The Tap House, Lancaster

One room with six hand pumps, two not on, the rest not that strong. A better craft selection was on offer.

Official site of The Tap House - www.taphouselancaster.com

Official site of The Tap House - www.taphouselancaster.com

Modernised into a craft beer bar with all the usual blandishments of laminate floors, pastel walls, tall furniture and some nice dark slate tiled walls, furnishing is of course light woods and there's a wall of clocks. Five pulls but a slightly bland range of beers, admirably kept though.

I turned up along with a few other Luton Town supporters at opening time, only to find the door closed and no sign of life. (A few of them, looking disconsolate, can be seen in my photo.) I returned about an hour later to find the pub open and an array of six hand pumps on the bar, though just four beers available on a Saturday afternoon. These were from XT, York and two from Hawkshead. This is a very smart, modern take on the alehouse style and quite a change from the last time I was in, probably 40 years ago when it was called the Fat Scot and had a rather grungy feel to it, with a mixture of bikers and hippies for clientele. The only other customer at the time of my visit was also an out-of-towner, and we got into a discussion with the barman on the relative merits of English and foreign hops, my point being that I wouldn't have wanted to stay and drink all four beers on the bar because I knew that at least two would not be to my taste. Well, there's no pleasing some folk, is there? Date of visit: 13th December 2014

A nice looking pub, both inside and outside. The Tap House is one relatively small room with some bench seating around the outside and lots of high tables & chairs. Quite a few craft keg options and on our visit a choice of 4 beers on handpump. My pint was in good nick as well. On a Thursday night there were a bunch of fairly loud, slightly sweary blokes leaning on the counter hiding the ale pumps from view. Apart from this we enjoyed our visit here and would call again.