Rabona, Matlock

Facebook page of Rabona - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of Rabona - www.facebook.com

After yet another change this is now a downmarket sports bar in a bank conversion with three levels and numerous TV screens and pool tables. The decor is industrial, strewn with football scarves and other detritus. A solitary handpump proved to be dispensing the fake "Brewery Conditioned" Hobgoblin nonsense and, to add insult to injury, the chillers had failed so that and even the lagers were genuinely warm. I shall not be returning to see if they fixed them

I quite liked it here, though I'm going to find fault with the pub anyway. I received a friendly welcome and very good service, including use of a socket to charge my phone. But the tables, on the ground floor at least, are all high, which means clambering onto the chairs for me, as my legs are not noted for their length. There were four Derby Brewing Co beers on the bar (hand pumps, I mean - there may have been some of their keg beers among the 12 I could see but I didn't look at them closely). I tried two of them: Mercia IPA and Business As Usual. Both were served too cold, which is a bit of a bugbear for me, and very often I'll give them NBSS 2.5, but I stretched a point and made them both 3, as they were flavoursome enough despite the temperature, and in the half hour I was in the pub they didn't reveal any faults that might have been intentionally hidden. There's a mezzanine floor up some metal stairs, and the external shot from Matlock Bridge shows a rather fancy spiral staircase leading down to the riverside. I quite like the way they've used wood - the bar counter, the floor, tables and doors are all attractive - but I keep coming back to the high tables and chairs: just take 10 or 15 centimetres off every leg and I'll be back, I promise.