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Beer of the Week (w/e 14th September 2025) with Thuck Phat on the Pub Forum

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Swan, Ulverston

Pub added by hondo .

Newby Bridge
Newby Bridge
Postal town: Ulverston
LA12 8NB

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Served areas

Newby Bridge

Reviews of Swan (Average Rating: 6½ of 10) Add Review see review guidelines

Pub SignMan left this review about Swan

This sprawling riverside hotel, spa and restaurant complex offers an impressive variety of drinking and dining spaces, though not all of them run particularly smoothly. You enter into a busy main bar with wooden floors, a long timber-panelled counter with a pewter top, and a largely uninspiring modern bar back. The bar space is well-furnished but feels a bit cramped, especially given the volume of passing foot traffic. To the left is a substantial dining room with a mix of standard seating and bold-patterned banquettes, with a mezzanine area above seemingly set up for a private event during our visit. Follow the corridor around to the right and you’ll discover a whole network of additional rooms, including a smaller dining room with fireplace, a cosy lounge, a pool room, and a massive, open lounge space near the hotel reception. This last area has oversized sofas under a grand stone fireplace topped with an enormous set of antlers, and windows looking into the hotel spa. Music leaned into cheesy rock and didn’t help the slightly frantic atmosphere
Three cask ales were on: Cumbria Ales Loweswater Gold, Thwaites Wainwright Gold and Wainwright Amber, plus one pump unclipped. Staff were friendly but clearly overwhelmed – service was chaotic, with long waits and missed orders.
This is an impressive building, blessed with an idyllic riverside setting, but management didn’t seem fully in control during our visit, making it feel quite frantic and far from a relaxed stay. There are definitely some nice spaces and features here and I imagine if you’re staying in the hotel, the facilities are pretty high spec, but we didn’t feel it really hit the spot when popping in for drinks one evening and I’d rather spend time in the nearby Huntsman at the Newby Bridge Hotel instead.

Date of visit: 12th April 2025

On 8^th September 2025 - rating: 5
[User has posted 3387 recommendations about 3387 pubs]

Please Note: This review is over a year old.

Will Larter left this review about Swan

A landmark hotel, sitting by the bridge which spans the rushing outflow from England's biggest lake, Windermere. I guess that the original building must be the one with a model of a swan above the door, but the public bar and dining room is to the left of this with the entrance in a corner where the empty bracket indicates that the inn sign still needs replacing. This is a rather low ceilinged room, with plenty of reassuringly sturdy beams and pillars. The bar is also substantial, filling much of the left hand side of the main room, while another room on the left of the entrance is clearly in the next building but joins the main room to make a space that would be good for a game of five-a-side football if the ceiling wasn't so low; and the tables and chairs would need to be moved as well. A traditional fireplace on the wall to the right has a collection of pewter plates attached to it in no particular pattern that I could make out.

There are two sets of four hand pumps on the bar, the first set having two Wainwright beers on, and the second set having local Cumbrian Ales, brewed not far away at Hawkshead, near Esthwaite Water. Their signature beer is Loweswater Gold, originally brewed near the lake of that name before Loweswater Brewery amalgamated with Cumbrian Legendary Ales; the other beer at the time of my visit was called Pacific Voyage. I went for the Gold, though when I have had this on other occasions in tourist pubs it's been rather pedestrian. Quite a surprise therefore to find it in very good nick, despite being a bit cold to start with; as it reached a proper temperature it developed a depth of flavour that included quite a decent bitter finish. At £5.30 a pint it needed to be a good beer, and I'm pleased to report that it was.

On 21^st October 2023 - rating: 6
[User has posted 4430 recommendations about 4069 pubs]

Please Note: This review is over a year old.

Nigel Sheppard left this review about The Swan Inn

In this Spa Hotel there is a posh and very trendy bar with a beautiful outside beer garden fronting a lake, just a perfect spot. They pride themselves in 'award winning real ales' and they are not wrong. I sampled Langdale (Cumbrian Legendary Ales) and Loweswater Gold, both fantastic and in the best condition possible. There was just on problem though, they were £3.40 a pint, otherwise fantastic.

On 1^st October 2011 - rating: 8
[User has posted 192 recommendations about 192 pubs]

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