The Hoops Inn, Bideford

This to my mind one of those places where it's difficult to say if it is a hotel with a public bar or a pub that does meals and accommodation. Nevertheless, it is set in a nice part of the South West and the beers were mostly on hand pumps and locally sourced,

Lovely traditional looking pub as decribed below.Excellent food and service.4 handpumps with local beer from Country Life,Forge,St Austell and a good pint of Ring o Bells -Dreckly.Lovely gardens with seating.Bit of a gem imo.

Rambling old hotel on main road, with several different areas largely concentrating on food but some, especially the back bar, retaining a pubby feel. Lotgs of beams, panelling, glass panels and brasses. Beers are rebadged (unable to determine source) and appear to be served through bogus barrels (which I haven't seen for many years). Method of dispense unclear; didn't taste too bad but probably under pressure. Mind the narrow entrance to the car park.

An attractive and extensive thatched pub, this has a number of different bars as well as an attractive courtyard garden at the rear. The main bar area has a very dark, almost black, parquet wood floor, plenty of beams on the low ceiling and canary yellow paintwork on the plastered walls, as well as some exposed stone walls. There are old brick fire-places at either end with wood burning stoves, and there were plenty of jugs, horse brasses and pictures dotted about. A small cubicle off of this bar housed just one four-seater table and this had a curtain on it to screen it off from the rest of the pub for some privacy! Beyond this and up a couple of steps was a slightly more formal room, perhaps more geared up for dining with carpeting and several shelves full of books. At the rear was another cosy and smaller bar with wood panelling on the walls, wooden pews, a tiled floor and it’s own small bar counter. This was completely full of dogs on a recent visit – three extremely large ones, and it’s not a very big room! There were extensive menus, both bar and restaurant versions with the mains being around the £9 - £13 mark if you dined from the bar option, or £15+ otherwise. We had the Thai Green Chicken Curry and found this to be a pleasant and enjoyable dish, and reasonable enough value at £10.95. There were also “2 for £10” early bird options available, although this was a very limited menu. Beers on tap were all their own and appeared to be keg rather than cask – Hoops Best, Hoops Bitter and Hoops Light. The solitary cider was Thatcher’s Gold. The staff were friendly and helpful, and all in all I felt this was a decent enough pub although it is perhaps somewhat more geared towards food than drinking.