The Rook Taproom, Brighton

In the spring of 2014 the local Brighton Bier brewery teamed up with the Late Knights brewery of Penge to open this venue in the former Prince Albert pub. It's a fairly simple side-street pub that has been given a degree of 'craft beer' makeover, but I found it still retained enough of a traditional pub feel without succumbing entirely in the way you might expect to see in London for example. The servery is on the right hand side, presumably unchanged from its Prince Albert days, with a shelved bar back displaying an 'Ales, Wines and Ciders' legend across the top. Limited seating options are available, although there is a decent side room with standard tables and chairs and strange short partitioning features down one side. This area in turn leads out to a garden which wasn't explored on this visit, although there are one or two tables out on the front pavement. The handpulls offered a 50/50 split of beers from the two founding breweries, with Brighton Bier The Grand and Thirty Three available alongside Late Knights Hop O' The Morning and Morning Glory. Four ciders were also available from handpull, which might help to explain the CAMRA certificate on the wall declaring them the Brighton Cider Pub of the Year for 2015. A strong keg range was available including beers from Oakham and other well respected micros. I thought this was the kind of pub that will draw people in for the beer but doesn't quite do enough to appeal to a wider crowd. The place seems popular with the student and hipster population and it's good to see two promising breweries coming together to showcase their beers. I'd include this as part of a crawl of the local area but can't envisage a longer session in here.

This recently renamed pub is a joint venture between two breweries: Brighton Bier Company and Penge-based Late Knights. There are 8 handpumps, 4 for cider and the remainder shared between the sponsors. Further ale is gravity dispensed from jacketed casks within the customer area - I'm really not sure how easy it'll be to pour a pint from the bottom barrel when the pub is busy (and I hope the ale keeps cool). The beer line-up is completed by Windsor & Eton Republika lager and a couple of anonymous fonts, labelled 'light' & 'dark'. The identity is revealed when the beer's finished; a blackboard lists the previous mystery beers. On my mid-afternoon visit, the customers were mainly supplied by the breweries, but they were all chatty and enthusiastic about the new pub. It won't take many people to fill the place up, as it's not a big room. Despite its proximity to the shopping mayhem of Western Road, Dean Street is sees few passers-by. Worth a look-in if you're doing some shopping and a worthwhile add-on to a visit to Craft up the hill.