The Black Bull, Wigan

A very mundane pub at the centre of Standish, just a single generic room dominated by TVs. Equally corporate in the keg beer selection, thankfully with two real ales from Marstons. The landlord seemed like relief management to me but my Wainwrights was in drinkable condition. The real selling point here is the secluded grassy beer garden at the back, ideal for a quiet pint on a sunny afternoon. The pub itself, I wouldn’t bother unless I was desperate.

This pub has quite a nice old exterior but inside it's been knocked into a single room and rather over modernised. The room is rectangular with a central bar at the rear. It's mostly wooden floored but there are two carpeted alcoves. There's a prominent pool table over to the left and TVs everywhere. The bar has three hand pumps which had a poor choice even by Marston standards with one unused, Hobgoblin and "Young's" London Gold. I went for the London Gold (£2.70) which was warm but in decent nick apart from that. The TVs and poor beer choice would rule out a return visit. According to what Pub you can ask behind the bar for the TV remote control. BBC Parliament or ITV Be anyone?

A pretty decent pub that does like to show off its sporting silverware. A large child friendly beer garden can however mean a bunch of shouty, whiny kids.