Furnace Inn, Derby

Five Shiny beers and three guest on handpump on our PG crawl, plus a further five on keg from Shiny. I went for the Shiny Affinity cask beer which was excellent and with an ABV of 4.6% made this a good session beer, which had plenty of flavour. The interior of the pub was bright and spacious with a pine bar front and counter top. The original leaded windows featured some nice 1930's stained glass. The staff were friendly and helpful, my cheese and onion cob was superb, they also have a selection of Samosas on Mondays only.

Modern estate pub in an older building, its opened out with a games area in one corner. A lot of light pine fittings & traditional pub seating & well lit. Feels like one for the locals but saved by the beer quality & choice from Shiny.

Shiny brewery tap (the brewery is apparently out the back). Flat-front interior with a long servery and two seating areas either side. Feels a bit sparse and a little tired décor-wise, circa 1970s, but apparently has been recently refurbished - perhaps it was a deliberate strategy? Anyway it’s comfy enough and at least was clean and tidy. Cobs, board games and darts available. Apparently there’s a large rear garden but I didn’t get that far. Eight ales, mainly from the aforementioned Shiny, plus guests from the likes of from Magic Rock, Kent and Mallinson - an impressive selection of the better micros. I resisted the temptation to flirt with the guests and plumped for Shiny Affinity and was rewarded with a pretty impressive half, though the Magic Rock a companion had looked pretty hazy. Pleased to see a little card at the front of each one denoting its colour status. Also a couple of proper ciders on. 20p CAMRA discount offered. A decent little place. 7.5

A former Derby POTY I can appreciate why from the range of Craft and Cask ales available but this one didn’t really grab me. One main internal room space which was fairly utilitarian in set up. A large tiled central main bar area and then carpeted areas with seating to either side. From what I could see four craft Keg beers were on priced by the half with an average price of £2 and then 8 real ales on the pumps with five coming from the Shiny Brewery and then Kent Citra, Magic rock The Great Alphonso and Mallinsons SPA also available. The Kent Citra was on good form at £3.20 a pint, and although this is a pub certainly worth visiting for the beer its not one I felt overly comfortable in to linger long.

From the outside a standard back street pub,but once you enter the open plan interior you realise that real ale is the name of the game.It's home to the Shiny brewery and besides several of their brews there are a few guest ales, all ales helpfully noted on a board near the bar.The interior is a bit sparse,with bare floor boards and white walls but on the right is a darts board.There were few customers in until the PuG crawl barrelled in,but this was early Friday afternoon. The eight handpumps are split either side of a pillar and there were also 4 craft keg taps.Real ale choice from Shiny was Affinity (impressive),Silver Man,New Moon,4 Wood and Sorachi Dark while the guests were Great Heck The Great Alphonso(tasted fine despite being cloudy),Mallinsons SPA,and Kent Brewery Citra. It may not have an interesting interior,but that ale line up would make this a must visit in my book.I would have happily stayed longer were I not on a crawl.

Although in a rather unpromising housing estate location, this busy local has now turned into the local Camra Pub of The Year. The interior has been partly opened out and refurbished with simple but attractive furniture and decor. Dart board in use. Cobs available at £1.50. Seven of the eight handpumps were on when I visited, with real ales including the Shiny Brewing 4 Wood (£2.70 less 20p Camra discount). Very good atmosphere, and well worth seeking out.

This pleasant riverside pub has recently been awarded the Derby CAMRA Pub of the Year award 2014, having transformed itself in the last couple of years from the bog-standard local's boozer described in Roger's review below, to a destination brew-pub and a must-do for anyone touring the city's finest alehouses. The pub has a fairly simple layout, with the servery running along the back wall, and a few seating area opposite and to either side. You enter to a tiled floor area with a blackboard listing all of the ale options immediately to your right. Fake dark wood beams across a white ceiling create something of a traditional feel, augmented by the usual black and white photos of local scenes. To the left is a carpeted seating area with a red and white colour scheme for the walls and some long banquettes and low stools providing decent seating options. A filigreed metalwork screen partially obscures this area from the main bar, although I was able to spot a TV screen from where I was stood, which was turned off on this occasion. Opposite the bar, there is a smaller seating area with one curved banquette and lots of low stools, and beyond this is a public bar type space which has bench and low stool seating, plus a dartboard and a makeshift bar under the front windows. The bar had seemingly been set up for a 'Shiny vs. Brodies' beer festival, which saw a range of the on-site Shiny Brewery's beers available at the bar and around six to eight Brodies beers on stilage and via hand pump from the temporary bar. The Shiny contenders were Relic Bitter, Bank Vault, Coin Flip, Keyworth, Asylum, Award and Furnace 666, whilst a final handpull offered a guest option of Ashover Coffin Lane Stout. There were four Brodies keg beers on the main bar and of those on the makeshift bar, I noted Kiwi and Shoreditch Sunshine. A CAMRA discount was available and the crowd mostly seemed to be beer tourists, although this may have been because the National Winter Ales festival was coming to a close in the city that weekend. I tried a pint of the Bank Vault, which was a half decent pale ale. It's great to hear about good news story pubs like this that have turned their fortunes around and are going from strength to strength. The pub probably lacks the wide appeal of some other city centre alehouses, but it's a well set up, innovative enterprise that I'm sure will continue to thrive.