Hare & Hounds, Brighton

This is a very large, open plan pub, positioned in the crook of a prominent junction just a short distance from Brighton station. The place is pretty striking on approach thanks to a large, first storey mural depicting various wild animals for no obvious reason. Inside, things aren’t quite as memorable, thanks to a large, opened out room, bare boarded throughout with an island servery in the centre, which would clearly have once served a number of separate rooms. The bar still has a pleasant dark wood panelled counter with nicely rounded corners, but the years haven’t been kind on the bar back or any former canopy, which are now nowhere to be seen. Banquette seating runs around much of the room’s perimeter with plenty of chairs and low stools in support, whilst the back wall sees the banquettes formed into a row of booths, which look like the best places to grab a seat, despite the lack of natural light back here. The walls have been left with exposed brickwork and are mostly unadorned, although there was a huge pull-down screen to one side showing a live football fixture, with quite loud music in place of the commentary. An open kitchen to the rear left was dishing out a few mediocre looking meals and whilst there were quite a few customers knocking about on my Saturday afternoon visit, the place still felt flat and empty due to the expansive interior. There were three handpulls on the bar, two of which were off, including a turned Sharps Doom Bar clip, leaving Gun Pale Ale as the sole cask option. A surly barman poured me a pretty mediocre pint of this, which I didn’t enjoy all that much. This felt like a bit of a student-friendly pub that might work well in the evening when there’s a bit of a crowd in but was a pretty average experience in the middle of the day. There are a few nice decorative features dotted around the place, but on the whole, I felt it was a bit empty and uninspired and I’d probably drop it if I was crawling around the area North of the station again.