Castle Inn, Bakewell

Recent visits have been a let down after my enthusiastic review of 2017. There are still multiple hand pumps but just GK IPA and Abbot available. My pint of Abbot was as good as it gets but £5:40 is not a price I'm enthusiastic about paying. I was the only customer at just gone 11am, but there was plenty of intrusive background music to keep me entertained.

I suspect this pub has been altered since the last review in 2017, but I found it very food-oriented, with the only drinking area as such being a small section around the bar with posing tables. It seemed to be popular with diners, however. Four cask beers on the bar, from which I had Abbot, which was in decent condition but rather pricey at £4.84.

After my disappointment at the Peacock, the Castle Inn was a breath of fresh air. This is a proper pub and the only one on my brief tour of five of Bakewell's pubs where I could identify the customers as locals rather than tourists. The pub's atmosphere was warm, both in terms of the temperature and the welcome I received. There's a real fire as well as radiators, and on the bar are six hand pumps (see photo). I went for the Greene King Abbot Reserve 6.5%, in celebration of finding a proper pub after the utter falsity of the previous one. The pub was busy, with among others a group of locals playing cards, another man reading the paper in the company of his dog, a retired greyhound, and a young family with their toddler occupying one of the bay windows. The staff were cheerful and friendly, and obviously enjoy working there and helping their customers have a good time. The pub furniture is traditional and well used, and I had to be careful to sit on my chair in just such a way that it did not wobble on the uneven stone flagged floor. The only downside to this pub, as far as I am concerned, is that the beer is nothing to write home about. Mine was in good condition but is not a very good beer; I don't often go in GK pubs for this reason, but I'm glad that I came here and would be happy to call in again next time I'm in Bakewell.