Craft & Cleaver, St Albans Central, St. Albans

After the highs of the Mermaid came the lows of the Craft & Cleaver. However, it's probably very unfair to compare the two. The Mermaid specialises in real ale and cider and a traditional pub atmosphere, almost certainly what most people on here appreciated. The Craft & Cleaver tries to combine craft beers with food and if that your thing, it probably hits the spot. But for me, it doesn't. Food is smoked meats, whilst the central bar was serving Tiny Rebel Easy Livin', Jubel Cut With Peach, Renegade Detour, Quantock Radicle, Verdant But Alas I Was No Swimmer & Vault City Tasty Rainbow Lemon. As craft beer choices go, this wasn't too bad. My Radicle was ok, but as with most craft beers, was served far too cold. Being late in the afternoon, well after any lunch crowd had departed and before the dinner crowd were arriving, there weren't too many people in and the place lacked atmosphere. Not sure if I'll ever venture back here.

A decent craft beer place with 4 regulars and 6 changing taps. They have some interesting stuff here, including a beer from Three Hills in Northamptonshire, which is a brand new brewery to me. Expensive in that four halves set me back £14, but they were all 6%+. Friendly and efficient service from both staff members. I'd come here again if looking for something different.

This pub has gone through numerous names and makeovers in recent times, currently finding itself set up as an in vogue craft beer bar. The main bar has exposed floorboards and a rough hewn, pewter topped bar counter along the back wall. Any signs of the pub’s history or character have been pretty much erased, with a grim scaffold bar back symptomatic of the situation. The nicest area for drinkers seems to be to the left where a mix of sofas, high stools and standard chairs serve a range of tables with a small fireplace on the end wall which weirdly had bottles of Adnams Copper House gin stacked on the mantle. Board games stacked in the rear window and a pump clip collection snaking its way from the wall across the ceiling added to the feel of somewhere suited to settling down with a pint, which was less easily said by the right hand side of the room. Here, a lone banquette opposite the serves tables set for dining and beyond this, past a partitioning wall with an open, arched window, there is a space with a much longer banquette under bare brick walls with very little in the way of character. Clean, pastel shades predominate, but the decor is so minimal that it all feels sterile and difficult to love. There must’ve been some sort of garden out the back, as most customers vanished around the far end of the bar, never to be seen again. The pub doesn’t serve cask ale, but does instead offer a great range of small batch keg products from the likes of Weird Beard, Camden, Brooklyn and loads that I’d never heard of. I tried Mad Squirrel De La Creme Milk Stout, which set me back £2.60 for a half and was quite a sweet brew that didn’t really appeal to me. The staff were a bit stand-offish with pretty much all their customers and I just sat in the left hand part of the pub on my own, sipping my beer thinking about the next pub on my list. I didn’t really get much from this place, but it’s a reasonable enough compromise between a modern craft bar situated inside a traditional pub. I’d come here on occasion if I lived locally, as it’s always good to dip into the craft world now and then, but the town has loads of great, characterful pubs with bags of atmosphere that beat this place hands down.