The Mermaid, St Albans Central, St. Albans

The bar curves around as you enter the pub. There's 3 pumps in front of you, a cider one on the corner, then 3 more round to the left. Oakham Citra is represented on both, so that leaves 5 ales as well as a limited craft keg selection and a couple of Czech-ish beers. There's plenty of seating at various tables; pies are the main food offer. The music is set one level too high in my opinion, but it's all very pleasant and relaxing in here, with a good choice of beers, so I'm more than happy to recommend and consider a repeat visit on any return to St Albans.

An excellent pub on the edge of town with nice wood-panelled rooms decorated with a host of breweriana. It had a good, comfortable atmosphere (aided by bagging the leather armchair!) and was one of those pubs you instinctively feel at home in. There were 6 good ales on handpump (plus ciders and Belgian brews) of which the Nethergate Umbel Magna was in perfect form. We didn't venture into the garden (described as "beertanical") but it hosts regular live music. Definitely worth a visit.

I wasn't originally planning to pay a visit to the Mermaid on this visit to St Albans. However, we started heading towards it with a trip to the Robin Hood. So, we thought we would continue onto the Mermaid. As luck would have it, we stumbled across a beer festival. With 16 real ales in a tent from the garden and the usual number on the bar indoors, we had a good choice. I did enquire about ciders and the cheerful barman did apologise that ciders were not featuring in the festival. So, there was just the usual range of 13 ciders! The pub is a good old-fashioned one-room boozer with bare boards and a great traditional atmosphere. I don't ever recall venturing out to the garden before, but there is plenty of further seating there in case the interior gets too busy. We were also informed that a burrito van was setting up in the car park. The burritos weren't quite ready when I tried to purchase some, but the nachos I had from the van were very tasty. The full cask ale range on offer was Oakham Citra, Stardust WIP 007, Milestone North Rock, Nethergate Growler & Suffolk County, Aylesbury Brewhouse Electric Sharp, Exmoor Ram, Fuzzy Duck Cunning Stunt, Jacaranda Raven's Progress, Magpie Best & Days Like These, Okell's Spring Ram, Rooster's One Horse Town, Thornbridge Brother Rabbit & Cat's Eyes, Beartown Eclipse, Fat Cat Incredible Pale, Growling Dog Raspberry Milk Stout, Nene Valley Release The Chimps, Orkney Puffin & Salopian Jumping The Shark. If you hadn't guessed, this was an animal-themed festival! Ciders on were Pearson's Medium Dry, Cotswold Cider Company Yellow Hammer & Voodoo Pulp, Rich's Farmhouse Cider & Legbender, Sandford Orchards Slack Ma Girdle & Fanny's Bramble, Snail's Bank Orchard Dry & Appley Dapply, Dorset Nectar Top o'The Hill, Gwynt y Ddraig Ancient Warrior, Lilley's Rhubarb Cider & Abrahall's Ruby Tuesday. Craft beers were Tiny Rebel Clwb Tropical & Mad Squirrel De La Nut. Needless to say, we stopped here significantly longer than anticipated, enjoying the warm atmosphere where conversation thrives. I've always rated this pub as the best in St Albans. I see no reason to change that. Whilst I'll maintain my rating as a 9/10, this comes close to a very rare 10/10 from me and for me is one of the best 10/20 pubs in the country.

Quite liked this one called in around 1 30pm and although very quiet the barman was chatty enough. As mentioned below there was 6 cask beers on show,one of which was a porter which was top notch.