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Hare & Hounds, Brighton

75 London Road
Brighton
BN1 4JF

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Reviews (Current Rating Average: 6 of 10) Add Review see review guidelines


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


Pub SignMan left this review about Hare & Hounds

This is a very large, open plan pub, positioned in the crook of a prominent junction just a short distance from Brighton station. The place is pretty striking on approach thanks to a large, first storey mural depicting various wild animals for no obvious reason. Inside, things aren’t quite as memorable, thanks to a large, opened out room, bare boarded throughout with an island servery in the centre, which would clearly have once served a number of separate rooms. The bar still has a pleasant dark wood panelled counter with nicely rounded corners, but the years haven’t been kind on the bar back or any former canopy, which are now nowhere to be seen. Banquette seating runs around much of the room’s perimeter with plenty of chairs and low stools in support, whilst the back wall sees the banquettes formed into a row of booths, which look like the best places to grab a seat, despite the lack of natural light back here. The walls have been left with exposed brickwork and are mostly unadorned, although there was a huge pull-down screen to one side showing a live football fixture, with quite loud music in place of the commentary. An open kitchen to the rear left was dishing out a few mediocre looking meals and whilst there were quite a few customers knocking about on my Saturday afternoon visit, the place still felt flat and empty due to the expansive interior.
There were three handpulls on the bar, two of which were off, including a turned Sharps Doom Bar clip, leaving Gun Pale Ale as the sole cask option. A surly barman poured me a pretty mediocre pint of this, which I didn’t enjoy all that much.
This felt like a bit of a student-friendly pub that might work well in the evening when there’s a bit of a crowd in but was a pretty average experience in the middle of the day. There are a few nice decorative features dotted around the place, but on the whole, I felt it was a bit empty and uninspired and I’d probably drop it if I was crawling around the area North of the station again.

On 21st February 2023 - rating: 5
[User has posted 3102 recommendations about 3102 pubs]


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


Just a quick pint, then I'm off left this review about The Hare And Hounds

Revamped as a craft beer and alehouse, with a slightly odd mix of fairly rustic furniture and industrial decor. Features a substantial island bar with plenty of space on all sides, plus a few alcove booths at the back. Also has a number of covered benches out in the rear patio beer garden. A bank of five handpumps can be found on one face of the counter, offering Doom Bar, Tiny Rebel Rocksteady, Gun Brewery IPA and Firebird Two Horses (£2.05, half) plus Aspall's Cyderkyn cider. A decent selection can also be found on the keg taps, and there are Meantime 'brewery fresh' tanks by the door.

On 17th April 2016 - rating: 7
[User has posted 8061 recommendations about 8061 pubs]


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


Steve of N21 left this review about The Hare And Hounds

New Craft and Cask Ale house opened by the Indigo Pub Company as reported below.
They must have spent a few bob stamping their theme, or theme’s as Paul explains below and it’s now a million miles away from a traditional pub. But as another one wrestled from the hands of those incompetent Muppets at Enterprise Inns I still mark it down as a step forward and the industrial themed drinking barn interior with its strange mesh walled seating booths, metal pipe and barrel lamp fitments hanging from the ceiling grew on me after a while. What didn’t grow on me was the collection of painted scull motifs, both on the inside walls and those in the excellently done outside drinking area, which is a collection of wooden seated booth areas with their own roofs. Perhaps you have to be young and trendy to get those..
What I did get was the beer offering and as well as an impressive range of Craft taps providing brews from the usual suspects of Meantime and Brewdog, as well as the Meantime Lager tank described below there are six real ale pumps on the bar and for my visit five of these were operational with Sussex brewery ales. These included 360o West Coast IPA, Firebird Heritage XX and Hop Head and the excellent Expresso from Dark Star. The couple I tried were in good condition and cemented my feeling that if the Dark Star Expresso was available through the coffee machine at my firm, working would be an altogether pleasant experience..
This place certainly grew on me, and another reason to keep on visiting Brighton, methinks..

On 22nd June 2014 - rating: 8
[User has posted 2094 recommendations about 1985 pubs]


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


paulof horsham left this review about The Hare And Hounds

Newly renamed, refurbished and reopened, The Hare & Hounds is a big room on a busy corner at the far end of the dowdy London Road strip. The bar is a central island; the floor is tiled here, but bare boards rule elsewhere. Furniture is a mix of high seats and stools alongside the main road with lower seats and sofas elsewhere.

Pub company Indigo seem to like a different theme for each of their pubs and here we've got two. The more obvious is the pair of tanks holding a thousand litres or so of Meantime lager - this is the first pub in Brighton offering brewery-fresh lager. I tried it and it's good - not as gassy as your regular lager; mind you, at £4.95 a pint it needed to be good! The other theme is a kitchen operated by La Choza offering Mexican street food.

Back to the bar and, in addition to the lager, there's 2 more Meantime taps, as well as a couple for Brewdog and several others that I didn't note. Pilsener lovers should note that there are also cheaper and fizzier lagers available. Ales are local (Firebird & 360 were noted) from 6 pumps.

This is a classy update and makes a good option if you're visiting the Duke of Yorks independent cinema across the road.

On 20th April 2014 - rating: 8
[User has posted 449 recommendations about 421 pubs]


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


Steve C left this review about The Hydrant

The Hare and Hounds changed its name to the Hydrant a couple of years ago and is a live music venue. There is an upstairs area that was hosting a £12 entry event last night (Saturday) that went on until 3am. The downstairs bar also has a stage area for live music and there are all sorts of flyers for upcoming events. The plasma screens were showing a music channel and there are a couple of pool tables. It was very quiet at 19:30, but a medley of Mohicans seemed to be assembling. The bar is stocked with draught products and the service was polite enough. Being in my mid-thirties I was at least ten years older than most and I don’t have a penchant for live music so I didn’t hang around long.

I saw nothing here to have me rushing back.

On 12th February 2012 - rating: 3
[User has posted 5179 recommendations about 5148 pubs]