The Bull & Stirrup Hotel (JD Wetherspoon), Chester

A bit of a maze this one, obviously an old hotel that’s been ‘spooned, the road side front and side of the building are a collection of small interconnected rooms, you need to keep going towards the back of the place before it opens out into a large bar with the counter to the left. It looks like this is an extension and there’s a garden like space to the right. One long counter as usual with a six plus six split, unholy trinity on both but one set has guest beers, the other guest ciders. A mark of regular sanity is the upstairs toilets. Beer ok- ish.

My first pub visit in England for 18 months! I was not disappointed. Wetherspoons will never be my favourite pubs but I am glad they are there. With a mixture of Boris's and Tim's rules, my 10am Friday morning visit was very pre-Covid like! Bar service with no masks and no track & trace details. My 5.0% pint of Salopian at £2.19 per pint was a bargain that I had not expected even in a Wethers! It was on fine form. My breakfast and free coffee top up also went down very well. Even the service was quick and friendly. The rare town centre Wethers outside "garden/patio" area was enjoyed by diners and drinkers alike in the warm sunshine. A very enjoyable visit gives a rare Wethers score of 9. but very deserved on the day.

The Bull and Stirrup is a Wetherspoons with a bar that faces high tables in the right rear corner and multiple seating areas in the rambling left-hand side. I counted ten hand pumps in amongst the standard and premium keg products. These were drawing Ruddles, Greene King’s Abbot Ale, Sharp’s Doom Bar (x2), Westwood’s Cheshire Cat and Hafod Brewery’s Powerhaus alongside Cockeyed Brewery’s Monkey Mango cider and Weston’s Rosie’s Pig and Old Rosie ciders. The tenth handpump was unused. The usual JDW food menu is in operation. There is no music or live sports, as per the norm for this pub co. I didn’t spot any televisions, but I’d be surprised if there wasn’t some rolling news going on somewhere. Outside is a seating area, but it was very wet during my visit so I didn’t investigate.

Visited on Saturday evening and, like most Wetherspoon pubs, it was rather busy. Two banks of six hand pulls at the bar, one bank had the guest ales on and the other had their usual offerings plus ciders. We managed to find a free table. Beer selection was OK, I went for the Draught Burton Ale by Burton Bridge and my drinking accomplice had Quagmire by Big Bog. From memory the real ales were £2.49 a pint and in decent nick. Worth a bit of a nosey for the interior as it is different to the usual Spoons barns.

a meandering maze of a Wetherspoons which was full to bursting this afternoon. too unsociable to be a good pub but to be fair they have done a good job here and there is a good range of real ale. the bar area feels like a greasy spoon and was full of idiots but there are thankfully lots of cosy corners to hide away.