The Portland Arms, St Albans Central, St. Albans

A decent and attractive community local tied to Fullers.The front door gives way to the short end of the L shaped bar with a small snug to the right.Traditional furniture elsewhere with a larger rear lounge and the door to the carpark and beer garden.Lots of wood panelling ,the flatscreens were showing BT Sport with sound turned down and there were a gaggle of older locals supping in the pleasing surroundings.Dog friendly. Ales on my visit were Fullers London Pride,ESB ,Seafarers and Dark Star Hophead (NBSS 4),take a walk around the bar to see the full range. Like so many of the other small locals to have survived in St Albans,worth including on any ale tour of the city.

I walked into this cosy little backstreet Fullers pub to find myself the only customer – in fact, I was initially the only person in the room, as the barmaid had popped out to the garden to clear up after the carnage of a family fun day they’d been hosting at lunchtime. She was extremely apologetic and explained that the place had been packed earlier, not that I was complaining. The pub has a compact C-shaped layout, wrapping itself around the centrally positioned servery which has a nice, curved dark wood counter, traditional bar back and ivy lined gantry. To the right is a small lounge – a snug really – with an attractive fireplace with a plain mirror above, a few tables and chairs and a stack of board games. In the bar area, high tables and stools run under the front windows whilst tables and chairs line the left hand wall, running to the back of the room as the servery turns ninety degrees. There are also a couple of smart benches here under some nice old photos of the city, with a collection of hardback books in the window sills. Beyond the bar is another carpeted space with a fair bit of extra seating but some rather featureless decor by comparison. A rear corridor leads to the toilets and has some more nice St Albans pictures on display and beyond this there is a split level beer garden with lots of chunky garden furniture. There was at least one TV screen in the pub and it was showing a 1980’s themed music channel. Four Fullers beers were available on handpull – London Pride, ESB, Seafarers and Summer Ale. The friendly barmaid poured me a lovely pint of the Summer Ale, which I really enjoyed whilst looking through some of the old photos on the walls. I really liked this place and whilst it was a bit of a shame that there were no other customers on this occasion, I still felt it had a lot more charm to it than several more popular pubs I’d visited that day. The compact nature of the pub gives it a cosy feel that made it easy to settle down and the friendly welcome and quality beer were factors that would definitely encourage repeat visits.

The Portland Arms is a decent looking back street Fullers tied house. Once inside the bar faces in an L shaped room,there are pew seats and normal tables and chairs in the front area which is bare boarded,the rear left area is carpeted and has similar seating. There were three Fullers real ales on the bar,i had a drink of London Pride,which went down well,the other beers were Fullers ESB and Fullers brewed Gales Seafarers. I quite liked this pub. Pub visited 24/6/2017