Jolly's Hotel (JD Wetherspoon), Dundee

An ultra-modern Spoons (with hotel) opened in 2014 and perhaps a surprise location for the Timbo empire, as the Ferry isn’t exactly a metropolis. Up an alleyway to get in, it’s much bigger inside than it looks - a light and airy main bar with a nice and fairly cosy quiet room off right from the bar. Keep an eye out for the impressive life-sized woven Dennis the Menace & Gnasher. Three guest cask and a cider – for some reason I decided to go with the cider, which was fine, though it meant that I couldn’t comment on its GBG’24 status. A tidy JDW and another reason to get the train out this way from Dundee and clear your diary for the day. 7.5

Nice Spoons, a little different to their usual and more cosy

This is a massive Wetherspoons pub – surely disproportionate for a town of Broughty Ferry’s size – just a short walk from both the train station and seafront. An alleyway leads you from the road, through a sizeable outdoor seating area, to the front door. Upon entering, you find yourself in a huge room with the servery over on the right hand wall. The room is mostly filled with high tables and stools, with a few regulation tables and chairs dotted around the fringes. The room has a bit of a drinking-barn feel to it and I can imagine it could be a bit of a nightmare on busy weekend evenings. There are large bookshelves on the back wall and an open kitchen over to the left. The pub then turns back on itself and runs all the way back to the road along the right hand side of the alleyway. You pass through a couple of seating areas before you make it all the way to the front of the building again. These rooms are carpeted and have a mix of chairs and remarkably high backed banquettes with some nice contemporary photos and a few historic pictures on display. A fireplace serves two of these areas, with a modern burner fitted inside. The front section sees the room branch out further to the right into a side room with modern floorboards, large potted plants, a few fancy art prints and some nice looking furniture including a couple of banquette booths. The pub also offers hotel rooms, which you’d probably need to take advantage of if you hope to explore this pub in full. Nine of the twelve handpulls were in action, offering a mix of five guest ales and four ‘Spoons regulars, with two ‘Coming Soon’ clips and one unclipped wicket making up the numbers. I tried Redcastle Milk Stout at an impressive £1.69 a pint and thought it was a pretty good beer and definitely good value for money. The barmaid was very friendly and kindly offered me a taster before I made this significant financial investment. I really liked this pub – it’s so big that it felt like there was an area to suit just about everyone’s tastes. It was quite nice to just ramble around with my pint, taking in the various areas for a while before moving on to the next and the addition of some cheap, well kept beer makes returning a very attractive prospect.

Long-established hotel, comprising a jumble of buildings behind the original frontage, and accessed from the courtyard. Taken on and thoroughly revamped by Wetherspoon, with a semi-modern bar but more traditional in the other seating / dining arras. The downside: just three reals available from the two banks of six handpumps, with only Crossfire from Stewart Brewing to break the Doom Bar / Abbot gloom.