The Twisted Lip, Middlesbrough

This one has been well described below. The commonest misconception with micropubs is that the premises can be "too large" to be a micropub. The original few are very small single rooms but there is nothing to say that they all have to be like that. Of course the disadvantage of a larger one is that on quieter nights all the extra space is wasted. this was certainly the case on my Tuesday night visit here when this was the only one of the cluster of five micropubs with no music and no TVs so no guideline infringements. It's certainly the only one I've been to with several rooms. However, the candlelit tables included a wine list, not something I've seen before in a micropub. The five hand pumps here had two ciders, Sonnet 43 Aurora & Abduction and Titanic Plum Porter. I went for the Titanic beer (£3.20) which was in good nick. The keg offerings here looked more interesting than the others and included Jaipur but at £4.60 I passed on it. This is certainly an unusual and interesting micropub.

Located in the middle of the Baker Street cultural quarter, the Twisted Lip was initially touted as a micro pub, but my recent visit found a very unusual multiple room pub set in two knocked through terraced properties. You enter into a small hallway with a staircase opposite and rooms to either side. The main bar is through the right hand door in a bare boarded room with a red and grey paint scheme. The bar is located in the rear right corner and has a short dark wood servery and bare brick bar back with a drinking shelf on the wall opposite. The majority of the room's seating options are to the front, under the large bay window, in the form of standard tables and chairs. There is a nice tiled fireplace on the end wall, lots of taxidermy throughout and various cabinets and shelves full of all sorts of retro items such as old sewing machines and radios. Past the bar, there is a tiny snug with some fixed bench seating, bare brick walls and a large Lyons Tea sign, as well as access to a garden which I didn't explore. On the other side of the hallway you'll find a compact lounge, also bare boarded and with more standard tables and chars, plus another tiled fireplace, more taxidermy and an old typewriter on a table. It's a cosy spot and worth bagging a seat in if you want to be away from the busier bar area. The stairs lead up to the gents toilet on the landing area and then on again to two more knocked through rooms. The right side has a second bar with no cask ale and a bit of limited seating partly obscured by some wooden pillars, whilst to the left there was a full-on disco going on in a room decorated with murals of Amy Winehouse and the like. A DJ was set up in a booth to the rear and plenty of punters were having a dance, with the seating restricted to the perimeter of the room. The pub was packed, with no free seats in any of the rooms when I visited on a Saturday evening, and there was a very lively atmosphere and good mix of customers. On the downstairs bar I noted three ales - Firkin Pale and Blackout and Maxim Double Maxim - as well as two ciders and keg beers from Brooklyn, Cameron's, Camden and Thornbridge. The Pale Ale was £3.20 for a pint and in fine condition and I enjoyed drinking it whilst exploring the various rooms, before settling down back in the main bar and admiring the very creative Halloween pumpkins on display. I thought this was a great little pub that really captures the spirit of Baker Street. I don't think it can really be described as a micro pub, certainly not in physical terms, but it very much encapsulates a lot of the principals of that movement, offering compact drinking spaces where conversation can flourish over well kept pints of local ale. The fact that it can alternate between this and a lively weekend venue shows good versatility and I think it was the most enjoyable pub I found during my weekend in Middlesbrough.