White Hart Hotel, St Albans Central, St. Albans

You can enter through a narrow doorway off the coach entrance,and encounter a small lounge with it's own bar access.The other side of the bar has a slightly larger seating area and it's all in wood panelling with several pleasing features.The room away from the bar is larger still with lots of settles and also contains the hotel reception.It feels like a classic hotel bar apart from the intrusive muzak. Oakham have awarded the bar Oakademy status but sadly my Oakham Preacher was tangy and was replaced once the pump clip had been reversed.The house Alban Ale was decent and brewed by Verulam at the nearby Farmers Boy.The other ale option was Adnams Southwold Bitter.Shame that an Oakademy holder didn't have a ready replacement for the single Oakham beer which went off,but it's probably still worth poking your head around the corner to see what's on if crawling around the City centre.

Strange one this.Hotel reception in the bar.Circa 1470 so wood panelling ,suit of armour,couple of gold thrones to sit on .Weird.Very English apart from the staff.2 beers on cask Oakham -mompressons gold and a very good Alehouse -albans ale.Must visit pub as its a bit unique and antique.

I found the White Hart to be more hotel bar than pub and the inclusion of a reception area in the small seating area behind the two small bars confirmed to me that this is a hotel. The music was very slow and the other punters were couples that looked as though they were guests. Some standard draught products were available during my early Saturday evening visit and there are two hand pumps in either bar that were drawing Adnams, Pediree, a guest beer and Old Rosie cider. I went for the Pedigree which I didn’t rate very much. The service was friendly like one would expect from hotel staff, but the atmosphere was nonexistent. This is a place I would give a miss when next in the area.