The City Tavern, Newcastle Upon Tyne

Nice old pub with friendly service. A fair selection of beers including Born brewery Amber and Screamtown pale ale. The Pale ale was excellent. Well worth a visit.

The old LYH has now been renamed The City Tavern after a major refurbishment. The outside is now mainly black and the inside is fairly dark as well, but not gloomy. Downstairs there are some dining tables and chairs along with a couple of comfy sofas and some high bench seating. Upstairs is mainly dining tables with a couple of small alcoves near the bar. The Man Utd vs Chelsea match was being shown on several screens downstairs, but with the sound turned off. 8 handpumps on the bar with 7 beers available. There were a couple of GK beers with most of the others being from fairly large regionals rather than micros. We made 2 visits over 2 days and both the pints I had were in good nick. Ms CAMRA thought that the red wine was decent as well. There's another bar upstairs, but there's no real ale up there. Quite busy on both our visits with quite a few people eating. Upstairs appears to be especially girly friendly with several tables taken by friends having a drink & food. It's a very neat pub now and the other half really liked it. I certainly couldn't complain about the quality of the beer, so we'll be coming back here again.

Called in this pub as it was a new one for me, and it was in the 2012 Good Beer Guide, and it was just off the main shopping pedestrianised area of Northumberland Street. It is part of the Head of Steam chain, and had a good selection of ales on the bar. There were 2 televisions showing sports channels but no sound, and the music being played was good background music. One wall was covered in posters for events at the Cluny, another of the chain. We chose Everards Elixir and Jennings Lakeland Stunner, both being in good condition.