The Garden House, Norwich

Now here’s an odd one, it’s a Craft Union pub, a corner site and entering you have a counter with Brains and Rev James but the bar maid tells you “there’s something called Bass and Mauldon Silver Adder on in the other bar”, then you notice the racks of Lilley’s cider boxes (17) and a rack of 11 casks by the door. It looks like a Yorkshire based beer festival is coming, beers from Rudgate, Saltaire and Great Newsome were slowly cooking there. So two pulls in each bar with four beers on, usual stuff on T-bars. Fairly traditional pub with banquette seating at square wooden tables in the front public, mix of styles in the lounge, quite a few screens to be going on with. There’s a conservatory at the back that serves mainly as a games room, with pool and darts. It seems an odd choice to be in the GBG 2024, my Silver Adder was mediocre and the surrounding area suggests smooth and lager drinkers would be the main clientele, I suspect the number of beers may have had some influence.

Official site of The Garden House - www.craftunionpubs.com

Official site of The Garden House - www.craftunionpubs.com

This pub was the biggest disapointment of my stay In Norwich. My expectations were high having read Rays review below albeit that was more than eight years previous, there may be a couple of factors to this demise from that now far off time, Covid restrictions were still in place at the time of my visit added to the fact the previous night had been Englands victory in the semi-finals of the Euros and my early doors vist found the pub quite not back together, I was the first only punter present at this time of day, three TV screens around the pub had some rubbish 80s music channel on, thankfully on silent, the whole pub just had a disheveled aura about it. Just two beers were avaiable on handpump, Brains SA and Theakstons Old Peculiar, I had a pint of the latter which to be fair was in good form. Given my experience on the day it's only a 5/10 for me which is a shame as it looked very promising on my approach.