The Mermaid, St Albans Central, St. Albans

Nice busy but basic pub.Handy for the station.Two Oakham beers on but the rest of the breweries are not my favourites.Dow bridge Nethergate,Goffs and Slaters but my Slaters -black ipa was good.Older Camra types sort of pub but nice enough.

This cosy but quite down to earth pub is situated just out of the town centre and is yet another of the City’s top class ale pubs. The interiior is fairly straightforward and basic with bare floors, old pictures and solid furnishings apart from a small recess to the right hand side of the bar that contains a sofa alongside the dart board. There was a comfortable number of patrons for a Saturday night and it all seemed quite respectable and civil. For my visit there were 5 excellent ales (Bays Topsail, Oakham JHB, Oakham Citra, Potbelly Pigs Do Fly and Tring Side Pocket For A Toad) plus 2 ciders and a perry, enough to keep most ale fans going for a few hours. Unfiortunately, this being the penultimate pub in a long day’s crawling, the finer features of the pub have become a bit lost in the ether suffice to say this will no doubt become a regular feature in future visits.