The Dog & Duck, Bognor Regis

Wandering along Bognor seafront on a scorching summer’s day, my eye was caught by a sign pointing down an inauspicious looking side street, advertising Bognor’s first micropub. After spending a polite amount of time on the beach, I made my excuses and retraced my way back to check the place out. The pub is located down a fairly derelict looking passageway/street and occupies a small former retail unit, as you might expect. This comprises a small bare boarded room with five long, high-tables attached to the side walls and served by some surprisingly comfortable padded high stools. A tiny tongue and groove servery to the rear has the pub’s logo printed on it, with all of the casks racked up on the bar back – three on and three off. The walls sport a painted map of Sussex on one side and a vaguely geographically proportionate list of local breweries on the other. Lots of CAMRA literature has been stacked in the front window, which has the same aforementioned branding on it. The three ales available when I visited were Greyhound Tree Frog, Langham Jester and Polarity APA, with a Seacider cider also available. Despite coming straight from the barrel behind the bar on a sensationally hot day, my pint of the Tree frog was surprisingly cool and perhaps unsurprisingly, didn’t stay in the glass too long. Clips for the beers currently on are stuck to the side of the bar for customers to peruse and there is a board behind which details the beers likely to come on soon. I found this a very friendly micro pub with a cheery, knowledgeable landlord, some thoughtfully arranged seating and a few well kept ales. There’s not much around Bognor to excite the ale drinker, so this is a much welcome addition to the town’s beer scene and would be my first port of call the next time I’m in town.

Micropub, opened June 2018