The Anchor Tap, Horsham

Quite a small pub with a main room with the bar area at the front and a small room with extra seating to the rear. Four cask beers and a further ten craft keg beers all displayed on a board on the wall to the side of the bar. It's certainly one of the better pubs for beer choice in the town.

Opening in February 2016 in a former tea rooms that was once the tap for the nearby Anchor Hotel, this is the third pub opened by the Dark Star Brewery. The pub occupies a small premises with what you might generously call a front and back room. Both spaces are narrow and can accommodate a minimal amount of seating, especially in the front room where the servery takes up the entire right hand wall. However, with the right amount of customers in, this can create quite a cosy environment in which to enjoy some quality beer and we certainly enjoyed settling down in the back room where there was just about enough room for us to perch around one of the four or five small tables. Decor was quite restrained throughout, although there were a few seemingly bespoke mirrors with various quirky images on them which looked pretty good. The close conditions lend the pub the feel of a micropub and the fine beer selection certainly enhanced that impression. There were three Dark Star beers on plus a couple of guest ales and a decent selection of craft beers on tap or in bottles. I gave the Marble Pint a try and thought it was in very good shape, clearly mirroring the top quality cellarmanship of their sister pub, The Evening Star in Brighton. There was a pretty good mix of customers in on a late Sunday afternoon and a couple of dogs were lounging around under the tables in the rear room too. This felt like a quality pub that I was unfortunately only able to enjoy for the length of time it took to have a quick pint before needing to rush back to the station. It certainly felt like this place is a great addition to the town’s pub scene and I would make this my first port of call the next time I’m back in Horsham.