The Angel, Waltham Abbey

A Mc Mullens tied house with a pleasing exterior incorporating glazed tiling and a tradition two bar layout with quite seperate public bar and lounge.However the interiors of both rooms are quite corporate and souless ,despite a darts board and fruit machines in the public bar.The lounge is just a square room with exposed brick columns ,while the etched glass windows hint at original features but look decidedly modern.The pub was quiet and lacked atmosphere. At the bar there was Macs IPA,AK (fair condition but very malty) while a Cask pump clip was not turned despite not being available,a practice I dislike .Food is available but not promoted much internally and I would suspect food service dishes rule the roost here. Dull and not worthy of a revisit.

There are separate lounge and public bars, accessed through a choice of doors in the front of the building, or rather the right hand building of the two, in local yellowish brick, which make up the pub. The public bar, which we didn't visit, is in the building with the pub's name on it; there's some ornamental plaster work too. The windows all proclaim the owner to be the local McMullens brewery. In the lounge, which has beams and pillars, suggesting it was once two or more smaller rooms, there is a nice old fashioned wooden bar counter, with three hand pumps. There was McMullens AK (doubled up) and McMullens Cask. The latter was a fairly weak tasting beer but the AK was ok, if perhaps a little tired. The service was friendly and there were a few people in on a quiet Monday night; we enjoyed our brief stay here. It's certainly one to bear in mind for a future visit, away from the more raucous pubs on the market place.