Miller & Carter St Albans, St Albans Central, St. Albans

Official site of Miller & Carter St Albans - www.millerandcarter.co.uk

Official site of Miller & Carter St Albans - www.millerandcarter.co.uk

O'Neils is housed in a grand looking building and was the first open i found before 11AM in St Albans. Once inside there is a large square shaped room with the bar on the right side,the floor is part tiled and wood floored,the seating is normal tables and chairs and tall tables and chairs,plus some bench seating. There was one real ale on the bar which was Doom Bar,this went down well after the train journey down from Nottingham. There were TVs showing rugby British Lions v New Zealand. The pub was packed on my Saturday morning visit no doubt due to the rugby being shown. I was happy enough having a drink in this pub. Pub visited 24/7/2017

I wouldn’t generally venture into an O’Neills at the best of times, especially in a City with such a wealth of good pubs but trying to find a pub in St Albans with the Satanta channel is quite a challenge and O’Neills appeared to be the only place to meet my requirements on the day I needed it. The building itself is a huge cavern of a place that once housed the City’s library and bears all the hallmarks one would expect of a municipal building however it just doesn’t come across as being the right sort of building for an Irish theme pub. The décor consists of all the usual Irish trimmings; tricolours, Guinness posters, Irish sporting memorabilia (signed shirts etc) and an indeterminate amount of O’Neills advertising. For an early Saturday evening the place was quite bustling and I’m sure not everyone was there for the Man U v Spurs screening. Naturally everything on the beer front centres on Guinness, Caffreys and Magners and the 2 hand pumps were both vacant on my vist (one was badged as Deuchars but unavailable and the other redundant). There is a programme of live music on Fridays but in general it isn’t a place I would quickly return to given the other pubs around but it did at least serve the purpose for which we needed it (even if Spurs did get stuffed) and if the Deuchars had been on, things would have been slightly more bearable.