Devonshire Arms, Burton On Trent Town, Burton on Trent

I'd passed by this pub a couple of times during the day, but it doesn't open until 4pm on weekdays. Returning shortly after 4pm, I found the pub already doing a brisk trade. There is a popular front bar and a much quieter lounge to the rear, with an adjoining dining area that was roped off during my visit. Service wasn't the friendliest. But the beer range was better than the Roebuck nearer the station. Regular beers are Burton Bridge Burton Bitter & Stairway to Heaven, Bass, Gates Burton Reservoir & Titanic Plum Porter. Guests were St Austell Proper Job & Dark Star Hophead. Make sure you check the boards, as some ales will be on in the other room. There were also a number of ciders - Weston's Rosie's Pig Tropical & Rhubarb & Family Vintage & Lilley's Raspberry Mojito Cider, Mango Cider, Cherries & Berries & Fire Dancer.

The last of twelve pubs visited around Burton on a Friday evening, this was by no means a late addition or afterthought, but instead a pleasant two-bar pub with a good location close to the station. You enter into a corridor with the toilets to the left and the bar area through a door to the right. This is a decent Public Bar-style room with some good seating around the front window bay and the servery to the rear. Walls are either exposed brick or else plain painted and decorated with loads of Burton-related breweriana of the sort that you can find all over town. The bar has a nice dark wood counter and traditional bar back with a potentially helpful, but actually out of date beer board to one side. The room is clearly not sufficient for a pub like this, so the corridor runs back, past a pleasant side room with limited seating a=in a narrow space, into a rear room dominated by a large central chimney stack with an unused stove inside. This is a good sized, carpeted room with its own servery to the front and plenty of banquette and low stool seating around the perimeter. Loads more Bass and Burton bridge breweriana lines the walls alongside old maps and photos that wouldn’t look out of place alongside those Wetherspoons ‘local info’ boards. A good indie soundtrack was playing but this mainly got lost under the chatter of a good Friday night turnout. Five handpulls were in operation, pouring Burton Bridge Stairway To Heaven and Bridge Bitter, Adnams Ghost Ship, Draught Bass and Thornbridge Gold. The Stairway To Heaven was served to me by a very personable barman and drank very nicely - a fittingly good pint to end a day of generally high quality beer around town. I didn’t have particularly high expectations for this place and it’s easy for it to feel like a bit of an also-ran compared to institutions like the Coopers or Burton Bridge Inn, not to mention the town’s strong micropub scene, but it’s a fine pub in its own right and well worth checking out, especially give the handy location near the trains.

We were a little disappointed to find this pub closed at lunchtime, when by all advertising it should have been open, although we had been warned in the pub down the road that it probably wouldn't open until 4. Coming back later it proved to be a nice traditional two bar pub, comfortably furnished and with a good range of beers, namely Burton Bridge Stairway to Heaven and Bridge Bitter, Gates Reservoir, Oakham Inferno, Allsopps Pale and Bass, plus some ciders.