The Forum, St Helier

This is a fairly modern pub built on the site of a former cinema of the same name, which can easily be reached in under 5 minutes from Liberation Square. Efforts have been made to incorporate features that give the pub a more traditional feel and I didn’t feel it was all that apparent that this was a relatively new pub. You enter into a rectangular room with the rear right quarter accommodating the servery. The room has scuffed floorboards throughout with the exception of a nice band of decorative tiles around the bar area. Walls are mostly panelled with the occasional stretch of coloured dado or plaster frieze adding some variety. A small raised seating area under the front window has been filled with an elongated U-shaped banquette and hard backed chairs around a few small tables, flanked by some nice etched glass mirrors and a few old gas lamps in the front window. The servery has one of those padded bar counter fronts beneath a copper top with two large lamp posts and a nice dark wood bar back with plain mirrors. The room extends to the rear down the left-hand side where additional seating is available under a collection of six nations flags that obscured the wood panels. Two large TV screens were showing live football and the juke box was pumping out fairly loud prog rock tunes, which should give you a clue as to the age profile of the customers. A sign pointed upstairs to another room, but I didn’t get around to exploring. There were five handpulls in action on our Thursday evening visit, dispensing Ringwood Mauler and Fortyniner and Liberation Sin Bin plus two real ciders. The Mauler was a fairly unmemorable blonde beer typical of a Six Nations themed beer. We had a bit of a wait to be served as no bar staff were present on arrival, and the pub seemed to be a bit of a mess, with dirty tables and glasses evident. This is quite a nice space to spend a bit of time over a pint of ale, thanks in the main to the considered interior design which has given this place a nice traditional feel with a few interesting features worth spotting. With something a bit more exciting on the bar than Ringwood ales, and a decent spring clean, this could be worth more of your time, but we felt that one visit was sufficient during our time in St Helier.