Pub 102, Day 38 – Dog & Partridge

By Rob

Let me set the scene for you: Andy and I are in town, with our mutual friend Ali. Ali is a teacher, with too little free time, and is looking forward to a good night out on the tiles. Her Saturdays are precious to her, and are not to be wasted.

Imagine her delight, therefore, when we railroad the evening’s plans by insisting that we step into a pub, the Dog & Partridge, that we are fortuitously passing as we stroll down Trippet Lane. She is a little miffed, to say the least. But she understands that Pubquest is important to us and to our readers (who are, in the main, also us). Inevitably she relents, and we step inside.

The Dog & Partridge was, once upon a time, a vibrant Irish pub. Old men played their instruments to the delight of the Guinness-swilling punters, sat beneath half a dozen pictures of JFK, while the resident Border Collie snoozed in between the bar stools. My parents had always been huge fans of the pub, and I’d been inside on several occasions, but its glory days were behind it.

The landlady, Ann Flynn, upped sticks and moved in 2010 – taking the Irish theme, the Kennedy portraits, and the coterie of musical regulars with her. However, she didn’t move very far, relocating to the nearby Grapes, just a few yards down the street. Today, if you’re hoping to sing along to a live rendition of Black Velvet Band, that’s the place to go.

Since losing that which made it so distinctive, the Dog & Partridge has failed to reinvent itself into anything noteworthy. Indoors, it looked every inch the typical, nondescript, town pub. It was quiet, largely undecorated, and the selection of beers was far from extraordinary. That being said, there were guest ales on draft and we each ordered a pint of Welsh Black – a dark mild ale, which was a little too malty for my taste, but which flowed across Andy’s accepting palette freely enough.

Pretty unimpressed, we didn’t hang around for a second drink. Inoffensive and underwhelming, we concluded that the next time we fancied a drink on Trippet Lane, it would be at The Grapes.

Pub: Dog & Partridge (56 Trippet Lane, S1 4EL)

Rating: 5/10
Pint: Welsh Black  

Brewery: Great Orme Brewery (Colwyn Bay)

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