The Druids Head, Brighton

A Taylor Walker pub which is attractive to tourists and families. Despite being food led, there is a line up of five hand pumps on the bar. At the time of my visit these were serving Sadlers Peaky Blinders, Harveys Sussex Best, Hardys & Hansons Rakau and Taylor Walker 1730 Special Pale Ale, which is brewed by Westerham Brewery. There's a 10% Camra members discount, but I didn't spot this until long after I'd paid £2.20 for my half of Harveys. Although the building has an interesting external appearance, once through the door this could be any chain pub in any part of the country. There are many better pubs than this in Brighton. Date of visit: 1st January 2017

A traditional pub overlooking the small square in the centre of The Laines, this is a popular spot and was pretty much full to capacity on a recent Saturday evening visit. A freestanding staircase is right in the middle of the room, although we didn't investigate the upstairs area. It's a long and narrow pub with old flagstones on the floor and some black beams on the ceiling, although these are quite thin and clearly more decorative than structural. The bar counter is on the right and this is unusual in having both a copper top and some red leather cushioning on the front. There is some exposed stone walling on the left and a plasma was mounted up here showing Sky Sports, although the volume was not on. Seating is a mixture of table and chairs at the back, brown leather pouffes at the front and a few armchairs. The toilet doors were unusual in that they were cunningly disguised as bookcases. I didn't study the food menu, but noticed some starters chalked up on a board that had a decidedly retro feel - prawn cocktail and breaded mushrooms, for example. There were also several burger choices chalked up on another board. Beers on tap were Doom Bar and Greene King Yardbird. Ciders were Strongbow and Magner's Golden Draught.

There is some café style seating outside the front of the Druid’s Head, much like the restaurants in this tourist area of Brighton. The interior of the pub is split by a staircase that creates a front and back bar. There is a TV in each bar and during my Wednesday evening visit muted Champions League football was being shown via ITV. I wasn’t surprised to see no Sky Sports advertisements and I don’t recall any background music being played. There are three hand pumps in the front bar and these were drawing Pride, Harveys Best and Druids Delight which is apparently named in honour of the pub and ten pence from every pint goes to charity. I decided to partake in some charitable drinking, but regretted it after the first mouthful as it tasted like ditch water. Premium and standard draught products are also available but one has to venture into the back bar to find the cheaper generic lagers. Food is served daily from midday until 21:00 and the mains that I spotted were priced around £8. Children are only permitted with dining adults and there is a small covered seating area at the rear. I wasn’t very impressed with this place, which may be down to the crap beer or maybe that the pub was almost empty. I will pop back in again when passing as the service was friendly and I like traditional pubs, but at the moment I wouldn’t recommend this pub to others.