The Standard Bearer (JD Wetherspoon), Stevenage

Modern Wetherspoons in a Unit in the new part of town. Just about as far as you can get from a traditional pub experience in a place that serves beer.

This is a modern Spoons set in the heart of Stevenage New Town a few yards from the bus station. This area is so dull and soul destroying that even on my Thursday morning visit it was quiet with very few shoppers about. The pub is a corner building with a lot of glass panes. As you enter it's more like going onto the set of an episode of Doctor Who rather than a pub with odd lighting arrangements and exposed air conditioning ducts everywhere. The interior is square and on two levels with a couple of ground floor areas raised up a few steps, I didn't bother to look upstairs. It was fairly quiet for a Spoons with no sign of the daytime brigade unless you want to include myself in that category. The bar has two sets of five hand pumps which on my visit had the two GK beers, a cider & perry, three unused, Red Squirrel Red Dawn Mild, Elgood's Cambridge IPA and the International Hook Norton San Diego Pale. This wasn't a great selection but the Red Dawn Mild (£2.20) and San Diego Pale (£2.35) were in good nick though possibly a bit on the cold side. The Old Town Spoons is potentially better but I've been to a lot worse than this one.

Anonymous modern 'spoons in the main shopping area. Mezzanine. Not much to choose from the ten handpumps until I noticed Fat Head's Sunshine Daydream (£2.15) which proved a reasonable antidote to the torrential October downpour that I had run through to get there!