Queens Arms, Brixham

Located up quite a steep hill from the harbour area, it’s located in a residential area and is certainly not somewhere that you’d stumble across by accident, but it’s certainly worth making the effort to get here. It’s quite a prominent, street corner pub, and consists of one L-shaped room internally, as well as a small courtyard out the back. Décor wise it’s quite traditional with much exposed stonework on the walls, some sort of grey lino on the floor along with some wood strip near the bar counter. Elsewhere the walls were rough pale green plasterwork with green wood panelling down below. Various nautical bits and pieces were dotted about as befits it’s location, and these included red & green ship’s lanterns, navigation instruments, etc., as well as various nautical pictures. A bookshelf housed a selection of Good Beer Guides, whilst a shelf and display vase had a section of model vans and lorries. A small stone fireplace at the rea contained a wood burning stove and next to this was an interesting drawing of a steam engine, set in to a recess and covered in glass. Other transport related items included a cutaway picture of a Ford truck engine, with an accompanying note saying that is had been rescued from the old boardroom by someone who worked on the design team. Beers on tap were St. Austell’s Dawn, Salcombe Belgica, Brain’s Rev. James, Teignworthy Thirsty Blonde, South Hams Stumble Bee and Teignmouth Portside. Ciders seem to the main focus here though, and the extensive selection consisted of Lilley’s Bee Sting, Cherries & Berries, Pineapple and Apple & Pear, Sam’s Dry, Autumn Scrumpy and Traditional, Hunt’s Hazy Dazy, Barn Screecher, Wobbler, New King of Ciders and Bull Walloper as well as Hunt’s Andsome Bay and Cornish Rattler on keg. All in all, a truly top-notch pub, and well worth getting out of breath to track down.

Official site of Queens Arms - www.thequeensarmsbrixham.co.uk

Official site of Queens Arms - www.thequeensarmsbrixham.co.uk

You need to go out your way to find Brixhams only Good Beer Guide Pub (2022). A steep climb from where the bus drops you off. But it is worth it. L shaped room around a bar that extends into a covered outside drinking area. Allows fresh air loving punters to get served easily and smoking bar staff somewhere to sit. 3-4 cask ales on - and nothing wrong with an unusual St Austell Hybrid (Belgian IPA) - which untapped has down as "no longer in production" :-) More for the Cider Lovers - with at least half a dozen pump clips and dispensed from the cellar. Proper pub.

This is a brilliant and very traditional back street corner pub which since January has become a privately owned free house. The interior is one L shaped room with the L shaped wooden bar counter in the back right corner opposite the entrance, the right hand wall is exposed rustic stone with a small basic fire place in the middle, other walls are half wood panel with red patterned fabric bench seating and the floor is fully carpeted, the left wall has a very large three paned mirror, the back left wall has a large flat screen TV which was off during this visit and the back right wall round the corner of the L shaped room from the bar counter has a second small fire place with a dart board above, on the walls were several old photos and prints. In the back left corner is a door that leads out to a small enclosed court yard with a couple of tables and an outside men's toilet block which was quite open to the elements and a little cold on this particular day. Regular ales are currently St Austell Dartmoor Best Bitter and any beer from the local Hunters Brewery with up to four changing guest beers which on this occasion were Skinners Betty Stogs, Teignworthy Old Moggie, Otter Bitter and Bays Topsail. I tried the Dartmoor and Hunters Half Bore and found them to be very good in my opinion, the Best Bitter is £2 a pint which is very reasonable these days. Nice to see a free house supporting lots of local breweries especially Hunters which is hard to come by. An excellent traditional pub with an emphasis on real ales, but I did spy some cobs on the back of the bar. It is a little off the tourists beaten track, I became aware of this place while on holiday due to an article in the South Devon CAMRA branches news letter which I had picked up in another pub. I'm really glad that I made the effort to climb the hill and walk along the narrow back streets with no foot paths to find this place and I would definitely make the effort again, an actual hidden gem.