Nice place, this...

One of our neighbouring towns held a four-pub tap-takeover this week.

I was supposed to be attending a meeting in the town so we planned to slaughter multiple ornithoids...however, events overtook and the meeting was moved.  So we went to Lewes, anyway.

Four pubs were in the tap-takeover:  The Patch, Elephant and Castle, Brewers Arms and the Black Horse.

We don't drink in Lewes often, but we're reasonably familiar with it and its pubs.  That said, we started with The Patch which is a cafe/micropub which we didn't know at all.

They had Tiny Rebel and Siren beers on keg lines.  We grabbed one each and sat in the closest thing we could manage to be a corner and enjoyed them.  Best Beer buddy suggested moving on to the Elephant and Castle after the first one.  On the walk around he confessed he didn't really feel comfortable in The Patch. It's true that, as a longish, thin space it felt like we were in a corridor.

So, we hoofed it around to the Elephant and Castle; a place we've been to a few times - none of which were wholly satisfactory (though I couldn't tell you why).
They had Great Heck brews on.

We grabbed a couple of pints and sat (in a corner).

The beer was good (if not as cool as I'd like) but, again we only stayed for one pint and moved on.

We landed in the Brewers' arms which had Loch Lomond beers (the brewery I least wanted to try).  It was busy in the notionally posher front bar.  I went to the bar to get a couple of pints and the boy headed to the back room to find a seat.

A bloke at the bar made a well-meaning (but annoying) "ladies first" comment at the bar which had me sighing an potentially writing this pub off as "not my sort of place"...but I carried our beers to the public/locals/sport bar and sat down.

We both relaxed a bit more.

We had a second pint and headed out for food and skipped the Black Horse.

I'm not sure I'll ever really be able to predict what pubs and bars we'll find comfortable and those we won't but I guess we just keep trying!

As a footnote - in the italian chain we ate in I ordered beer, he ordered a glass of wine.  The waiter (who had taken the order) returned and tried to give me the wine.  Plus ca change...