Rose & Crown, St. Albans

This is a somewhat gentrified old pub that offers an interesting contrast to the nearby Six Bells. I was expecting another creaking old interior, but there appears to have been a fair bit of money spent here to modernise the place and, if I’m being honest, strip it of a lot of character. A porch has rooms off to either side and I found myself heading left into a lounge bar which has a small servery next to the door with the majority of the handpulls. The front of the room is bare boarded and has some plush sofas in the front left corner which give way to a carpeted rear space with a nice raised brick fireplace and plenty of additional seating around large tables of the sort that you always feel guilty about sitting at when you’re on your own. Dark wood beams cross the ceiling but the place has a very clinical looking modern paint scheme and extremely minimal decor which makes it feel very bland and boring. A few interesting pictures of St Albans were pretty much the only concessions to decoration that I could see. The room to the right is more of a Public Bar and was empty on this visit. It is in two sections, with a small servery to the left and a great inglenook fireplace next to it. More modern furniture was on show here and the room is partially partitioned midway through, with the far right half decorated with striped wallpaper and a dartboard. The beer garden looked very pleasant, with a nice old tree as a centrepiece and there is a decent sized car park as well. Some truly interminable music was playing throughout my visit, which may explain why every single customer was in the beer garden (it was also a lovely day to be fair!). They had three ales on the go – Sharps Doom Bar, Thwaites Wainwright and 3 Brewers IPA. I’d just had a 3 Brewers beer in the Six Bells, so went for the Wainwright this time, served to me by a rather taciturn barmaid, who spent the rest of her time entertaining some hyperactive children who I assume were here grandkids. The beer was decent enough, but probably the least memorable pint of the day. This place was a bit of a let down, as I felt it promised quite a lot but ultimately failed to deliver. The incredibly bland makeover may help give the pub more mass-appeal, but it makes the place completely interchangeable with any gastro pub or corporate venture you might care to mention. A decent wildcard option if crawling around this end of the city, but certainly not one to go out of your way for.

The Rose & Crown is a nice looking pub that is a very short walk from the Six Bells. Once inside the pub has two separate rooms,the room to the right is oblong shaped and bare boarded,there is bench seating and small stools and some normal tables and chairs for seating,there was a darts board to the front left. The room to the left is larger and oblong shaped and runs to the rear,there were two settees to the front and normal tables and chairs elsewhere,this seemed more like a dining room. There were three real ales on the bar,i had a drink of Adnams Bitter in the smaller bar room which was empty on my Saturday dinner visit,the other real ales were Thwaites Wainwright and Doom Bar. Background music was playing. This is a decent enough pub,but i prefered the Six Bells. Pub visited 24/6/2017