Bell Inn, Nottingham

Great traditional pub that is in the good beer guide 2021. Dont arrange to meet your mates here, as you will never find them. A bar to the left and right but for the full range of beers, you need to go to the large room at the back - which is festooned with booths and TV screens. The front bars are far more pleasant. Abbbeydale Absolution in good condition. Top pub, if you are in town.

The Bell inn along with the Olde Trip to Jerusalem and the Salutation claims to be the oldest pub in the country. A former Hardy and Hansoms pub that was acquired by Green King When they purchased the Kimberly Brewery about ten years ago. Usually this type of acquisition by Green king is Pub suicide but fortunately they had the sense to not tamper with the product as it is one of the inner city’s top traditional pubs. The pub is obviously very old and thus has a very unique layout. You enter into a long walk way that has a room on either side with its own mini bar with a few keg taps and a few cask ales taken from the main selection of the main bar. As you walk past you come to the main bar which is one very large rectangular room that is raised up a foot at the back with seating and room for a band on weekend. The rest of the room is decorated with high tables and stools with a hard wooden floor for the most part but carpets on the raised area. It is a very old-school décor that has been tastefully maintained over the years so as not to look worn and tacky. The bar runs along the left hand side as you enter and is very long and filled worth a large selection of different beers. Aside from the generic keg offering are a large number of craft beers such as Punk IPA and Gosse Island as well as 12 hand pulls. The reason why this place gets is so popular is because Greene king have not done the one thing that makes their pubs suck so bad the rest of the time, force below par Greene king products on to people who don’t want them. Because of this there were only four GK products on offer with the rests thankfully well selected microbrewery guest beers. On the bar was GK IPA (x2, there was one regular and one on those new shiny GK Hand pulls were you can choose northern or southern style but essentially the same beer which made absolutely no scene) Greenk King Abbot and a house beer called Bell Inn bitter which has a high chance of being re badged Hardy and Hansons bitter and old Speckled hen. The guests featured were Nottingham Brewery EPA, Nobbys Plum Porter, Shipstons Gold Star, Milestone Octoberfest Blue Monkey Funk Gibbon plus a couple I failed to note. The Funky Gibbon was a well-kept and very tasty bitter at an average £3.30 for town but a CAMRA discount is available. This is an all-round good town boozer that gets very popular on evenings and weekends. The beer selection and quality is of a high standard and it succeeds because Green king keep themselves at arm’s length and that’s why IU think it is such a good pub because GK haven’t spoiled it with their generic management approach yet. Well worth a pint if in the centre of Nottingham.