The Royal Sovereign, Brighton

I visited the Royal Sovereign last night (a Wednesday) and ordered a half of Harveys Best for me and a half of Dark Star Hophead for my girlfriend. The Harveys was below average but served at the correct temperature and the Hophead was lukewarm and therefore undrinkable. When I informed the bar staff (two twentysomethings, male and female) of this and after a five minute wait, their first reaction was for both of them dip a straw into the beer, taste it and declare that it was ok to them. They then told me that it came from the same refrigeration unit as the Harveys, and proceeded to decant the beer into another glass (!) which had had some ice in it for a minute. Needless to say that this didn't help and I had to return once more to the bar whereupon they begrudgingly served me another half. Any decent pub with properly trained bar staff would never dare to question a customer in such a patronising way and would replace the beer without hesitation and offer an apology.

It goes without saying that this is absurd behaviour and the only logical conclusion is that they expect paying customers to put up with any old rubbish, and are not above ganging up on customers in order to avoid giving a replacement half.

I would also like to add that there was a manky piece of carrot on my table, which rounded off my Royal Sovereign "experience" nicely.

Why anyone would visit such an appalling pub (I went to meet some friends who were already there) when Brighton is stuffed full of many far more inviting places is beyond me; I shall never set foot in this place again and I strongly recommend that you do likewise.

27 Jan 2011 10:57