With 12 taps and 4 cask lines, a new craft beer destination is 'bourne' in Hove's residential heartland
90 Portland Road
Hove
BN3 5DN
01273 823633
thewestbourneevents@gmail.com
The longer I live in Brighton the more I realise that some of Brighton’s best pubs aren’t actually in central Brighton, and The Westbourne Hove fits squarely into the, ‘worth getting a bus to’ category.
BEER OPTIONS
I normally start by describing the layout and decor, but I’m jumping in with the big guns here. For this pub, casually doing their thing in Hove’s residential heartland, frankly lord it up over most city-centre pubs with their beer dispensing prowess. If they weren’t so damn modest about it – they don’t seem to class themselves as a tap-room – it would be indecent, but there are 12 taps and 4 cask pumps here, all hooked up and pumping good stuff.
To be fair, 1 of those taps is Guinness, 2 more cider, and another is Lucky Saint’s 0.5% beer, but that leaves 9 taps hooked up to stunning local and UK-wide breweries like; Burning Sky, Gun Brewery, 360, Hand Brew Co and Thornbridge. There’s something for every palette here and beer explorers like me can traverse the beer styles at leisure; tonight I tried a Table beer, a lager, a DIPA and even a weighty percentage Porter.
PUB DESCRIPTION
Now to the building. The pub is unmissable as it’s name boldly screams at you in striking yellow letters against a navy blue pub. If you enter from the bright yellow front door there’s a spacious main floor, a light colour scheme, a modern, natural wood aesthetic and overhead, decorated with festoon lighting.
There’s cafe style high chairs against a bar at the front window but otherwise the seating is predominantly at low tables set out in a neat row opposite the bar.
Working your way through the pub, there’s a nice cosy snug section to the left and then the rear space there are high and low tables of arranged in what seemed to be a warmer and more dimly lit dining section.
PUB GARDEN
To the left and rear of the pub there is plenty of outdoor seating, some of which is covered and heated with lamps. It’s simple but certainly provides that outdoor option.
FOOD MENU
Food is available but, at time of writing, the website provides no info on the menu. We had some really good cheesy-chips and snacks while here, and the pics of Sunday roasts people have posted online look incredible, but I can’t offer any personal feedback.
CONCLUSION
The social media accounts are sparse but give a sense of a pub that is pretty connected to it’s community. Incredibly popular quiz nights, street parties and Christmas Carols are just the tip of the iceberg I suspect. Personally I would love to be able to call this pub my local. The sheer variety of beer options plus the well chosen local brewers and national brands, show a level of beer enthusiasm in the stock decisions, I would trust this pub to have 4-5 great beer options any day of the week and that makes it an outstanding pub in my eyes.