Mad Dog Taproom, Brighton

I popped into the Mad Dog Tap on a recent Saturday afternoon when there were a couple of people sitting on the café seating out. The customer before me was halfway up the stairs to seating on the two floors above so I had the sparsely decorated laminate floored bar to myself. The right-angled serving counter is to the left and some fridges are found up the right where a beer shelf with three stools also resides, in fact this is where I decided to sit with my pint of Plum Porter that was too cold and a bit of an effort to drink if I’m being honest. The extremely friendly barmaid informed me that all the keg, except the cider, was from Mad Dog and I counted twelve hand pumps across the back bar which tallied with the large beer list chalkboard up on the rear wall. There was some background music playing and I noted a pizza menu, but I didn’t spot much interest for the food from subsequent customers that come in during my visit. If I was passing with nowhere else to be I’d consider popping back in to try one of their lagers.

A relative newcomer to Brighton's pub scene, this is a three storey taproom for the Cardiff based Mad Dog Brewery. The bar is in the compact ground floor space, with the servery to the left of the entrance and some standing room and a couple of bar stools opposite. It's a pretty bland space, with mostly whitewashed walls and some blackboards around the top of the bar back listing the various draught options, but visual distraction is at a minimum and most punters appear to prefer heading up the fairly vertiginous staircase to the rear, for one of the upper seating areas. On our visit, the first floor room was hosting a comedy night and available for ticket holders only, so we had to press on upwards to the second floor, where another fairly utilitarian space awaited us. Seating comes mostly in the form of hard benches, so not the comfiest of rooms, with more whitewashed walls space, this time broken up by a few brightly painted cartoon characters, more of which can be seen during the climb up here. The most interesting thing I found was the extensive sticker collection dotted randomly across the walls near the toilets. There were no less than twelve beers available on tap but no cask ale options. As far as I could tell, the beers were all in house brews and I tried the Stouty McStoutface, which was a passable, if not entirely memorable, example of the style. The bar staff seem to be friendly enough and we had a good chat with a very pleasant and rather bored looking doorman on a subsequent visit a couple of months later. The lack of ground floor seating means that the place always looks quiet on approach, but it's worth persevering as you may find a bit more atmosphere on one of the upper floors. I quite liked this place on my initial visit, when we sat up in the busy second floor room, but was less impressed upon my return when we loitered in the draughty bar area, so I'm a bit torn as to my overall impression of the place. The beer seems decent enough without hitting the heights of top tier micros, and the service was good, but the place lacks a bit of character and suffers from the disjointed layout across three floors. For me, it has a good location just off the main drag from the beach to the station, so I'm sure I'll be popping in on future visits to Brighton and hope to see the place bed in a bit more over time. Date of visit - 23rd November 2024

This seemed to be a strange place to find on a shopping street in the centre of Brighton - a craft beer outlet from a Welsh brewery. There are 3 floors, with the ground floor bar area having standing room only and two further floors with seating, along with outdoor seating on the street. We chose the first floor room where there are canteen-style benches with long tables and a few smaller tables to one side. I seem to recall some artwork of a kind on the wall, including a picture of the Joker. On the bar, there are no cask ales. All beers were keg and from Mad Dog - Now In A Minute, Hair of the Dog, Marmalade IPA, Stouty McStoutface, Third Eye Blind, Yma O Hyd, Midnight Train To Cardiff, Apollo Freestyle, Plum Porter & Mexican Chocolate Stout. I had each of the last two and both were enjoyable, if not served a little too cold. A nice addition to the Brighton pub scene. But there are so many good places to drink in Brighton. So, I'm not sure we'll be back in too much of a hurry.

Cardiff brings craft beer to Brighton! You wouldn't have thought it necessary to transport your beers 100 miles up the M4, but they must feel there's a market here. Entry via the ground floor gets you to the bar, with 14 keg taps offering Mad Dog brews; seating is mostly to be found upstairs, in various rooms over several floors. I selected a room on the first floor (and didn't venture further up). This offered just wooden benches at wooden tables, and they could have done with turning the heating up a notch or two (with only one couple up here, there was little opportunity for a crowd to generate heat). Based on this short visit, I'm wondering whether this place has a long-term future? There's no shortage of competition round here (not so much on this street), but perhaps it did get busier later in the evening. Pop in if you fancy a Welsh-brewed craft beer while you're in central Brighton, otherwise......?

Small ground level room with some seating outside on Duke St, popular in the early evening sunshine. Essentially no seating in downstairs small square area with right angled bar counter in opposite corner to the door. Fourteen taps on the wall (beers as photo) with 11 of their own plus Wrexham Lager plus Gwynt Y DDraig cider and one tap not used. The Hair of the Dog, an American Pale Ale, was delicious. Similar size upstairs rooms on first and second floors (top room much better than the first floor in terms of layout) with some wooden tables and benches really packed in plus a wooden banquette against wall with fabric cushions but nowhere to put your glass other than keep in hand or put on floor. This is a much smaller venue than their Cardiff brewhouse and tap room opposite the Castle and their first away venue. It fits well into the Brighton scene in the centre and I think they will do well here, but the small size of the venue means it would be difficult to visit at busy times (the second floor was fully occupied by a single medium size group of lads on a Brighton weekend).

Facebook page of Mad Dog Taproom - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of Mad Dog Taproom - www.facebook.com