There are pubs where you could wake up after a particularly enthusiastic Friday night, look around and have absolutely no idea which town you're in.

Same furniture. Same menu. Same enormous photograph of a burger. Same little metal bucket containing the cutlery.

These aren't those pubs.

Peterborough still has places where the building, beer, people and occasional questionable karaoke decision are part of the reason for going.

And frankly, we'd like to keep it that way.

First stop: the pub that's been doing this rather longer than you have

The Ostrich Inn sits off Westgate on North Street, on a site that's been home to a pub for close to two centuries.

That alone gives it a head start in the personality department.

Discover Peterborough highlights six handpumps, pool, darts, a heated courtyard and regular live music. It was also named Peterborough CAMRA City Pub of the Year in 2022.

This feels like somewhere you go because you want to go to the pub, rather than because you've spent 20 minutes negotiating which generic venue nobody actively objects to.

And if there's live music on, the innocent suggestion of “just one?” has every chance of becoming a considerably later journey home.

Location: North Street, off Westgate, Peterborough

The chemist that developed a rather different dispensing policy

Then there's The Bumble Inn.

It opened in a former Westgate chemist's shop in 2016 as Peterborough's first micropub.

The medicine has changed somewhat.

The emphasis here is on changing cask ales, craft keg and cider, and the Bumble has collected Peterborough CAMRA Pub of the Year honours several times.

It's a good choice when the person you're meeting actually cares what's coming out of the pump.

You know the friend.

They don't ask, “What lager have you got?”

They stare thoughtfully at the board for 90 seconds, ask what's just gone on, then somehow persuade you to try something whose name sounds like an unsuccessful 1970s rock band.

Take them here.

Location: Westgate, Peterborough

And sometimes you just want karaoke

Not every night out requires craft beer provenance, exposed brickwork and somebody explaining the botanicals.

Sometimes you want a drink and, several hours later, to discover that your friend Dave believes he can sing Sweet Caroline.

Enter Geneva Bar on Lincoln Road.

Discover Peterborough describes a straightforward local serving beers, ciders and spirits, with karaoke and disco on Friday and Saturday evenings.

And I rather like the lack of complication in that.

No need to call it an “immersive entertainment concept”.

It's a pub.

There's karaoke.

You already know whether that's excellent news or absolutely terrifying.

Location: Lincoln Road, Peterborough

Geneva Bar information

The best pub isn't always the fanciest one

That's really the point.

The Ostrich, Bumble Inn and Geneva aren't trying to solve the same night out.

One gives you history, handpumps and live music.

One makes the beer itself part of the evening.

One may result in somebody from accounts murdering a Bon Jovi song at 11.17pm.

Peterborough needs all three.

And there must be dozens more with their own peculiar reason for going.

Which Peterborough pub has the most personality — and what happens there that you simply wouldn't get in a chain?