The Ale Stop, Buxton

I was in Buxton on Saturday evening with a friend and we had planned to visit the Ale Stop. The first thing we noticed was there were quite a few people drinking on the street outside. This was a sign of things to come as the place was absolutely rammed. There was a full on rave going on with a smoke machine in the room off to the right. We managed to work our way to the bar, there are three hand pulls, at the time offering a selection of pale beers. A large blackboard is helpfully placed to the right of the bar which confirms the beers available. But on this occasion we decided it wasn't to be, as we couldn't hear ourselves think and there was no space at all inside so we would have had to retreat to the street and stand up with our drinks, which didn't particularly appeal. This may be a nice quiet micropub by day, but by night the experience it offers does not seem to fit with the normal ethos of a micropub. We decided to leave and try elsewhere.

This micropub is opposite a church where the landlord has placed an A board with an arrow pointing to the pub labelled "BEER" and one pointing to the church labelled "NO BEER". Inside there is an area with the bar to the left and another area to the right. All the seating seemed to be low chairs and tables. It looks like the pump clip display had expanded as they seemed to be everywhere apart from the walls with the copies of album covers. As well as the predictable Beatles Revolver and Sgt Pepper, two long forgotten covers caught my eye, Freak Out by the Mothers Of Invention and Cheap Thrills by Big Brother And The Holding Company. I forgot to write down one of the beers on but the other two were Exit 33 Hoptimist and Wild Weather Motorcycle Emptiness. I went for the Wild Weather beer (£3.20) which was excellent.

Good place but could benefit from being a bit bigger. Three cask ales (I had 12 Apostles IPA @ 5% ABV) and a selection of cans & bottles in the fridge. No disco to be seen but the album covers and the pump clips were still there. Worth a revisit.