Bournemouth Pub Explorations

At the end of October I found myself by the seaside in Bournemouth, ready to set out on an excursion around the six current Good Beer Guide entries in the town.
The day started with breakfast in one of the two central Wetherspoon emporiums...  a rather dull identikit Spoons, spread out on one floor under TK Maxx, and featuring lesser seen 3-D pub signage...  

The pub is so-named because Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, is buried alongside other family members in the graveyard of St Peter's church next door.

That's the sightseeing done for the day, then

When it comes to the Good Beer Guide pubs of Bournemouth they're spread out into the suburbs ensuring I became familiar with the More Bus timetable and network map.

The Acorn in Kinson was the outlier, a 40-minute one-way bus ride from the centre.
Kinson was once a village in its own right with a connection to famed local smugglers of the 18th century.  The pub, an old coaching inn, was previously named after smuggling head-honcho Isaac Gulliver.

The Acorn (1492 Wimborne Road, Kinson, BH11 9AD)
Through the main entrance is the bar in the front room, whilst a sidestep to the left takes you into a second room, set up with DJ decks and Halloween cobweb decorations.

Halloween decorations, or housekeeping staff recruitment issues?

Six handpumps along the bar served an interesting selection of local ales, from which I picked the Southbourne 'Headlander'. 
"Think you might be out of luck," the landlord told me after pulling the pint - "last of the barrel by the looks of it.  You can give it a try if you want."
I'm a rank amateur beer sommelier and it looked and tasted fine to me.  I've had staff vigorously pulling the pump to squeeze the last, well past its best beer, out of the barrel (The Moderation, Reading, back in the 2023 guide against the odds!).  This was better than a fair few beers I'd be served in other places throughout my visit to Dorset.
The landlord waved away my attempt to pay, telling me I could have this for free which was quite remarkable.

So of course I couldn't leave after one free beer, so went back for a lovely pint of Sandbanks 'Wayward Son IPA', and some crisps, and to put a donation in the charity box.

I caught a bus back through the centre, then up onto the West Cliffs, where the first of several micropubs on my list was situated on Queens Road.

All Hail Ale (10 Queens Road, Westbourne, BH2 6BE - web)
The Untappd check-ins had been coming at a rate of knots from All Hail Ale the previous day, confirming this as a peak craft-murk destination.
Typical, then, that it was completely deserted when I visited.  The first session of the nearby Poole beer festival was where all the Untappd brigade appeared to have decamped to.

So, it's really not fair to judge the place on this visit, although the beer list offered up plenty of interesting options, including my tasty Dark Revolution 'Mr Scooty'.

My route so far had taken me past the bottom of Wimborne Road twice, where two pubs on my list were located.  But these were both 4pm openers, ensuring I spent plenty of time going back and forth on buses.  And - hell's bells - what a painful bus journey it was to get back there.  Three teenage girls on the back seat managed to make a fearsome amount of noise that had me reaching for the headphones to put some Napalm Death on for respite.

It was a relief to get off the bus and onto the vibrant, lively, Wimborne Road, home to charity shops galore, bubble tea, G&T's Original Warehouse, and a Wetherspoon that's even worse than my local one in the Cowley Centre.

It was to the Silverback Ale House that I was heading. 
A micro - how did you guess? 

Silverback Ale House (518 Wimborne Road, Winton, BH9 2EX - web)
"A relaxed and friendly atmosphere" says WhatPub, so a bit odd to enter and find the mild-mannered barman chucking someone out due to their dog making too much noise.

This is a micro of the Kent variety - high benches, tall tables and stools around the perimeter, and no bar counter.  The radio station, on low volume, seemed to play Iron Maiden every other song, but not loud enough to detract from conversation.
So it was that I ended up knowing all the reasons the chap at the next table disliked automated telephone systems and British Telecom's customer service.

 

A five minute stroll down Wimborne Road took me to the next micro.

Micro Moose (326 Wimborne Road, Winton, BH9 2HH)
This started life as a coffee shop, prior to the Canadian owner deciding to convert it into a micro pub in 2016.

It's Canadian themed in-as-much that provincial flags adorn the ceilings, old posters and maps of the country adorn the walls, and there are a lot of moose in Canada. 
Nothing like the dreadful Canadian theme pub I used to get dragged to by work colleagues in Covent Garden.
I procured a gorgeous 'Gurt Coconuts', Cerne Abbas Brewery's fine rum stout.
Then embarrassed myself when the coin bag in which I was carrying my cash split at the bottom, sending all my coinage crashing to floor and rolling to all corners.

As darkness descended, I hopped off the bus at the train station and set off on foot along Holdenhurst Lane.

The Firkin Shed (279 Holdenhurst Road, Springbourne, BH8 8BZ)
Micro number four for me on this day.
The Firkin Shed was the first micro to open in the town back in 2015 and has become deservedly popular with beer and cider aficionados, winning the 2018 CAMRA National Cider Pub of the Year award.

It's full of plenty of quirky decorations - I've chosen the Han Solo door for my picture, in another attempt to convince my old work colleague and Star Wars obsessive William that pubs are great...

Here's the crafty stuff...

I settled on a local beer from Boscombe Brewing Company: 'Yard Sale', a quality 6.6% pale ale. 
And took this out into the small back yard in some balmy warm Autumn weather where the Pizza Shed satisfied my grumbling stomach.

A superb pizza for a tenner from a pizza chef who must like capers as they appeared as a topping on everything except the margarita.  Good deal on capers in the Bournemouth cash n carry?

Micro pub WC humour

Moving on from the micro I found my way back to the centre and up Poole Hill where I opted to divert from the beer guide and visit the local brew pub.

Poole Hill Brewery (41-43 Poole Hill, Bournemouth, BH2 5PW - web)
This is home to Southbourne Ales, whose session bitter I'd enjoyed earlier in the day at the Acorn.  From a choice of four at the bar I was in mood for something dark, picking the 'Stroller', 4.6% oatmeal stout.

In a building that has previously been a school of art and a car showroom, the brewery is now located behind a partition wall, seating stretching around the corner past a stage, and stairs leading down to a basement room and cinema.
I grabbed a perfectly placed stool in a nook by the doorway with a view of the evenings entertainment. 

The latin-jazz ( I looked it up, I know nothing about jazz sub-genres) was provided by a local group called Soldoro.
Supping a fine pint of stout, the music was sounding good, igniting the odd spontaneous dance by the bar...

Just around the corner from the Poole Hill Brewery, and handily close to my hotel, was the Goat and Tricycle.
Pictured here in daylight hours...

Goat and Tricycle (27-29 West Hill Road, Bournemouth, BH2 5PF)
This was the one pub that I could remember from a trip a number of years back for a League One Bournemouth v Forest clash.  We lost.  Of course.
I think this was the only beer guide entry in the town at the time, and I recall sitting in here early evening and drinking up quickly when I realised how far away I was from the ground.

It was once two adjoining pubs, the lovely green tiling on the left side previously being the Pembroke Arms.

A run of handpumps served up Butcombe and Liberation ales.  But I was at the point in the evening that Stan's cider from the box seemed a good idea.

A Halloween party was in full swing, the staff superbly dressed up, and an animatronic killer clown cackling at all passers-by.

It was busy in both distinctively different halves of the pub, so I took my loopy cider into the yard at the side where a three piece acoustic band were doing a fine job of covering rock, pop and indie classics.

It was a grand place to finish the evening, the music was fun, the fancy dressed punters doing a little jig, the atmosphere great.
I even considered another cider, as if I wasn't going to feel worse-for-wear enough next morning anyway.
All-in-all, a good day out and about around Bournemouth.