Barley Mow, Southsea

I spent my time in the large saloon bar of this free house. There were 8 sticks behind the bar; HSB & Pride seem to be regulars with Twickenham & Salopian breweries providing a couple of the other offerings. It was pleasant enough and worth the visit, but did seem to be lacking atmosphere (and punters) on my early evening stop.

Back in Southsea for the weekend and staying close to the Barley Mow so looked this one up again. Visited on consecutive days and glad to find it largely unchanged from pre pandemic days and still offering a good range of ales with six of the pumps operating in the saloon when we visited and offering a good range of ale types. Live music is now also back in the saloon and Sunday afternoon saw a three piece jazz band playing. This drew quite a mature crowd even making me feel reassuringly young. Was very pleased to find this and the nearby Hole in the Wall functioning well post pandemic. No need to change my ratings on either.

The Barley Mow is a pub of two halves with a spacious lounge bar to the left and a sports bar to the right. The traditionally decked out lounge bar houses a piano and bar billiards and during a recent Friday afternoon visit there was some low background music playing. The bar supports nine hand pumps and a standard keg range. The cask products available were Langham’s XXX Mild, Andwell’s Gold Muddler, St Austell’s Tribute, Fulllers London pride, George Gale’s HSB, Butcombe Gold, Longdog’s Kismet, Shepherd Neame’s Hop County and Westons Rosie’s Pig cider. I also noted the presence of a dog bowl, so our four-legged friends are more than welcome. The sports bar is more sparsely decorated and houses a pool table and dartboard. This bar is available for private hire. The toilets are found at the rear in an out-building. Adjacent to these toilets is a very well-tended enclosed patio area. BT Sports is shown, but there was no television on during my visit. Live music is held here Thursdays and Sundays and there is a monthly open mic night for musicians, poets and comedians. I really liked it in here and it turned out to be my pub of the day after a crawl of some very good pubs in the area.

A slightly odd-looking building, with the public bar / games room in a single-storey section at the front and the (much less obvious) lounge in the taller main part further back. The latter room is appealingly traditional, with ⅔rd-height wood panelling and numerous B&W photographs, and the rear patio garden is a very pleasant spot in the sunshine. Excellent choice of real ales in a range of styles from the main bank of eight handpumps (including a tasty Langham XXX dark mild, £2.00, half), with a draught cider also available.