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Poll for Lancaster crawl June /July 2026 with Bucking Fastard
on the Pub Forum
Reviews (Current Rating Average: 6 of 10) see review guidelines
David Walton left this review about Big Penny Social
Visited 23/04/26
No cask. Craft keg offering from the taps on the wall behind the bar counter of Existence as a Radical Act a pale from Queer Brewing, the AF Run Wild IPA from Athletic Brewing, the Mountain Mama pale from Howling Hops, the Crush Hour hazy pale from Vocation, the Hazy IPA from 3 Locks Brewing, the Honk if You're Sour fruited sour from Pretty Decent, the Hoxton Stout from the Great Beyond Brewing Co, the Talk of the Town hazy pale from Two Flints, the Crafty Berry cider from the Real AL and Budvar! More standard keg on the taps on the bar counter, namely Camden Stout, Hells, IPA and Pale, then Asahi, Meantime Dial Lager, Caple Rd cider from Weston's and Double Diamond. I didn’t see any of their own brewed beers (as last sampled by me in their outlet airside in City airport in late February this year).
Got impression from photos this was a big place, but it really is aircraft hangar size, proper industrial. Concrete flooring and v high ceiling, industrial insulation and giant fans and track lighting keeping the venue way below well illuminated. The glazed ceramic bar counter, itself long, and on the right-hand wall mid venue seems quite small in the enormity of the venue. Loads of bench seating at rows of similarly matched tables with a row of tall tables and tall backed stools directly in front of the bar counter. Some of the seating is inside curious booth like enclosures. There are a couple of traditional table football tables and a table tennis table plus the inevitable Photo Booth. Single screen high on the wall to the left-hand end of the bar counter showing promotional shots of the venue on my visit. A large open kitchen in the rear left-hand corner. There is no seating outside at the front but a good amount out the rear in the Aperol Spritz Garden. There is a large event space with stage area the other side of the wall behind the bar counter called the Big Penny Studio and an upstairs cocktail bar with pool tables (from the promo material) called Flukes but not open at the time of my visit. Really quiet on my visit (although there were quite a number out the back in the sun), can’t say I would return absent an event, but rated above average as a decent craft beer offering (mystery about lack of their own stuff) and that extra point for the novelty value.
On 26th April 2026
- rating: 6
[User has posted 1590 recommendations about 1565 pubs]
Moby Duck left this review about Big Penny Social
Set in a huge aircraft hanger sized warehouse with wooden bench and table seating throughout, there were around ten Big Penny beers on tap covering the styles and a solo guest beer in the shape of Redemption Kazbek along with a couple of Ciders I forgot to note. There is also a very large outside seating space to the rear with its own separate outside bar. Needless to say both inside and out were very busy on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
On 18th May 2025
- rating: 6
[User has posted 2306 recommendations about 2269 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Pub SignMan left this review about Big Penny Social
Renamed as Big Penny Social following a rebranding of Trumans beers, this is a huge warehouse taproom with one of the biggest interiors I've ever seen for such an enterprise. You enter into the left-hand side of the room, which is essentially an enormous space with a concrete floor, high brick walls and an insulated ceiling with skylight panels. Loads of bench seating is cluttered towards the front, with tables and stools opposite the bar and more low benches further back plus some chairs in booth-like sections to the rear left. The bar is along the middle of the right-hand wall and has a green glazed tile counter front and bare brick bar back with boards detailing the beer available from the long row of taps beneath. A large open kitchen in the rear left corner was chucking out burgers, pizzas and the like and I spotted three dartboards to the front, two pinball tables plus Defender, Pac-Man and Space Invaders slot machines opposite the bar. Other notable features include a photo booth, a small stage and a table tennis table which was occupied by some rowdy kids and made me feel like I was at some sort of package holiday resort. An opening next to the bar leads through to a a similarly sized second room with loads more seating arranged in formal rows. There's a sizable garden area out the back with lots of benches for sunnier months and it seemed like a good place to avoid the echoing shouts of the kids.
I counted around ten Big Penny beers on keg dispense, some of which were poured from taps on the bar counter, whilst others were mounted on the bar back. In addition, there were also several guests from the likes of Lost & Grounded, Redemption and Drop Project, but I stuck to the home brew and tried the Big Penny Session IPA at £6.30 a pint. It was a decent enough drop to start this crawl of industrial estate taprooms and I had a pizza here too, which was okay but very expensive.
This was one of the better venues on this industrial estate, let down somewhat by the chaos caused by several out of control children treating it like a holiday park. The beer range is extensive and there's enough going on to suit a wide range of customers, even if the aircraft hanger-esque building is extremely impersonal.
Date of visit - 4th May 2024
On 28th August 2024
- rating: 6
[User has posted 3387 recommendations about 3387 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Steve of N21 left this review about Truman’s Social Club
The marketing person’s who are currently trying to convince everyone that the current six brewery taprooms in industrial estates off the Blackhorse Lane constitutes a “Beer Mile” are clearly men as it is about 0.4 of a mile between the Hackney Brewery High Hill and the Truman’s Social Club, and this one will either be the first or last one depending if you are going North or South. Perhaps it refers more to the fact that unlike Bermondsey, where you fall out of one railway arch into the next, some of these breweries are well hidden in the various industrial estates and you could easily walk the additional 0.6 miles trying to find them. So the recommendation is to go armed with the exact address and post code.
We did the Truman’s Social Club first as we visited on a Friday and it is one of the few open all week and open from 12 noon from Wednesday onwards.
You can’t really call this place a tap room it’s more a tap barn, with Truman’s own marketing blurb referring to it as a Beer Hall. Internally it’s two enormous high ceiling spaces with the first one housing the bar and the kitchen and mainly bench seating and then a second one to the right with a large amount of table seating. Then beyond the main room is a large external outside seating space which I would imagine would be the best area to go for if you are blessed with a better weather day than we had.
There is a couple of large brew tanks in the main bar space, but these looked more for show as the main brewery is in the industrial unit next door.
The bar has the usual tiled tap wall at the back with 14 taps on it and large chalk boards on the stone wall above telling you what’s on them, then a front counter with two banks of four of further keg taps and then three ale hand pump. Sadly the ale pumps were all unused and there were none of the Truman’s Ale range on. In fact it proved difficult to find any Truman’s non lager products as most of the taps had guests from other breweries such as Moor Beer, Siren, Mondo and Orbit. Fortunately there was the Truman Social Porter which was a decent dark craft ale.
We got the impression that this venue is used more for dining during the day as when we rucked up at 3.30 pm on a Friday afternoon we were seriously outnumbered by proms and buggies and I am guessing it changes over to beer consumption later in the evening or at the weekends when the rest of the Blackhorse Lane tap rooms are open.
Apparently the available space can seat over six hundred people and frankly as it’s so big, it really needs a couple of hundred of these to be in to give the place any atmosphere, and on our visit I found it all a bit flat and soulless. But I can imagine it’s a different story on a glorious summer weekend.
On 11th September 2021
- rating: 6
[User has posted 2340 recommendations about 2186 pubs]