Cronies Bar (The Golden Lion), Stirling

Standing prominently in the centre of the City, the Golden Lion is one of Stirling’s historic coaching inns dating back to 1786. These days is is essentially a hotel bar but is open to all. The bar itself (known as the Library Bar) is to the left as you pass through the main entrance. The bar area has bare floors and is laregly an open floorspace with a couple of small tables at the edges. The carpeted front section was oak paneled with bookcases and a few archive bills relatuing to the hotel on display. There was a temporary TV (presumably wheeled out upon request) showing live Sky football and some piped background music that was so quiet that is was all rather superfluous and didn’t exactly enhance the sterile atmosphere. The adjoining restaurant did look quite grand although I didn’t explore this area uin any depth. In 1787 Robbie Burns apparently etched a poem onto one of the windows in the bar/restaurant area when he stayed here although he later returned and smashed it. Unfortunately, no-one knows which window it was. As for the beers, this was probably the biggest disspaointment, not just a poor selection but excessively overpriced. There are no ales so I opted for a Belhaven Best (keg) at a whopping £3.45. Guinness, Magners and Stella were pretty much all I could make out of the other selections available. The place is certainly a majestic building and is obviously steeped in history but to be honest, there really isn’t anything here to entice anyone beyond those looking to take a peek inside out of curiosity.