The Old Forge, Kirkby Stephen

Will Larter left this review about The Old Forge

A fairly recent conversion (September 2022) of a building whose former purpose is made clear in the name. The front door is not used, with clear directions round to a side door, then through a small area of seating and tables to the main room with the bar counter and small kitchen to the rear. It's a family business, and I soon found that I was in fact the only customer, despite three other people being in the room. Although there are four hand pumps they have so far not sold sufficient cask ale to justify more than one or occasionally two beers on. At the moment the pub is only open three days a week - this may change if the holiday season produces more trade - and they get their beers in pins rather than firkins. There are three keg beers and these all come from Handbrew, which is run by more members of the family at Worthing in Sussex, and at the Hand in Hand pub in Brighton: the world's smallest commercially operating tower brewery in a pub. Their best seller is Toadlicker, in my opinion an unfortunately named beer and doubly unfortunate that it actually includes real grapefruit juice, which makes it unsuitable for anyone taking statins. I had a taster when pressed, and it produced neither any side effects nor any discernable pleasure. The same could be said of Tilt IPA, a cold and fizzy session beer with nothing about it that floated my boat; I didn't try the lager. The cask beer, on the other hand, was from Great Corby brewery, not far down the Eden Valley towards Carlisle: Centurion, a 4% beer which was a solid NBSS 4 as well. I had a very nice time here, chatting with the owners until some more customers turned up, and would be happy to return next time I'm in Kirkby Stephen.

On 22^nd June 2023 - rating: 6
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