please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
Has fallen a long way in a few years. A few mediocre ales on and a sterile atmosphere now make this a swift-half-and-move-on kind of place. Greene King should be ashamed of what they have done to their pubs in Preston.
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Good enough pub with some decent beers on. Preferred the basic snug bar at the front to the more comfortable & far larger lounge bar
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My first pub in Preston on a Saturday night & I have 4 to tick with all being in the Friargate area of town.
The Old Black Bull is a Moorhouse’s pub with an original tiled floor, there’ s a small room to your left named the Paddock that has a dart board in it, the L shaped bar starts here and runs through to the main bar.
The wooden and brass bar houses 10 hand pumps in banks of 4 and 3’s. All the ales are from the surrounding areas, I go for a pint of Lancaster Duchy @ 3.9% and it's very good. Every hand pump has a price tag hanging on it displaying the price of each ale, I've seen this down South before but not up North that I can remember.
I come in just as the band are starting up, I stayed for half and hour and the pub got busier and busier, mostly with an older crowd.
A very decent place to start my evening I will return here on my next visit to Preston.
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Have been here 3 or 4 times, but on my latest visit I twigged what was the most notable feature of the place. It is obviously designed for people who like to drink standing up ! There is no furniture within 8-10 feet of the bar. Further away there are stools and benches, mainly in what were probably originally separate rooms, but they are somewhat down at heel. Several big screen TVs showing various Sky Sports channels are the main attraction.
Had 7 or 8 real ales on tap including for some reason several from the Hand Drawn Monkey brewery in Yorkshire. Once again there were no really dark beers available. I tried the HDM Aussie Red which was quite nice.
Unfortunately despite the range of ales this place tends to attract large groups of lager-swiggers.
6/10 – not a bad pub, but better when it’s not so crowded !
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Friendly welcome and knowledgeable service of cask ales - which were in fine form. Plenty of choice and a sun-trap outside drinking area at the back. Great! 10/10.
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A busy town pub a bit frayed around the edges. Ale was reasonable but service tended to be based on how well you knew the barmaid rather than how long you'd been waiting.
anonymous - 29 Apr 2013 22:38 |
Exposes CAMRA;s weakness in that they'll tend to judge a pub on beer alone and ignore other, less healthy aspects - a wide standing area seems there to encourage geezertastic behaviour and so it proved when a Blackpool fan idiotically nailed his colours to the mast on our visit. A gang of youths started having a pop and this resulted in fisticuffs before the landlord evicted the lot of them. The irony was that one of the assailants was decked out in tangerine while an older fellow in Stone Island should have known better. Good beers but not much else.
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A better range of beers than I remember, but well supported by a beer drinking crowd meaning quality was good. Lively but not boisterous.
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Fantastic pub opp Wetherspoons.5 ales on offer included 2cornish and 2welsh(�2.65pint),lovely classic pub interior,8/10
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First pub on our route round town this time. Very busy at 9-00pm. Good mix of people and all in good form. Beer good, though service a little slow as unfriendly bar maid at our end of bar had decided to busy herself doing very little for a few minutes before getting around to asking me what my order was. The interior decor is a bit basic but ok. Overall a popular town centre pub with some character and a particularly interesting exterior if you are into that sort of thing.
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Cosy and welcoming pub with a very good selection of well-kept real ales: including two milds on our visit. Well worth a visit.
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The Old Black Bull is in a good area of Preston for good pubs and real ales. This pub does not disappoint for the ale drinker, with 9 real ales on - Bank Top Sweeney's, Southport Carousel, Moorhouses Premier Bitter, Acorn Barnsley Bitter, Wentworth Holster Pils, Cask Boddingtons, Kirkby Lonsdale Ruskin's, Six Bells Skool's Out and Summerskills Cellar Vee. The black and white tiled floor around the bar area is impressive. There are plenty of TVs available showing different sports events and a pool table which was covered on our visit. There is also a small outdoor drinking area at the rear. The only downside for me on our visit was the lack of a real cider. Strongbow was the only cider available on tap, with a poor selection of bottles. The staff were friendly.
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Hey the choice of Cask beers now the Old Black Bull is free of tie, are great. First 3 pints tasted great, the rest i can not remember! lol
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what a fantastic pub! I had an absolute ball! So many different guest ales to choose from and a huge selection of wines and ciders. I was very impressed with everything about this place. The staff were very helpful and knowledgeable and recommended two very good ales to me. I will definately make this pub my new regular, the staff are so helpful and the atmosphere is welcoming, its nice and bright and cheery. I would reccomend a visit to anyone who loves real ale as its a diamond in the rough. I am reallly looking forward to their beer festival in october, it should be a fantastic weekend with smoking monkey playing and it being halloween aswell. It can't come soon enough for me!
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Hit and miss pub - sometimes you get a decent beer then next visit it is the pits. Tend to have a job lot of beers from the same brwer as their guest beers. Recent couple of visits, first had 4 Chatham beers on - all undrinkable - complaints to the bar go nowhere (reponses like drink somewhere else then etc). Next visit a week later had 4 Anglo Dutch beers on that were all fantastic.
Usually a good band on Saturday nights
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Great choice of interesting real ales, a little short staffed to cope on my visit
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Visited lunchtime on Saturday before the Saints game. Reasonably full but not packed. Harts Ice Maiden, Hobgoblin, Allgates Young Pretender and Caskper, Spitfire and Old Bear All Hallows. The All Hallows was a nice beer.
Large pub, Sky Sports. Food was cheap but not being served.
Staff were helpful and no complaints about beer quality.
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If you get a good pint of real ale in here, consider yourself lucky. If you get an excellent pint, fill out a lottery ticket!
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Update re anonymous - 1 Jan 2007: I wrote to Mr Eaton the landlord and have had a favourable response. Steps have been taken to ensure this sort of thing won't happen again. I am very pleased with Mr Eaton's attitude it was not at all like his staff's. I just hope that his staff don't let him down again.
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I'm really surprised to read the negative reviews of the Old Black Bull. It's the pub where I learnt to love real ale and have never had anything like the experiences you are speaking of.
I have always found that if I ask for a pint to be changed it will go to a senior member of staff and it's replaced with very little fuss. The staff are very knowledgable about the beer and, whilst it's still at its heart a town centre local, there is never, ever, any trouble in there - it's a very safe environment.
Knowing the landlord as I do,I would be very surprised if he hasn't dealt with the below issues - if he's been made aware of them that is...
MelJC - 13 Jan 2007 16:49 |
I visited this pub with friends on Friday the 29th December 2006. I purchased two pints of Leyden, Winter Gold which smelt like vinegar and tasted off. I spoke the the bar staff who tatsted it and said it wasn't off. I asked to speak to the bar manager who also tasted the beer but said there was nothing wrong with it. At this point another customer came to the bar with the same problem. We both asked for the beer to be changed or our money back and the bar manager refused and left the bar. Then another member of bar staff came to me and said "If you don't like it get out of here". I told him he shouldn't talk to customers with that attitude and suggested his customer relations could be improved and he replied "I don't give a f*** about your customer relations f*** off!". He then walked down the bar laughing with the other members of staff. I have never been so insulted in my life. I asked to see the bar manager again and told him what had been said and asked him what he was going to do about this. All he said was please leave! As you can imagine I will not be going to this pub again and wish to warn other patrons to avoid this place.
anonymous - 1 Jan 2007 12:53 |
Recently visited the Black Bull again, and had a much less pleasant experience. One of my friends ordered a pint of Bombardier, which tasted distinctly soapy and generally a long way away from what it should taste like! We informed the bar of this, and the very arrogant young manager tasted it (or at least pretended to) and said it was fine, before joking with the other bar staff about our comments. The three members of my group who drink real ale regularly, myself included, all thought that the pint was terrible, and made this clear, yet the pub refused to replace it. We were then rudely asked to leave at about 11:05.
This used to be one of my favourite pubs in Preston, but the ales are often not on form, and the new bar manager seems to be an absolute pratt. I will be much less inclined to visit in the future.
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Good selection of real ales (8 types)but two of them were not on form. It would be better to reduce the range and keep the quality up.
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Nice pub. Shows the footy and always has plenty of good, reasonably priced real ales. Got thrown out once for enjoying the real ales a bit too much actually...
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THIS PUB USE TO BE THE BEST FOR A BODDIES PINT ITS NO MORE AS IT SMELL LIKE SEWERS HOWEVER JOHN SMITHS IS GREAT
ALAN - 8 Jul 2004 22:18 |
