Bridgewater Arms, Chester

I had a nose into the left-hand lounge bar of the Bridgewater, but it was empty and a helpful local told me the projector screen was broken, so I joined the other customers in the right-hand bar. In here there’s a dartboard by the entrance and a pool table on the far wall. The mid wall serving counter supports standard and premium keg. There was a classical song playing from the jukebox, one of the locals informed me that it lasts for 22 minutes, so they put it on to save putting loads of money in the jukebox. I’m not sure how true this is, but I liked the story. I thought this was a very friendly place, but it has seen better days, as had my pint of San Miguel. I think I’ll be leaving this place to the locals in future.

There was no real ale on when I dropped in on early Thursday evening. There were a couple of handpumps in the left hand bar, but I was told there wouldn’t be any ale on for a while – I can’t remember if she said in a couple of days or a couple of weeks. But as I wasn’t prepared to wait, I opted for a half of Greenall’s Smoothflow Mild (£1.30 a half). I thought that it was absolutely tasteless and that a diet Coke would have had more flavour. I suspect that I might have entered the Mild rankings at the very bottom of the quality table. There are two distinct rooms accessed from separate doors in the small vestibule, but connected by a doorway at the rear. There’s also a bit of paved garden. The room on the right has a pool table and dartboard; it’s carpeted but with very little in the way of furnishings, just a bit of banquette seating and one or two tables with small stools and a couple of tall tables/tall stools over by the dartboard. This is a typical backstreet boozer for non real ale drinkers. It didn’t have anything that would attract me back, but as long as its regulars appreciate it and drink there then that’s good enough.