The Dragon, Nottingham

The Dragon’s small frontage suggests that this is going to be a tiny, cramped city centre pub, but in fact, whilst it is admittedly very narrow, the room stretches back surprisingly far, with enough space to cope during peak times. You enter into the lowest level of the pub which is used as a seating area and has a mix of bench, standard and high stool options. There are a few steps up to the bar area and the room actually narrows here which made it a bit of a choke point at times during my visit. The servery is on the right and there are some banquettes opposite with a small collection of cacti on display behind them. The paint scheme is fairly plain, with the odd mirror breaking up the wall space and some nice lamps above the bar, but otherwise there’s not that much going on. A TV screen had been turned off and loud music was playing in its place on my late Tuesday evening visit. More steps beyond the bar take you up and out to the covered patio area which has a good amount of seating squeezed into a relatively small space. The pub has made it into recent additions of the Good Beer Guide, despite having stiff competition elsewhere in the city and just the three hand pumps of its own. These were dispensing the seemingly permanent selection of Castle Rock Harvest Pale and Adnams Broadside and Southwold Bitter. I tried the Harvest Pale and had no complaints about the quality of the pint. I think this pub lacks something to make it memorable, be it the beer range or the interior or the general ambiance. It’s a seemingly safe bet for a decent pint if you’re on a city centre crawl but frankly there are plenty of more interesting venues just a short walk from here.

Fabulous looking pub from the outside but once inside very boring. The interior is dark and badly lit, so nothing much to say really, just has no character. On handpump Adnams Broadside, Southwold Bitter and Castle Rock Harvest Pale. I'll give it a miss next time.

A terraced mock-Tudor styled town centre pub, with rear patio area. It has a brick upper, with plain and green stone lower frontage, with large mullion and transom window. It is in the GBG 2011. The interior is a narrow room, which takes you up a few stairs to find the serving bar right at the far end on the right. The decor consists of different coloured walls; grey, dark red, dark green, along with wood panel and there is a wood floor. A brick fireplace feature sits in one corner, where the food condiments were kept. A few cacti and plants were dotted about. The seating was a mix of perimeter seating, which was a little ripped, and tables chairs. They do a general menu, which seemed fine – I just had a baguette if I remember, which was decent enough. There is a TV, which wasn’t on at my visit and the music was supplied by a Streets album – not my thing, but my mate was happy enough. The service was fine, just one guy serving, but then there was nobody else in the place as we hit it early doors. Beer; usual tap stuff with Staropramen and Amstel, along with bottled beers. On handpull there was Castle Rock Harvest Pale Ale, Adnams Bitter and an OK Adnams Broadside. This was a decent enough visit, and certainly a place I could pop back to – more for the one though I think.

Narrow but deep pub with a selection of seating areas. The benches at the top near the bar are made out of some strange plastic which is pretty awful to sit on or even touch. There's a raised beer yard at the rear. Adnams Bitter & Broadside plus Castle Rock Harvest Pale on the bar when we called in and the Adnams Bitter was very average. I must admit I don't really like the feel of this pub, but I don't know why. I also have no idea why it's in the GBG 2012, as on this showing it shouldn't be.

Very quiet when we called into this 2011 Good Beer Guide pub. A few seats in the ebtrance area, then up a few steps to the main bar area which was a long narrow room. Good beer garden at the back. There were 3 beers on, Adnams Broadside and Adnams bitter, and the locAle beer was Castle Rock Harvest Pale. Not far from the main Market Square area of town.