Marquis of Granby, Stoke-On-Trent

The Marquis of Granby entrance leads to a tile floored lobby and bar with a short serving counter that faces some seating in the left rear and the exit to a split-level paved beer garden out the back. In the front left is a carpeted lounge and to the right is the main L-shaped bar where the locals had assembled during a recent midweek evening visit. The TV was playing muted Corrie and I noted the presence of a dartboard. Premium and craft keg was available and both bars had three hand pumps that were drawing Directors, Pedigree and Hobgoblin. The service was really friendly and the pub quite smart, so I’d pop back in if passing.

Having negotiated the steep climb up Penkhull New Road from central Stoke, I was rather relieved to see this large late-Victorian building come into view, with a pleasing street corner location opposite the Green. The pub has retained several period features, the most obvious of which is the traditional two bar layout. You enter into a beautiful glazed tile lobby area with a door to the right leading into the main bar and another to the rear for the smaller rear room. The main bar is an L-shaped room with some nice tile flooring and a similarly shaped dark wood servery with a high, part-tiled bar back. Long, sturdy leather banquettes run in an unbroken line along the front and right hand walls, underneath some marvellous windows with etched glass 'Vaults' panes. The banquettes have been supplemented with plenty of low stools plus a couple of short benches near the entrance. The room has been decorated with a lot of Stoke City FC memorabilia including a great collection of "Lads of '72" plates on the bar back, various paintings and photos of players and the stadium as well as a few old signs seemingly from their former ground. Even the barmaid was wearing a Stoke football shirt and appropriately enough there were a couple of TV screens showing the afternoon's early kick-off with the sound clearly audible. The rear room is a lounge-style area with some nice carpet and smart furniture. A few bits of partitioning wall break the room up nicely and there is a short stretch of servery over to the right hand side. Out through the back of the pub you can access a fairly basic garden with a ramshackle looking smoker's shelter in one corner. This is a Marstons pub, so their ales dominated at the bar. The full selection available on handpull was Pedigree and Old Empire, Ringwood Boondoggle and Jennings Sneck Lifter, with a final pump dispensing a real cider. The keg range looked fairly run of the mill, but no doubt suits the needs of the locals. I enjoyed a quality drop of the Pedigree which went down very well after the hard slog up the hill. I wasn't sure if the pub did food, but there were some decent looking cobs in cling-film stacked at the end of the bar. I thought this was a very pleasant old pub with plenty of interesting features and some good comfortable seating options which made it an easy place to settle down over a well kept pint of ale. I thought the ale selection was a good mix of styles given the constraints of choosing from within the Marstons portfolio and based on my pint, it appears in the latest edition of the Good Beer Guide on merit. A good all-rounder this one, and I'm glad I made the effort to seek it out.