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Disappointment of the week with Mobyduck
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Detail Pages
The Old Grindstone, Crookes, Sheffield
Sheffield
S10 1UA
Pub Type
Greene KingReviews (Current Rating Average: 7 of 10) see review guidelines
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Will Larter left this review about The Old Grindstone
The pub was taken over earlier this year in a complicated negotiation, whereby local pub company and brewery True North persuaded Greene King to sell them this pub and the Punchbowl at the other end of Crookes, on the basis that they could make a better job of running them and that this would then benefit the one pub in the area that GK are retaining, The Ball. The next step was to install Stancill Brewery as tenants or "stewards" for a two year interim period while True North raise the funding needed for a radical refurbishment (though they will be running the Punchbowl themselves).
Anyway, the shorter version is that this is now a Stancill pub, with the brewery's well made but not terribly exciting beers at very attractive prices (my friends, visiting from the south, were flabbergasted). It was pretty busy when we were here a couple of weeks ago, but as I was by no means a regular before I can't say how much of a difference it is from the previous regime. Certainly the real ales were being drunk to an extent that I can't recall when the options were those mentioned in my review from seven years ago (below) or on a subsequent visit in (I think) 2015. I can see myself calling in rather more often in future.
On 17th June 2019
- rating: 7
[User has posted 3734 recommendations about 3471 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Will Larter left this review about The Old Grindstone
This pub has had a very smart refurbishment, with red, orange and yellow paint on the walls and ceilings, the same colours appearing in the carpet and upholstery in garish zig-zag patterns. The bar has four hand pumps, including the Greene King IPA high pour one, and all pumps and fonts display the price per pint, which is a useful innovation. (Though my half of a £2.45 pint came to £1.30, so there's some faulty arithmetic there.) The other beers were from Hydes, Belhaven and White Horse.
The pub is an open plan affair, with pillars and level changes breaking it up into distinct areas. Past the bar is an area where the floor above has been removed leaving an atrium-like space with high beams and skylights. Past this there are both a pool table and a (three-quarter size?) snooker table, both very new-looking and well lit.
There were some TVs in different areas, none too dominant, and the background music did not compete too strenuously with the conversation and laughter I could hear from the mostly young customers who were obviously having a good time. This was the busiest of the pubs I visited in Crookes on this occasion and I wouldn't have a problem about coming here again, maybe as part of a Crookes crawl.
On 20th January 2012
- rating: 6
[User has posted 3734 recommendations about 3471 pubs]