The Lion & Lobster, Brighton

Really good back street pub with five hand pump, one used as a posing place for a couple of ciders, the other four having cask beers on (see photo). A notice about cocktails had accidentally obscured the house beer, Portobello Lion & Lobster Bitter. This was a really good bitter in the regional style, so I was really glad I'd spotted it. Only £4.70/pint. The interior is warm and attractive, with plenty of pictures on the walls including a tremendous steam locomotive. It was lively for a midweek afternoon, with several groups of people whose conversations occasionally overpowered the background music. They're staying open late for the Superbowl this weekend, too late for me to change my arrangements to be here. Maybe next year.

Located down a quiet side street just off the seafront and a short walk from the i360, this is a very pleasant traditional, street corner pub. The interior wraps around three sides of an attractive dark wood servery with matching counter and canopy – the latter liberally decorated with old jugs, pictures, model ships and other such junk. There’s a good amount of seating available around the perimeter, including some decent tables and chairs, nice, padded button backed banquettes and an uncomfortable looking hard bench booth to one side. The whole pub has been painted in dark shades and is lit primarily by fairy lights, so even during the daytime, the place has a warm and cosy feel to it, enhanced by plenty of traditional décor, such as a large painting of a train, lots of retro advertisements and a great many framed pictures, which cover lots of the wall space, especially in the cosy right-hand side of the room, and also line the pillars that support the bar canopy. There’s a bookshelf to the left which had a big stack of board games on it, which we ended up taking advantage of, having dived in here to escape the bitterly cold weather outside. On the bar, there were five operational handpulls, dispensing Harvey’s Sussex Best, Dark Star Hophead and Portobello Lobster Bitter plus two real ciders. The Hophead was in very good condition and slipped down nicely, although the Lobster Bitter wasn’t quite on a par and I regretted not sticking to the Hophead. The barmaid here was really friendly and there was a decent crowd in, which grew and grew as the afternoon progressed, ensuring a nice atmosphere. This is a pretty good pub that I’m surprised I hadn’t heard about prior to this particular visit to Brighton. The traditional interior and decent beer meant that it was easy to settle down here for a session and with a few other decent pubs this side of the city centre, it would be easy to incorporate this place into future pub crawls

A nice pub internaly, traditional U shaped room with a further restaurant area to the rear. The three cask ales and two ciders were exactly the same as on Blue Scrumpys visit a month previous, with the cask ales a bit middle of the road I opted for Gun Scaramanga on keg. Worth a drop in.

A pub I've been meaning to visit for some time, it has a real cosy feel to it, with separate drinking and dining areas, as well as a secluded roof terrace. Bar staff were friendly. There is a house beer (Lobster Bitter) from Portobello and Dark Star Hophead is a regular beer. The guest ale was 360° Session IPA and there were 2 real ciders which amazingly I'd never had before - Abrahall's AV & Pulp Pear Craft Cider.