The Castle, Nottingham

The castle is an old Victorian pub that as the name suggests is smack opposite Nottingham Castle. The building is in a classic Watson Fothergill style and architecturally very appealing. Upon entering you step into the bar area with an L shaped bar running around the corner with a separate seating are up a level at the back of the pub. The pub is all hard wood. On the side of the bar as you enter are four hand pulls with another two on the other side were it bends around. Only four were in operation with the two on the other bar “dedicated to ciders, but we don’t really sell much cider so we took them off”?!?! to which I said why not put two more ales on then ?!! Anyways, the beer available was Shipstons nut brown, Oakham Citra, Tribute and Bombardier. I went for the Nut brown, a local favourite of mine but was charged a horrifically expensive £3.80!! Worse still I could detect a faint hint of vinegar on the nose which I could not ignore no matter how hard I tried, to his credit the bar man without request poured me another pint of it which in his head must have seemed ok but it was the same beer and had the same problem, I decided to let this one go and stomach it as it was just on the turn and I have struggled through much worse. When I enquired as to how long it had been on I was told the start of the week, my visit was a Thursday so straight off the bat it seems to have been kept on too long, I might return and give them the benefit of the doubt because the beer aside from being on too long had been an ok pint, just a day past it so a return would answer this. The only gripe with this place aside from the sky high prices is its locality to the elitist Park estate over the road which means a very pretentious clientele frequent and means this is a bit of a poser’s upmarket pub which I don’t really like. I would visit again if the beer was on top form but only on a crawl around the area, I don’t think could suffer a whole evening in here with its present vibe.