Apple & Parrot, Torquay

This is an interesting high street cider pub owned by a small pub company called the Life Style Group. The layout of the interior is a little strange but I will try to describe it as best I can, on entering the pub you will find a small public bar area on the right, a long narrow lounge on the left and up a half dozen steps directly opposite the entrance is a small sports bar. The public bar has a small bar counter across the back of the room with a large bird cage built into the right hand wall at the end of the bar, this contains the pubs pet parrot, Jack! In the middle of the same wall is a small coal fire place, there are a couple of tables and some old photos on the walls. The lounge runs from the front to the back of the building, it has sofas and a large projector screen at the front and a piano and a few tables at the back. The sports bar has a small bar counter on the right which backs onto the counter in the other public bar, a central pool table, dart board, two flat screen TV’s and dried hop plants hanging from the ceiling. I don’t normally comment on pubs toilets but these gents deserve a special mention as the walls were plastered with pictures of girls ripped from various lads mags such as Nuts, Zoo, FHM and Loaded, very classy! Regular ales are Courage Directors, Bays Gold and Bays Devon Dumpling. But this is primarily a cider bar which regularly serves Cheddar Valley, Weston’s Old Rosie, Thatcher’s Gold, Thatcher’s Pear, Healey’s Cornish Rattler and Healey’s Pear Rattler. The place has a nice mix of traditional and modern that actually works for a change and the pub certainly has some character. Not somewhere that I would take the wife and kids but despite the seedy gents toilets I felt comfortable and I liked it in here. I’m not really a big cider drinker so I only tried the ales which were in decent enough condition. Bit of a blokes pub, I would return for a quick drink with friends.