Tap & Barrel, Sheffield

This is an ale-house-type pub with bare brick walls and floorboards, and a few fake barrel-heads (Boddingtons, Batemans, Vaux) from about 30 years ago. And several real barrels in use as high tables. It's in surprisingly good nick, and the toilets look like they've been replaced recently, so why is it almost deserted? Well, wrong part of town for one thing - the market has closed and been demolished and the commercial emphasis has moved to the Moor. Most of the other pubs around here are long since closed (Black Swan, Cannon, Alexandra, Market Tavern, Hare & Hounds) and it's perhaps surprising that this one hasn't gone the same way. Even more surprising, there are five hand pumps on the bar but no real ale. An ale house with no ale. One of them did have a reversed pump clip, and I asked the landlord (who may be temporary - there is a tenancy to let sign outside) if they ever have real ale, and he said in a couple of weeks. Not sure I'll be beating on the door in a couple of weeks, somehow.