The Horse & Jockey, Whitchurch

Good Beer Guide listed pub situated on Shropshire's border with Cheshire. There appears to be a big focus on food here and we arrived late on a Sunday afternoon to find most people leaving. Staff were all young girls and the one serving us appeared to have a bit of an attitude. There are a couple of house beers on - Merlin Lord Blaze of Glory & Three Tuns Busby's Best Bitter. Guests were Acorn Drop Kick & Barnsley Bitter & Weetwood Best & Cheshire Cat. The cider was Aspall's. Inside, there is a large carpeted dining room off to the left-hand side of the entrance with a fireplace and pumpclips on the beams. The central bar area has bare boards apart from a tiled area adjacent to the bar. There are lots of supposedly humorous signs on the walls. A further room off to the right is much brighter than the other areas with many pictures on the walls. Background music was playing and board games are available to play. A few locals were watching football in the bar area on a laptop. Dog treats were available on the bar, despite the lack of any canine customers whilst we were there. Seemed a nice little pub, but the young bar staff seemed more intent on clearing up for closing time and it's all very much focused on dining. Nevertheless, an interesting beer range and therefore worth a try.

A large roadhouse which doesn't look too bad from the outside but seems to have been painted entirely in white inside which gives the whole place the feel of a conservatory. The menu on our weekday lunchtime visit offered unexciting standard pub grub lunchtime fare which none of the other, 3 or so, customers were tempted by. Surprisingly for a GK boozer the handpumps weren't overrun by the usual mood deadening offerings and on our visit the following were on:Three Tuns 1642 and XXX, GK IPA Gold, Stonehouse Sunlander and Woodlands Light Oak. This still left 3 unoccupied handpumps but everything we tried was decent and the XXX would've beaten a GK IPA anytime. Not a bad spot to stop for a pint if you happen to be passing.