccustomed effort to make small talk. But he clearly wasn't used to beer drinkers. If I wasn't in a group of four to six people ordering loads of food and wine, he didn't know what to say to me. When I said something about how this used to be a nice pub, he came back with "this is what a food pub is like". I overheard some people at the campsite saying what a good pub this is, so clearly it still floats someone's boat. Maybe I should go back another time either in the afternoon or after 9:30pm. I might get a better reception.

Official site of The Tiger Inn - tigerinnbeverley.co.uk

Official site of The Tiger Inn - tigerinnbeverley.co.uk

A central entrance lobby has a restaurant through the middle door, a bar to the right and they're thoughtfully labelled. The restaurant actually is about three different rooms set up for eating. In the bar the pallet wood counter has five pulls of beers from small breweries mostly from someone called Gene Pool with Fuggle Bunny and Salamander providing one each. It's a narrow room with all tall seating either on a long bench or in small two seater low booths with a shelf on the wall side. Decorated with photographs of old Beverley it had a reasonably mixed clientele and the service was a bit "Yorkshire".

Located the ‘wrong way’ down Lairgate (as we discovered) and five minutes from the main town centre. This is a lovely unspoilt pub and a proper warren within. Enter to a porch with three doors; take the right to the main bar with aged carpet, wall banquette seating, TV sport, black and white pics of old Beverly pubs and Yorkshire dart board. The other two doors in the lobby lead to snugs and rear rooms, which on my visit held a well-attended folk band in one and an animated meeting of a local society in another (four rooms in total, I think). Six pumps in the main bar but, oddly for a Thursday night with its level of custom, only three on; Hobgoblin, TT Landlord (good nick) and Ossett Silver King (very good). The solitary barmaid was a bit brusque to start with but warmed up a bit – though given she seemed to be in charge of the entire place on her own, I can let her off. So overall, it’s a great pub but perhaps could be even better – three fairly mainstream (for the area) ales on a busy Thursday was the weak spot, even if they were in good nick.