The Alexandra Hotel, Derby

Excellent pub, great beer selection and wonderful railwayana. For an afternoon out with old friends it's the perfect venue with nothing to dislike, other than perhaps the roadworks outside!

Pleasant two bar pub close to Derby station. The entrance porch has a door to the left for the Public Bar and another to the right for the Lounge Bar. I tried the Lounge and found a part carpet, part bare boarded room with padded bench seating around the perimeter and a small servery next to the entrance. The bar has a nice dark wood counter with matching bar back and gantry, plus a bell to one side for attracting attention should the barman be in the other bar. The beer board has been hung from the front wall, which means it is very easily missed and keg beer was listed alongside the cask options, so it seemed very easy to make a mistake when ordering from it. There are some nice leaded windows to the front and in the porch area, whilst the room has been decorated with some excellent old brewery posters, mirrors, beer trays, beer mats and a very large, illuminated Home Ales sign. By far the most striking feature though, was a real, live rabbit complete with hutch and run, which occupied most of the rear part of the room - I know I was at the end of four very long days in the field, but I swear I wasn’t hallucinating and there was an actual rabbit running around the lounge. After that, the Public Bar could only disappoint, despite being slightly bigger and offering similar bench and low stool seating options. The room has been decorated with some great old railway memorabilia, which I didn’t have enough time to properly browse through. The beer boards were a little tricky to navigate, but I think there were somewhere in the region of 8-10 cask ales, mainly from breweries such as Castle Rock, Nene Valley and Pentrich. I tried the Nene Valley Hop Stash (£4.00), which was in decent condition. The pub was very peaceful on my Monday afternoon visit, with just a small handful of other punters slowly coming and going, all seemingly unfazed by the whole rabbit thing. This is a really good pub, probably overlooked a little due to its proximity to the classic Brunswick Inn, although these two do make one hell of a double header and a great introduction to Derby’s pub scene for anyone fresh off the train. I liked this one a lot and could’ve stayed much longer had I not needed to leave for my train.

Just before an obligatory visit to the nearby Brunswick and a return visit to the Victoria Inn, our party of 10 decided to drop in at the Alexandra. For some reason, the Alexandra doesn't seem as popular as the Brunswick. But I'd forgotten how good this pub actually is. The real ale selection is good, there are real ciders, bar snacks are nice, the welcome is warm and it is a cosy, well-run pub. As a Castle Rock pub, Harvest Pale is a regular. Also on from that brewery were Our House, Preservation & Steal My Sunshine. However, there were a few guests too - Abbeydale Menelaus, North Riding Walnut Porter, Wilde Child Uncontrollable Occurrence & Torrside Technical Sunset. Ciders were Lilley's Lemon & Lime and Snail's Bank Biscoff Cider. Both the Walnut Porter and the Biscoff Cider were very enjoyable. On reflection, I think this is my favourite pub in Derby.

Very obviously a railway-themed pub - there's an old Network SouthEast digital clock hanging from the ceiling, the stools are covered in a grey moquette I remember from train journeys many years ago and there's any number of old station signs around the place. The bar supports multiple pumps, from which I selected a Coffee Porter from Pentrich. This was as reasonable as most of their beers. Definitely a better "station" pub than most. If you're visiting Derby for the ale, you'll probably have it on your list as an easy stop to or from the station, and rightly so.