Albany Hotel, Cardiff

Very traditional multi roomed venue featuring a skittles and darts room. The lounge had very classy red leather sofas plus some banquettes around the perimeter. The main bar had a nice, tiled floor around the bar, fabric banquettes with lots of nooks and crannies to hide away in. Outside patio area out the back extending into a “secret” beer garden amongst the trees. The pub shows a lot of sport and had opened early the weekend just gone to show the rugby internationals from “down under”. Decent range of Brains beers on hand pump, in particular SA, Dark, Best and SA Gold. They also had the Ringwood Boondoggle, which was in very good nick. They have a lot of students in so a typical array of regular lagers and ciders plus Guinness. Chatted to the manageress, who mentioned they had taken over the venue less than a year ago and she also said the cask options were increasingly popular with the students! I thought this was a really decent venue and would, I guess, be one of my highest rated pubs in Cardiff (based on having done about half the venues in the area). Would definitely return.

Imposing corner pub in the residential area of Roath and owned by Brains. The 3 real ales on were Bitter, Dark & The Rev James. A number of handpulls with Marston's beers had glasses over them, indicating that they were off. We were impressed that the barman pulled off both the Bitter and the Dark when we ordered them. Both were found to be in good condition, if not a little on the cold side. The pub has a large bar area with TV screens for sport and a smaller lounge, where we chose to sat. Customers in the bar seemed to be a little rowdy, despite it only being an early Tuesday afternoon.

Official site of Albany Hotel - www.sabrain.com

Official site of Albany Hotel - www.sabrain.com