The Watchmakers Arms, Hove

Opening daily at midday I had a few minute wait for the doors to open on Saturday just gone. This is a well-to-do area, and it was a the best day of the year for the weather, so I didn’t mind a bit of people watching. The Watchmakers Arms is a laminate floored single room shop converted micro with a front bay window and high benches up the side walls that face high tables and stools. Hops and a bit of ivy hang from the ceiling and there’s pub and watch ephemera on the walls, the décor has been done well. The short serving counter sits in the right rear corner in front of a glass doored temperature controlled ‘cellar’ which houses gravity fed casks. The five available local cask beers were Downlands Lost Weekend and Lucid Dream, Gun Brewery’s Chummy Bluster, Long Man’s Long Blonde and Only With Love Brewery’s Champion. I went for the Lost Weekend which was an OK stout. There were also a couple of craft keg options, but this place is really about the ale. Having just opened I was the only customer for the duration of my stay, but a couple of the tables had been reserved for early afternoon. The polite welcome and location by Hove Railway Station means that I’ll certainly be visiting again at some point.

Micropub with its own microbrewery set in a parade of shops just down from Hove railway station. The bar is set at the far end of the room, with a cool room behind it from where the ales and ciders are dispensed. A board to the left of the bar lists the real ales, ciders and craft beers. The pub was reasonably busy, but didn't quite have the friendly feel of most micropubs. In fact, a cluster of locals near the bar seemingly all had dogs which would bark and attack customers heading to the toilets. Although, I've seen bigger cats than the most agressive one! Ales on were Moor Old Freddy Walker, The Watchmakers Arms Bezel Best, Siren Liquid Mistress, Good Chemistry Sub Four & Arbor C Bomb. Ciders were SeaCider Medium & Hardcore, Ascension Unless You Think, Hallet's Heartbreaker, Gwatkin Yarlington Mill & Sandford Orchards Devon Red. Craft beers were UnBarred Stoutzilla & Pentrich Floor Pie. Probably the best pub Hove has to offer. I have many more to explore in the area. So, there's a good chance I'll return here one day.

Just a short way down the hill from Hove station, this is a very nice, welcoming micropub converted from the usual former shop unit. As such, it’s a typically narrow, bare boarded space with large shop windows to the front and rows of tables served by high stools and benches down either side of the room. There’s a small servery to the rear with a timber fronted counter and pump clip lined bar back, alongside some tankard strewn shelving to one side, whilst large quantities of hops hang from above. The room has been quite eclectically decorated, which helps give the place a lot more character than your average micro of this ilk. A bookcase to one side was stuffed full of old CAMRA Good Beer Guides and board games and the walls are covered with lots of unusual art prints and random bits of obscure breweriana as well as plenty of timekeeping themed bits and bobs, such as loads of old watches hanging from the ceiling, hinting at the shop’s former use. There are also some deer antlers being used as a cap rack and a boar’s head wearing a sombrero, which added a quirky, off-beat feel, contrasted by a popular Toad in the Hole table that some locals were loudly playing with great enthusiasm near the entrance. The room extends a short way past the bar, where a drinking ledge and high stools offer overspill seating options in an intensely pump clip lined space. Pavement seating is available outside in the summer months, but there was no sign of this on a cold Winter’s evening. Beer boards listed a healthy selection of ales, mainly from the South East, comprising Vibrant Forest Kick Start, Watchmakers Bezel Bitter, Long Man Wolf Man, Burning Sky Plateau and Fallen Acorn Ooof! With a bit of a wait until my onward train, I had enough time to sample the Plateau and the Ooof!, both of which were in excellent condition and served to me by the genial landlord. There was a good crowd in, generating a nice buzz on a Saturday evening and I would have been more than happy to have stayed and tried their full range. I thought this was one of the better micropubs I’ve visited over the years, having been fitted out with some decent seating, interesting décor and providing the crucially well-kept range of interesting, local beers. Its proximity to the train station makes it an obvious place to dive into before or after a journey and I’ll hope to find myself back out this way again to do exactly that.