Five Bells, Sealback to pub details please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
It is what it is. If you are an overseas visitor and wish to learn some anglo saxon from a bloke called Dave who has come straight from work this is the place for you. This is a real shame, it used to be a lovely little pub. Efforts are being made to smarten it up and the Landlord is a very pleasant chap. He just needs a new clientele.
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The latest landlord is a nice enough chap and they've done a fairly decent job on the refurb, but my lord... the customers. Go there any time around builder / decorator clocking off time and it's like watching a documentary on Tourettes Syndrome.
Most of the regulars can't string a sentence together without it beginning, involving and ending with the word f*****g I imagine, in practice most of them do very little of their favourate word, and hence the sexually frastrated atmosphere that hits you like a brick in the face you moment you enter.
Definitely not a venue of choice if you want a quiet pint with kids, a wife or a friend in posession of more than one brain cell. It's a real shame because this last remaining pub in Seal attracts the armpit of the local community and makes most respectfull potential punters run for the hills.
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And another change of management! But this time it looks like the brewery are doing their bit, a log burner has been installed, the place has been decorated and the floor recovered. Well its not all good news 'cos a laminate floor has been laid on top of the old one so if you are over 6ft you'll stoop! A visit last week yielded a very cold very flat pint of Masterbrew and an indifferent response from the barman to a chap that passed comment on same.
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Yes, another change, and , on first , brief impressions, not for the better. The loud 'background' music's returned, and the place seemed to be slipping back to the state it was in before its brief move in the right direction. Sad - it could be (and has been) a gem.
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Another change of management. There's a new bloke in there now on an interim basis apparently, the previous landlord having fallen out with the brewery. Early days yet but a decent pint of MasterBrew on offer and a few locals in on a Wednesday evening. No food but (wait for it) a condom machine has been installed in the gents, which is a bit avantgarde for Seal, not to mention optimistic as it's not a pub where you'd expect to get lucky!
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This pub has been through a lot of changes over the last 20 years or so. I used to go there quite a bit in the mid 80's, when it was pretty much my idea of the perfect village local - good beer, great landlord, interesting social mix of regulars, a nice little open fire and a meat raffle on Fridays.
Since then it seemed to be under different management every time I called, and went from bad to worse, so I had no plans to go back until I noticed the other day that Sheps had acquired it, and I thought I'd see what changes they'd made.
Excellent. They've opened up the fireplace, which some fool had blocked off; there's no longer ear splitting music (none at all when I was there). The layout's been altered to give a more roomy feel in what is a tiny pub. I don't know if they're doing food, but they're certainly not making it the number one priority, This has again become a really nice village local, and though I'm not much of a Sheps fan, I hope to be able to up my rating after another visit, which will be before long. Keep up the good work.
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