The Hatfield Tap, Hatfield

Steve of N21 left this review about The Harrier

After a day of bringing back memories of my student drinking years, some pleasant in the Rats Castle in St Albans and some not so pleasant in the White Hart in Hatfield Town centre I decided to try and exorcise some further demons by a visit to what is now called The Hatfield Tap.
Back in my student days of the late 70’s at what was then known as Hatfield Polytechnic this pub was called The Hilltop, after the then notorious sprawling council estate where it is situated and, although technically the closest pub to the student halls of residences, it was a pubs you never went into as a student. Back then it was the social club for the notorious Hilltop thugs whose main pastime was beating up students, especially if they didn’t look 100% Anglo Saxon. I only went in once with a fellow student called Dinesh, and let’s just say it didn’t end well.
Well that was the late 70’s for you and thankfully the world has changed, the Hilltop Estate has change and this pub has changed beyond all recognition since those days.
Nice to see from Steve’s review below that even by the time it was the Harrier, he considered that it was now safe enough for students to even consider working there, but last year it underwent another extensive renovation by McMullens which, according to WhatPub “McMullens latest rebrand, naming it The Hatfield Tap is clearly aimed at attracting more students from the nearby University of Hertfordshire” proving that the world has gone full circle.
Well Whatpub isn’t wrong, this is a very smart modern pub refurb by McMullens and done by their sensible pub design team and not the design team who were trained by following ‘footballers wives’ around Ikea, who blighted some of their make overs ten years ago.
Several distinct comfortable areas with some retaining a sports pub feel. There’s screens for the sport plus pool and shuffleboard tables and dart board available in sections. But there’s plenty of other areas that have more of a lounge bar feel. As well as McMullens modern craft range three of their ales were available in the shape of McMullens IPA, Country and AK and the latter was in fine form. A decent reasonable pub grub menu with plenty of burger options and deep fried stuff to attract the nearby students.
If you had asked me in my student days how the then Hilltop pub could be improved, the only idea I would have had would have been to have blown the bloody place up and levelled it. Therefore congratulations to Mcmullens for finding an alternative approach
The back history of this pub is also quite interesting. It was originally built in 1959 as a cooperation between Guinness and Mcmullens. Hatfield Development Corporation at the time we’re building what they laughingly called Hatfield Newtown and after putting in all the social housing did the usual trick of running out of money for any facilities to support the large expanding population being dragged into this area. The site the pub sits on was originally earmarked for a social club and community centre which were never built due to lack of money. As Guinness were still in their post war mode of facilitating new builds they approached the corporation for permission to parter with a local brewery to build a new pub and community resource. And this unmistakable 1960’s estate pub was the result and when it first opened it had three separate bars and off-sales.

On 26^th October 2023 - rating: 7
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