Welcome to the Horse and Groom, where the beer is warm and the crackling crackly.

Inspired by a couple of threads¹ by Skankyrich and Mu Beta, and taking its name from Arthur Dent's local in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it's a place for Researchers to come and talk beer with fellow ale-lovers.

Like all pubs, the Horse and Groom has a few house rules:

• No roleplaying. Roleplay is encouraged on some parts of the site, but not here. There's no chatting up the barmaid or fighting with the landlord. If you say you're drinking a pint of Pedigree, you must actually have one there.

• No promotions. If you give your opinion of a particular beer, you must give it honestly and not for the purpose of selling it. Advertising is bad.

• You must pay homage to Arthur Perkins while in the Horse and Groom. This means you must drink at least one toast an evening to the great man.

• No spamming, trolling or flaming. It's a friendly pub, so keep chat in tune with that atmosphere.

• No spitting on the floor, smoking (except in the beer garden), graffiti or weeing on the floor. Goes without saying.

• No alcopops. When we say 'beer', we mean anything usually served as a pint - including ale, lager, cider, stout, porter and all the variations thereof. We do not serve Bailey's.

The Horse and Groom management encourages responsible drinking, whatever that is.

The Library

Unlike most pubs, which are full of Readers Digest condensed books and ragged copies of the day's newspapers, the Rose and Crown has a fantastic beer-dedicated library. If you're hanging around waiting for opening time, why not peruse some of the Entries on offer:

Feel free to make your own suggestions for the library, and we'll include them!

h2g2 Beerfests

Once in a while, we have Beerfests. The idea is that you grab a few interesting beers from the offie and join us around the fire to discuss beer. You can rate your beer and we'll post the results here.

For details of our previous beerfests, and our tasting notes, please see the appropriately-titled Previous Beerfests and Tasting Notes page.

If you are 'attending', please try to buy as many of the beers listed below as possible. We will be having simultaneous samplings of these. However, the Fest is not limited to these, and you may bring and rate any beers you drink on the evening.

• Crabbie's Alcoholic Ginger Beer
• Brains SA Gold
• Adnams East Green Carbon Neutral
• Badger Poacher's Choice
• Guinness Foreign Extra
• Sierra Nevada 2008 Anniversary Ale
• Ringwood Old Thumper
• Natural Brewing Company's 'Irresistable' Premium Ale
• Brakspear's Oxford Gold
• Brakspear's Triple

We also hope to organise occasional trips to other pubs in the real world - suggestions are welcomed.

Please feel free to use the Horse and Groom as a place to discuss your favourite beers and make recommendations, but note that we will only take ratings from beers actually discussed at our beerfests. If you want to organise one yourself, just post the date and time below and we'll meet you here! Finally, don't forget to subscribe below if you want regular updates and news.