The Garden House, Norwich

Norwich has to be one of the best cities in the UK for pubs. There are too many excellent hostelries to fit into a one-day crawl. On my Thursday evening visit to 6 pubs in the city I hadn't previously visited, I only found one that I really enjoyed. The Garden Gate was the one. Supping my half in the nearby Warwick Arms, I noticed that the Garden Gate is listed on the Real Ale Finder app. There seemed to be a huge selection of ales and ciders to choose from. However arriving at the Garden House, things didn't initially seem to look promising and I know from experience that you can't always trust apps such as Real Ale Finder and Untappd to be up-to-date with the current selection of beers. I was surprised to see a bouncer on the door. He asked me which match I wanted to see. To be honest, I hadn't even realised there was any football on and I replied "none of them". As it was, I ended up in the rear room showing Manchester United. The front room was showing Tottenham. Approaching the bar, I could see only 2 handpulls clipped with Brain's SA & Bread Of Heaven. I asked the young barmaid if there were any more and she said we have Bass in the rear bar too. I enquired about the beer I'd fancied from the app (Saltaire Move In Herds) and she pointed out a large number of casks lined up against a wall, with even more boxes of cider. In fact, there was a staggering 15 cask ales and 28 bag-in-the-box ciders. The app had been correct after all and the Saltaire beer I was after was actually on a second handpull alongside the Bass in the rear bar. Those on stillage were Saltaire Plums In Tums & Cascade, Tiny Rebel Five Dollar Shake & Stay Puft, Mauldon's Magpie, RedWillow Vatted Porter & Wreckless, Grain Winter Ash, Wildcraft Bill Hiccup, Purple Moose Elderflower Ale & Brain's Boudicca. Ciders were Celtic Marches Thundering Molly, Lily The Pink & Tutti Frutti, Cockeyed Cock Bird, Lilley's Passion Fruit Martini, Pina Colada, Pineapple Cider, Raspberry Mojito, Elderflower Cider, Santa Cider Cheeky Pig, Crazy Ghost, Cherries & Berries, Bee Sting Perry, Mango Zero & Apples & Pears, Gwynt y Ddraig Farmer's Pride, Two Trees Perry, Celtic Warrior, Dog Dancer, Farmhouse Scrumpy, Black Dragon, Welsh Warrior & Happy Daze, Snail's Bank Very Perry & Orchard Dry, Pulp Cosmo & Thistly Cross Whisky Cask. Despite the excellent beer and cider selection (the Garden House can be found in the Good Beer Guide), this is very much a sports-oriented pub with multiple TVs and screens in each room and in the rear garden areas. There were Six Nations buntings in the rear room and a framed England rugby shirt on the wall, as well as a couple of St George's flags. There were also a couple of games machines. A separate room to the side had a pool table. Children are allowed in. On departing, I asked a barmaid if the pub had just had a beer festival or if this number of ales and ciders were normally available. She confirmed that the range of drinks was just normal. I then walked out and discovered it was actually a Craft Union pub. Well, if there is a better Craft Union pub than this one, I would be very surprised. I definitely need to get back here and if you want to watch televised sport in Norwich, it's the obvious choice.

Now here’s an odd one, it’s a Craft Union pub, a corner site and entering you have a counter with Brains and Rev James but the bar maid tells you “there’s something called Bass and Mauldon Silver Adder on in the other bar”, then you notice the racks of Lilley’s cider boxes (17) and a rack of 11 casks by the door. It looks like a Yorkshire based beer festival is coming, beers from Rudgate, Saltaire and Great Newsome were slowly cooking there. So two pulls in each bar with four beers on, usual stuff on T-bars. Fairly traditional pub with banquette seating at square wooden tables in the front public, mix of styles in the lounge, quite a few screens to be going on with. There’s a conservatory at the back that serves mainly as a games room, with pool and darts. It seems an odd choice to be in the GBG 2024, my Silver Adder was mediocre and the surrounding area suggests smooth and lager drinkers would be the main clientele, I suspect the number of beers may have had some influence.

Official site of The Garden House - www.craftunionpubs.com

Official site of The Garden House - www.craftunionpubs.com

This pub was the biggest disapointment of my stay In Norwich. My expectations were high having read Rays review below albeit that was more than eight years previous, there may be a couple of factors to this demise from that now far off time, Covid restrictions were still in place at the time of my visit added to the fact the previous night had been Englands victory in the semi-finals of the Euros and my early doors vist found the pub quite not back together, I was the first only punter present at this time of day, three TV screens around the pub had some rubbish 80s music channel on, thankfully on silent, the whole pub just had a disheveled aura about it. Just two beers were avaiable on handpump, Brains SA and Theakstons Old Peculiar, I had a pint of the latter which to be fair was in good form. Given my experience on the day it's only a 5/10 for me which is a shame as it looked very promising on my approach.