Lanty Slee's Langdale, Ambleside

Official site of Lanty Slee's Langdale - lantyslee.com

Official site of Lanty Slee's Langdale - lantyslee.com

A slight change in emphasis since my last visit, but more visual or cosmetic. There's still coffee and cake, still three hand pumps. The traditional white walls and wooden beams are maybe a little more to the fire. Beers, in good condition, are from local Bowness Bay and Langdale. Background music, a little too loud, is from the middle of the road.

The Sticklebarn has more of a cafe bar feel to it these days, with plenty of cakes on the bar and a state of the art coffee machine behind. But the right hand end of the counter has three hand pumps and half a dozen keg taps. All the real ales are from local breweries and my half of Crag Bitter from Fell brewery was in decent nick. Most of the seating is at cafe tables set out in rows, so it's not one I'd want to spend a lot of time in, but it's ok for one or two.

it's a National Trust pub and therefore attracts kids en masse, and that's the main reason for the low rating. definitely serves a purpose and can understand its appeal to the 'family day out' crowd. they have made it as pub-like inside as possible and when it empties later on it's actually quite cosy. but I just can't give higher than 4 to a place like this.

Was surprised to see that I would have a choice of three boozers in the area. Was looking forward to this but not sure what put us off first. Was it the middle class, yet unsupervised kids throwing the cushions around and running riot? Was it the real ales at £3.90 a pint. Probably the latter, as they had little control of the former. Not really for me - more for the glamping families over the road.