The Petersfield, Cambridge

The Petersfield has a central island bar counter that supports premium and craft keg alongside five hand pumps that were drawing Cambridge Brewhouse’s Little Thunder, Nene Valley Brewery’s Release the Chimps and Manhattan Project and Barsham’s Eastern Gold and Norfolk Topper. Mixed seating runs around the exterior walls, many people were tucking into fish and chips during a recent Friday afternoon visit. The smell was actually quite strong. The service was polite and the background music was unobtrusive, but this place is too food led for me to want to return just for beer. And yes, the wine bottles in the ceiling are tacky.

Official site of The Petersfield - www.thepetersfield.co.uk

Official site of The Petersfield - www.thepetersfield.co.uk

This street corner pub does have an upmarket feel with a central bar and seperate rooms wrapping around the interior.The furniture is mismatched with some leather backed armchairs,dining tables and so on.The ceiling along the long side has a vast collection of wine bottles held within cages,while the rear room has some wood panelling and felt more of a dining area.The food certainly smelt good,portions seemed sizeable and two of the PuG crawlers succummed to this temptation. At the bar there was a decewnt ale line up on my visit of Barsham Norfolk Topper and Eastern Gold,Nene Valley Brewery Release the Chimps and Manhatten Project (NBSS 3) and Cambridge Bewhouse Little Thunder. A bit of style variation may have been better,but overall worth a crawl visit.

Slightly upmarket, perhaps, but I don't know anyone who's impressed by empty wine bottles racked between the laths in the ceiling. The licensee had me right first time, "bitter" is my middle name. In this case Southwold Bitter. But I showed an interest in a beer from Cambridge Brew House and was offered a taster: "too sweet", I said, which took him aback (it's his brewery). We reverted to the Adnams. The beer was fine, but the injunction to "sit anywhere, sir" left a slightly off taste in my mouth. Yes, that's exactly where I was planning to sit. Thank you very much.

A slightly upmarket backstreet local with comfortable rooms around a central bar. Patio area at rear. Several good and well-kept ales on, plus ciders.