Sandford Park Alehouse, Cheltenham

Official site of Sandford Park Alehouse - www.spalehouse.co.uk

St Georges Day last month saw the opening of the Stanford Park Ale House in the premises of the former EXS Gay Club and the Cheltenham Gay scenes loss is certainly the Cheltenham Ale drinkers gain. I utilised it twice during my weekend in Cheltenham, once during the day and then late on Bank Holiday Monday evening. The bar area supports Ten pumps with nine real ales and a local Cider on the bar , 16 taps for lagers and craft beers on the wall behind the bar and they are aiming for over 100 different bottled beers when all the fridges are going. There is a large TFT screen by the bar which rotates through the ales, lagers and craft beers, telling you what is on and there are booklets on the tables with the available bottled beers. And from what I could see the prices were reasonable. Well, they were when comparing the stronger Craft beers to those I have seen in the Craft Beer Co in Clerkenwell in the Smoke for example, but I will have to leave it up to locals to confirm how they sit for Gloucestershire. It’s obviously had a significant amount of money spent on it and on entering I got the same vibe as ‘The Pub’ in Leicester, as it has that same modern, very clean but slightly sterile feel to it. However I think this is actually a better venue in that there are three separate room areas internally with seating and one of them houses a bar billiards table to try and recreate a bit of a proper pub atmosphere. Then there is a large garden area outback which was in a very unfinished state at the time of my visits. It was certainly very lively on the Bank Holiday Monday evening and was attracting a younger crowd, but there were definitely some beer tickers in. One issue for me is that they keep the lighting very high and, although this does make it very bright, you do feel like you are having a beer in a vivarium. We left here and had a last one in the Kemble Brewery Inn as it was close to our hotel and a bigger contrast in pub ambiances you could not make. All the Ales I tried were spot on, so for the beer quality and choice you have to score it a 10. But for the drinking experience I can’t go above 6, so therefore an 8 overall. And hopefully this place will age well to make it a must visit when in Cheltenham, because frankly there isn’t currently many and Cheltenham could certainly do with another good goto pub.