Exeter Arms, Derby

A street corner local close to a major road system,owned by Dancing Duck and showcasing many of their ales with some guests.The interior is charming and retains the original seperate rooms layout (snug to the left of entrance) and make sure you walk along the corridor to the gents to find a hidden away back room and an airpowered organ,sadly not in working order. The bar is to the right of the entrance with a welcoming fire opposite.Several of the interior tables had candles burning and this enhanced the atmosphere as did the discrete music.There was a very friendly welcome from behind the bar for the PuG crawlers,and we were told that the former whitewash was removed to reveal the traditional wooden finish to the walls.It's all very charming and relaxed. The seven handpumps were drawing a real cider,Pedigree ,Shiny Abbys and Dancing Duck Dark Drake(spot on ),Ay Up,Quack Addict and dcuk.This is a must visit on any Derby crawl,I would happily settle in here for a long session and this pub was ,for me,one of the highlights of an extensive pub crawl around the city centre.

This is Derby Camra's pub of the Year 2013, so I was interested to see what it was like. There are seven hand pumps, one with a cider, three with Dancing Duck beers, the others having Marstons Pedigree, Titannic Iceberg and a stout. I had the Dancing Duck Ay Up, which a punter at the bar described as "gorgeous" but I found to be too cold and lacking in both condition and flavour - my least impressive beer of the day, and I'd just come from the Bridge where I drank Bombardier! It was quite busy here at the time of my early evening visit, with most customers either eating or waiting for their food. This is an interesting building and has been refurbished with sensitive use of recycled materials including partitions and glass screens to break up the spaces. Pictures include various incarnations of HMS Exeter, and other décor, at least one fellow reviewer will be distressed to learn, included random twigs perched precariously on a rather nice old wall clock. There's a yard and a conservatory at the back, though not what I would call a beer garden.