Newsroom, Matlock

Facebook page of Newsroom - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of Newsroom - www.facebook.com

Smaller Micro pub, which was winner of drink of the night. An excellent New Bristol Brewery Twice Upon a Time IPA. A heavy 8.5%. GBG 2022.... notable for the range of bottles/cans on shelves - making it part offlicence, part pub. Obviously run by enthusiasts.

Developed from a newsagents and off licence, whose headboard still adorns the front of the building, and now sporting a large bar counter with four hand pumps. A board on the back wall has six keg fonts ("craft", lager and cider) and there are shelves of bottles and cans too. The friendly owner is pleasantly surprised at how busy it's been, with not just locals and regulars but coachloads of beer trippers pulling up and frequent emergency dashes to find more chairs. My first visit, on a quiet, dank Tuesday when a temperature inversion had shrouded the whole dale in dense mist, I went for Sarah Hughes Surprise 5%, which was in superb condition although not really to my taste. Later in the week I was here on a busy Saturday afternoon with a couple of drinking mates, and we all enjoyed the beers that we had here; my Burton Bridge Bitter 4.2% could not have been better. The pub has a slightly rough, unfinished feel to it, with patches of bare brick intermingled with freshly painted plasterwork, but this gives it character in my view, and I like it. (Those who are not into climbing steep hills are advised to catch the X17 bus from Chesterfield - stopping at the eastern end of Smedley Street - rather than coming by train up the valley.)