The Southern Cross, Watford

This large, brewer's Tudor pub - painted in the vile Flaming Grill colour-scheme - doesn't look exactly inviting. However, it is much more pub-like inside than one might expect, with a pool table and dartboard. Also has front patio terrace and rear beer garden. Of course, it is still a chain dining establishment... On the beer front, Greene King IPA and London Glory were available from two of the four handpumps, along with a decent Tring Side Pocket.

I'd had this pub marked out as a possible ale oasis in the barren lands of Watford, so it came as a great surprise to find, on approach, that this is actually a large Flaming Grill pub - not a chain I'd ever associated with good beer (or good pubs come to think of it). However, such prejudices were soon put aside when I reached the bar and found five ales available - Tring Side Pocket for a Toad, Greene King IPA, Windsor and Eton Zinzan's Drop, Sharps Doom Bar and Taylor Landlord. As if that wasn't enough, when ordering my pint of Tring, the barman prompted me for a CAMRA card which got the price of my pint down to £2.90. In many ways, there ends the positives. The pub itself is a rambling, multiple roomed venue based around a central servery and has a relentlessly dull corporate feel to it no mater which part of the pub you choose to sit in. You enter into a bare boarded area with lots of high tables and stools and a large TV screen showing live rugby, with a loud and lively young crowd shouting at the screen. Various pillars and sections of partitioning wall break up the space here and a pool table has been stationed in one of the nooks this has created. Moving past the bar into the rear part of the pub you reach a carpeted space with lots of standard tables and chairs, some padded banquettes and a fireplace with an impressively large beam for a mantle. Local photos and floral wallpapers combine to cover the walls and over to the right there is a sense of a more formal dining area with lots of standard seating and some curved banquette booths under pastel shaded walls decorated with arty photos. From here a full circle can be completed, passing the other half of the servery, from where I spent some time waiting to be served, only to eventually be told I needed to move round to the packed main bar - a request that led me to abandon plans to grab a bite to eat as I wasn't going to spend any longer stood at the bar than I already had. The menu was typical of the chain and plenty of people seemed to be enjoying the meaty fayre on offer. This place was a bit infuriating, showing good potential given the restrictions such a format requires and offering decent beer and comfy enough seating. However, the service was sloppy (although kudos for mentioning the CAMRA card) and the décor utterly uninspiring. One for a crawl around town maybe or for a safe bite to eat, but certainly not for an extended session.