The Town Mouse, Newcastle Upon Tyne

Another neat and friendly micro pub almost next door to the Five Swans. It's quite well hidden by being down a flight of steps with only part of the window being viewable from the street. It's L shaped inside with a couple of bench seats in the main area and a couple of tables and chairs at the end of the L. Four handpumps on the bar and my pint of Rigg & Furrow Trickster was in good nick. Only a couple of people in the bar, but it started to fill up a bit later. It's a good micro and one we'll be visiting again.

The Town Mouse is Newcastle's third and newest micropub having been open just over a month on my visits. It's conveniently located right next door to the only JDW in the centre of Newcastle that isn't a Lloyds No 1. It's a cellar micropub that involves descending a short but quite steep stone staircase to get to it. Inside it's an L shaped room with the small bar on the immediate left, some trellis tables on the right and other lower seating further back and round the corner. There is no TV screen but there is low level music. One thing I noticed was that people's voices tended to be loud and reverberate around the room. It may be because unlike other micropubs there is no bric-a-brac that I could see apart from a few pictures, an old record player and a string of hops. The bar has four hand pumps and also does some ciders, a few wines, soft drinks and "craft" kegs, bottles & cans. This one has made the decision to concentrate on small local brewers which suits me fine. On my first visit they had Errant Jungle Simcoe, Allendale Tar Bar'l and Arcane Bridge Eden. On the following night the unused clip had Cullercoats Minstrel. I tried the Jungle Simcoe (£3.90), Allendale Tar Bar'l (£3.20) and Cullercoats Minstrel (£3.20) all of which were excellent. Despite the acoustics I liked this place and would definitely return.