Croxtons, Southsea

This is a modern, opened out, two-room bar sat right in amongst some of Southsea’s main drinking strip venues. The place seems to be styling itself as a craft beer bar and has the sort of stripped out interior that characterises these bars. The right-hand side has bare boards, standard tables and chairs and the servery along the right wall. The bar has a basic dark wood counter broken by a pillar midway along and a white tile bar back with a simple, easy-to-read beer board. Standard tables with uncomfortable hard chairs, plus the occasional high table with stools make up the rest of the seating, whilst over in the left-hand room there are padded benches to the rear and standard seating through the rest of the space. This side felt a little more food-orientated, with the open kitchen next to the bar churning out tacos, burgers and salads at fairly average prices for this part of town. Large windows to the front let in plenty of light, which is good, as much of the wall space within has been painted black, with just the pub’s name picked out in white, which I would imagine makes the place pretty gloomy in the hours of darkness. There was a quiet soundtrack playing away in the background, but this was quickly lost under the chatter of a modest sized crowd, which makes you wonder just how noisy things would get in here if there was a full house. The ten craft keg taps take pride of place at the bar, and include a couple of house beers, but cask ale drinkers are also catered for with two ales – Arbor Zero Zero and Northern Monk Eternal Session IPA – both available on this visit. A hipster barman served up a tired half of the Session IPA and I found it difficult to get comfy or really warm to this place. It’s interesting to see this craft beer venue spring up alongside the likes of the Lloyd’s No 1 and the Slug and Lettuce, as it suggests this type of bar can live side-by side with the big drinking barns. For me, the place didn’t really work and felt a bit by-the-numbers, and despite having a few interesting beers on, I thought this was the weakest pub I visited on our crawl around Portsmouth.

Large and charmless Millennial bar-by-numbers. A single open space interior along with cheap-looking uncomfortable furniture laid out in regimented fashion. The only real point of positive interest was the black and white ‘Croxton’ rear wall. Some keg and two ales; Arbor which was well off (taken back and grudgingly replaced – I don’t understand how some of the others managed to battle through theirs!) and a pretty murky (I suspected unnecessarily so – someone kick it over downstairs?) Northern Monk Session IPA (NBSS 2.5). There were also a number of craft keg choices, which given how badly the ales were kept I doubt I’d trust either. Not one I’d bother with next time and judging by us being the only customers, maybe others have come to a similar conclusion? 4.5

Croxtons is a café bar that was empty until the Pubs Galore Portsmouth crawl popped in on a recent Friday afternoon. Even though there are 2 cask ales (Arbor Zero Zero and Northern Monk Eternal Session) and ten keg fonts this place is very much food led. Therefore, it is unsurprising that the doors open at 9am for breakfast. A standard burger is priced at £11 and half a Birra Moretti set me back £2.45. The service was polite, but there was no atmosphere, so I do not plan to return.

Modern bar / kitchen with a rather canteen-like arrangement of tables and glazed white brickwork in the bar area which gives a rather sterile feel. Good selection of ten craft keg beers supplemented by a couple of cask ales (including a so-so External IPA from Northern Monk).

Another new addition to the Southsea drinking scene, Croxtons opened in April 2018 and bills itself as a Kitchen and Tap House. To be honest I got more kitchen or even canteen than tap house, with its stripped-down minimalist interior with white tiled walls interspersed amongst wood panels and bare flooring with bare wood tables and chairs positioned in a regimented fashion throughout. To the extent that the bar positioned on the far wall gave the impression that it was more an afterthought. In saying that the bar does support ten keg taps on the front sections and two real ale pumps on the side section. As well as the two cask beers mentioned below there were craft options from Cloudwater, Moor Beer Co, Black Iris and the local Staggeringly Good Brewery. I went for the Moor Beer Co All Dayer IPA as it was the lowest ABV of the craft offerings and it was fine. The Kitchen side did look decent from what I could see from one of the table menus being focussed on quick bites Tacho’s, Burgers and small plates and a quick look at Trip advisor shows it has scored highly for the kitchen since opening. So, if I was eating, I would certainly consider Croxtons on the basis that I knew I could get a decent beer to go with it. But for just a beer I would probably go for the Lloyds next door. I say probably as I would need to check first that the fine example of Portsmouth womanhood who was sitting outside Lloyds as I walked past and promptly collapsed off her stool into my path wasn’t in-situ again.

As described by all below, given that I was on the same crawl. I opted for a half of Arbor Zero Zero at £2.00. It tasted very citric to me but a more learned colleague told me that it was definitely off. Not my kind of place at all.

Urban style bar with emphasis on both food and drink. The interior did have good seating space and plenty of room around the bar area for vertical drinking. I went for the Northern Monk Eternal which was ok, heard a few complaints from my fellow crawlers about the second cask choice, which was the Arbor Zero Zero. Plenty of keg choice in here across ten taps, which unfortunately is even more overpriced than the cask and is most probably served at minus 180 degrees kelvin.

A lively bar/diner in the syle of a lounge, modern and industrial looking and lacking in pub atmosphere. It is formed from the conjunction of 3 smaller retail premises,the joins’ being evident from the changing floor and wall styles. Outside, there are some bench seats and tables from which to enjoy watching Southsea’s drunks staggering from bar to bar. Inside, the flloor is 2/3 parquet, 1/3 tiles, and there is a pile of high chairs in the corner, presumably to signify that it’s OK to bring your children in. A solitary, sad-looking dog looked pleadingly at the group of elderly pub crawlers in the corner for succour, while the staff were probably too worried about their GCSE results to care. Two ales on draft, both overpriced and over-chilled – Arbor Zero-Zero and Northern Mark Eternal IPA. Both were in good condition but not good enough to justify the mark-up. Food is typical lounge-style burgers and other things with trendy-sounding sauces and exotic vegetables, also overpriced. The run breakfast clubs and, on Tuesdays, Mexican themed nights. It’s OK if you like that sort of thing, but a good addition the Southsea nightlife nonetheless.