The White Star, Stoke Central, Stoke-On-Trent

This smart town centre pub is one of those that was given new life by Everard's Project William scheme, which allowed the local Titanic brewery to set it up as one of their initial outlets, since which it has become one of Stoke's top alehouses. You enter directly to the main bar area, with the servery in an L-shape to your right. There are bare floorboards through the centre of the pub and a few carpeted areas off of this. High banquettes fill the space opposite the bar under the front windows with standard tables and chairs in a small lounge-style space to the front left. As the bar runs towards the rear of the room, you pass a drinking ledge with a large blackboard above detailing the full ale range, before emerging into a carpeted rear area with a good mix of seating options arranged around a turquoise fireplace. A 'Titanic' clock hangs on the wall and some nice port-hole style frames have been used to display the names of the breweries core range of beers. This part of the room has unusual wallpaper depicting old letters, postcards, packaging labels and the like. There is another section of the pub, almost entirely invisible from the main bar area due to the fact that it runs behind the servery and is therefore obscured by the bar back. This area has lots of comfortable seating under a selection of Titanic themed pictures and seemed to be one of the cosier spots on offer, with lots of people here choosing to eat. Stairs lead up to the toilets, passing a fairly basic function room and several more impressive Titanic bits. I visited in the run up to a Stoke City home match and by not wearing colours I was easily able to ignore the 'Home Fans Only' signs and bag a table near the bar. There is a good pub grub menu available but despite only being an hour into service, they had already run out of my first choice, so I opted instead for a steak and ale pie, which I have to say was top class. On the bar, the Titanic core range was displayed along one row of handpulls, whilst the seasonals and guest ales appeared down the other side of the bar. The full Titanic list on this visit was White Star, Plum Porter, Captain Smith, Steerage, Iceberg, Wreckage and Sea, with Everards Tiger and Roosters Baby Faced Assassin the other options. The White Star set me back £3.15 and was in top condition, whilst the bar staff seemed well drilled in dealing with football day crowds and were very friendly and helpful. The Titanic pubs in and around Stoke are undoubtedly some of the real highlights for real ale drinkers but I thought this place offered more than just good beer. I found it to be a very warm, welcoming pub with lots of comfy seating, cheery service and some good proper pub food. My experience may well have been enhanced by the fact that the pub was nice and busy without being overcrowded and I might have felt a little differently had I visited at a quieter hour, but for me this is one of the top pubs in a city blessed with plenty of fine watering holes.

A good Titanic Brewery ran pub. 4 other ales available apart from 6 Titanic.

This was quiet on my Saturday evening visit. Inside it's wooden floored with a raised area at the back. Despite the Cup Final going on there was no TV which was really welcome. There was also no music or fruit machines as far as I could tell. The bar has two sets of five hand pumps all of which were in use. There were five Titanic beers, Everard's Tiger, Ilkley Black, Piddle Cocky Hop, York First Light and Cotleigh Old Buzzard. I went for the Plum Porter and White Star both of which were in good condition but I thought the weaker White Sar was a shadow of what it was several years ago. Unsurprisingly it is GBG 2015 listed and is another good Titanic pub. I will definitely seek out some more of them.