The Romany Rye (JD Wetherspoon), Dereham

This is Dereham's branch of Wetherspoon's and from what I saw, it is the best pub Dereham has to offer. It has a real ale range superior to all others in the town and stocks real cider too. You enter into a nice lounge-like area which is well away from the bar and looked like a nice and peaceful area to enjoy a pint unless the pub is full. Up a few stairs, the main room is much darker and contains the bar itself at the rear. There is also an outdoor area off to the left. It was the usual JDW ales - Sharp's Doom Bar, Greene King Abbot & Ruddles Best, along with 4 guest ales - Nottingham Supreme, Burton Bridge Top Dog Stout, Rudgate Ruby Mild & Purity Ubu. It was nice to see a couple of dark beers. Although I plumped for the Supreme, as I'd not tried that one before. Weston's Old Rosie & Gwynt y Ddraig Black Dragon were the real ciders. We'd spotted some reduced price special meals on arriving. Now I know that the cow is a sacred animal in India, but my Beef Madras was just the ticket at £3.99. As usual, a few of the local characters were in, but not too many to create a disturbance. So, I quite enjoyed my visit here. I couldn't find any other (open) decent real ale pubs in Dereham. So, this is just the kind of town that benefits from a Wetherspoon's.

The Romany Rye is a JDW hotel named after a local bloke's book. His name was George Borrow and he was the damned fool who walked all over Wales instead of catching a bus like any normal person. Inside it's a roughly square split level room divided into different areas. It was doing a roaring trade with food on my Tuesday early afternoon visit. There are two sets of five hand pumps which had the JDW Trio Of Doom with the two GK beers doubled, Brecon Six Beacons, Purity UBU, Jenning's Clean Slate, Gadd's No 5 and Great Newsome Frothingham Best. I went for the Six Beacons (£2.15) which was only in reasonable nick. It's OK as a Spoon but it did seem very food-led.