The Ropewalk, Nottingham

The Ropewalk Is a large roadside pub in the compact area known as Canning Circus a short walk away from the main centre of Nottingham. The area is renowned for its fantastic selection of pubs located a stone’s throw away from each other who combined probably sell the best selection of real ale in the in city. The ropewalk however has the distinction of being universally known as the worst pub in canning circus and the one me and most others skip when doing the pubs around here. As you enter the pub is one long oblong shaped room that drops down a few stps to the left to match the slope in the road outside. This has always been a student orientated pub and is decked out in predominantly hard wood and wooden panelling that is not the most inviting and does feel a little tacky and generic. More recently it has started to try and focus on being a bit more of a later evei9ng pub/bar with dark/ UV lights and Modern music as well as the introduction of bee pong tables and the Like. Beer wise there are four hand pulls on the bar that also had newly installed keg fronts so I think the whole place might have had a bit of a spruce up. Unfortunately only Doombar and Navigations Britannia Bitter were clipped and the Doombar was turned around so I opted for the Navigation only for it to run out when he tried to pour a pint which I thought was a pretty poor effort given its location and the competition. There were a few less commonly seen keg beers so me and my friend each had a pint of Kozel Lager and Fullers Frontier at a hefty £4 a pop (do students have more money than when I went to University, it sure seems like it). We sat down the bottom on a long leather sofa and finished our drink. This place really falters in comparison with the vastly superior pubs around it and really does seem out of place as all the drinkers around here are really looking for one type of place, it’s not that it even gets that busy. I think this place needs a re think of who it is trying to cater too as at the moment it’s not really working.

This is a large and rather bland pub with a bit of a drinking barn feel to it, making it slightly out of step with the other pubs in the Canning Circus area. You enter into a shallow but extremely wide space which is essentially divided into three separate areas. The servery is on the rear wall of the middle of these sections - a bare boarded area seemingly set up more for vertical drinking, with just a couple of high tables and stools to gather round. To the left is a split level area with sofas, standard tables and chairs and a lot of fairy lights providing nice muted lighting. Unfortunately this space was roped off on my visit, so I was unable to explore properly, but I got the impression that it was the nicest area in the pub. To the right of the entrance, some more sofas and armchairs fill a space decorated with some rather funky looking wallpaper and lead in turn to an area with a pool table and dartboard. A partitioning wall creates a small wedge shaped space to the rear here where a few more comfy items of furniture can be found. Live sport is prominently advertised throughout and there were a number of screens on throughout showing a Sky Sports channel, allowing me to watch clips of every Premier League goal scored by Matt Le Tissier, which struck me as a pretty niche show to put on in a Nottingham pub. Music played quietly throughout my stay, although I expect it gets a little louder in the evenings. The toilets were labelled 'Standers' and 'Sitters', which, quite frankly, poses more questions than it answers. Despite the pub's unprepossessing appearance, it has maintained a reputation for offering a decent range of ales, and there were four handpulls in action on my visit, dispensing Oakham Bishops Farewell, Thwaites Lancaster Bomber, Adnams Southwold Bitter and Cottage Scrum Up. An utterly disinterested barmaid poured me a pretty indifferent pint of the Bomber and I instantly regretted not ordering a half. I didn't really warm to this place, partly because it was pretty dead on this visit, partly because it is devoid of any real charm and partly because I'd been enjoying some fine ale houses around the city prior to visiting. It's a good option to include on a Canning Circus crawl but is some way from being on of the city's must-do pubs.

OK sort of place more for the younger end thats not a bad thing they have got to go some place had a pint of Kelham Island bit warm but its like that in pubs that are young persons places