The Turks Head, Exeter

The Turks Head is a long and thin pub with a wooden and tiled floor and traditional wood panelling around the walls. There are high table in the front and the serving counter is found mid-way up the right-hand wall. At the rear behind some glass is the in-house Turks Head Brewery, three of their beers were available on hand pump. This is a card only venue so I went for the ironically named Cash is King, and yes the barman must have heard it a million times before. There are actually six hand pumps, the friendly barman informed me that there was some work in progress hence the limited cask selection. This was still one of the busier pubs I visited during a recent Wednesday crawl around the city.

This is quite a good sized pub when you take into account the first floor and two side rooms on the ground and first floor. There was also a roof terrace for some alfresco drinking or dining as the pub serves food. The main features in here for me was the in house brewery positioned on the left of the main ground floor bar and the fabulous entrance with a timber gallery over the entrance. Five of their own beers on handpump Witches Brew Stout, Crusader session IPA, Barries Best Bitter, Cash is King Red Ale, Dinkum Aussie Pale Ale. We went for the stout which was excellent.

It’s difficult to miss this quaint city centre pub thanks to its prominent location on the main shopping street. You enter into a narrow room with a nice patterned stone tile floor and some great stained glass work in the porch and along the upper part of the front windows. The room has dark wood panels to the right and a mix of panels, dark painted walls and ugly wallpaper down the left side. Long high tables and benches run down the right-hand side of the room, with small round high tables and stools to left, which eventually give way to a recess with limited bench and chair seating. There’s a high shelf to the right with an amazing bottle collection under a beer-style memory map, whilst the left side has plenty of plants along ledges, with the brewing process detailed on a blackboard-paint wall above. The bar is to the rear right and has an attractive dark wood counter, stone top and very nice bar back that blends into the panelling down the right wall. Opposite are some steps that lead down into a side room with lots more tables and chairs, although the space was being used to host a ridiculously easy pub quiz on my Sunday night visit, so I didn’t get a proper look around. Meanwhile, a staircase leads up to a first floor restaurant, with lots of high tables and stools through the main space and a small servery that was closed on my visit, as was the side room down a couple of steps, which has lots of nice traditional fittings. You can also access a roof terrace from up here, but it was dark when I visited, so I didn’t explore. Despite the daft quiz, the place had a real buzz about it and seemed to attract a lot of students, despite looking like a bit of an old man’s pub from outside. There’s a good ale range here, drawn in large part from the in-house brewery, with Turks Head Witches Brew Stout, Hand Off, God's Little Cow and Crusader all available on cask alongside Hanlons Firefly and Prescott Hill Climb. A very friendly barmaid drew a good pint of the Witches Brew, which I enjoyed supping whilst answering the banal quiz questions in my head. High Street pubs tend to be quite depressing affairs, so it was a pleasant surprise to find one with bags of character and a real lively atmosphere, especially given the fact that I visited on a Sunday night. The great ale selection and friendly service made this one a definite hit and one that would benefit from repeat visits.

Madness... the best pub I found in Exeter and not one review. Its not in the GBG but I would be surprised if its not in 2023. Smart pub, with a lovely roof terrace, with a large downstairs and a few snug rooms off the first floor. A brew room, with their own on tap/cask. Tiny Rebel Cwtch was superb on cask. I went for a 2nd and saw they had Deya Steady Rolling Man on Keg. Easily the best of the Exeter pubs visited.