The Dog Inn, Clitheroe

Facebook page of The Dog Inn - www.facebook.com

Official site of The Dog Inn - sites.google.com

Official site of The Dog Inn - sites.google.com

Facebook page of The Dog Inn - www.facebook.com

By far the best pub in the village and also the best choice of real ale. The pub is a large one and the interior is traditional and L-shaped. The bar is as good as centrally located and 6 handpulls can be found in a bank of 4 and a bank of 2. A few beers by breweries I've never seen before made a good impression with beers from Dark Horse, Snaggletooth and Three Valleys. I liked it in here and would defo recommend it if you're in the area.

One of four pubs on the crossroads in the centre of Whalley, the Dog Inn is a lovely traditional village pub, next to the parish church and a short walk from the Abbey ruins. You enter into a broad carpeted bar area which sees the servery occupy the rear right corner. There is some smart banquette seating opposite the bar underneath the front windows which have nice integral lamps in the window sills. The pub seems to have a thing about framing collections of everyday objects, so here you can view framed keys, pipes and fishing lures. To the rear of the bar there is a compact seating space with pew, low stool and standard seating, an upright piano, framed pipes (again) and corkscrews and a TV screen which remained switched off on my Tuesday morning visit. From here you can access a small half panelled room to the rear left which has a pool table taking up most of the space and is decorated with a mix of sporting and military themed images. The front left of the pub houses a four table lounge-cum-dining room which I thought was a very pleasant place to relax over a pint. There's an attractive tiled fireplace on the end wall, a large grandfather clock and various ornamental vases stood around the back of a long banquette. Two themes emerge here, with a ship's compass and a drawing showing a cross section of Captain Cook's ship giving a slight nautical vibe whilst countless paintings depict hunting dogs in action or just standing proud. Out the back there is a nice sun-trap garden with a partly covered section for the smokers. Appropriately for a pub called the Dog Inn (formerly the Spotted Dog), customers are welcome to bring their four legged friends in with them. A classic pub food menu was offering main meals for around £8, which seemed reasonable enough. The pub is regarded as having the best ale selection of the four in the village and I was pleased to find a very interesting selection comprising Hawkshead Bitter, Wharfebank Hawaiian Milk Stout, Ramsbottom Mango Beach, Goose Eye Gander's Gargle and Cottage Battle of the Blues, with Ribble Valley and Lancaster ciders also available. I tried the Hawkshead Bitter which was a lovely pint in top condition, well worthy of their Good Beer Guide inclusion. Visiting so early in the day, I sadly didn't get to see this place at its best, as there were only two other customers in (one of whom might actually have been a member of staff - I couldn't tell for sure). However, the smart, clean interior with its well presented different rooms and excellent beer was enough to suggest that this is a well run establishment that would be well worthy of further investigation.

Called in one Wednesday lunchtime,and found the pub quite full of both drinkers and diners.Quite a few guest beers were on offer,one of these was the Bank Top Brewery's Old Slapper (4.2abv) which was very tasty.I was quite surprised though that they had stopped serving food at 1-45.