Sun Inn, Stafford

The Sun Inn is the first Titanic Brewery pub that I’ve visited. This is a large space with numerous split-level seating areas in the left-hand side. To the right is an L-shaped bar counter that supports premium and craft keg, and I counted 12 hand pumps split across the front and rear of the counter. These were drawing what must have been Titanic’s full range of White Star, Plum Porter, Iceberg, Anchor, Steerage, Captain Smiths and Cherry Porter. Also available were Uttoxeter Brewing’s Earth Mover, Beartown’s Crème Bearlee, Welbeck Abbey Brewery’s Georgiana, Salopian’s Lemon Dream and Everards Tiger. I went for both the Titanic Porters, preferring the Plum to the Cherry. The service was friendly and up behind the bar in the right rear corner is a dartboard. I liked it in here and will return, but next time I will try to remember that the entrance is very low so that I don’t bash my head on it again.

My first time in a pub in Stafford, but being with two friends, one of whom I had not seen since before the coronavirus pandemic, I did not take the copious notes that I would normally have made with this review in mind. Suffice to say that this is a Titanic pub, with six of their own beers and a guest, plus the Everards Tiger which signals this as a Project William pub; though my Stafford friend suggests that is no longer the case and the Everards beer is more of a courtesy or gentlemen's agreement. Whatever, I enjoyed my pint of Tiger, although it was not as good as some I have had, and my companions on their Titanic beers were not effusive in their praise either. Having recently had a couple of poor beers in the Brunswick Inn in Derby, another Project William pub, the thought occurs: are these pubs putting on more beers than they can sell? To be fair, none of our beers were actually "off", but being used to drinking in pubs where the licensees are careful to watch the quality of their beers and the turnover, I am aware more than I used to be of the difference between beer that is just ok and that which is excellent. This was just ok.