Mad Squirrel Tap, St Albans Central, St. Albans

Brewery tap initially appearing to be housed in a dull shopping precinct, but you actually have to go down to the cathedral access pathway to find the entrance. Once you do, you find a modern building with the bar at the lower level with a patio seating area backing onto the churchyard, with another room available for events at the higher level. Three handpumps on the counter, but all had been drunk dry during the Camra members' weekend, but there is a wide range of the brewery's craft keg beers from most of the 20+ taps on the bar-back. After the usual dithering, I went for the American Amber (£7.50).

Approaching though a small shopping arcade off the main street this modern retail unit looked very dead, but as earlier reviews mention this level is a fairly featureless overspill sort of area and the main activity is downstairs, with its own entrance off an alley behind the cathedral. Downstairs is still modern but has more atmosphere, with dark green paintwork and industrial-type tables. There is also a patio area outside. Two out of three handpumps were in use, serving a strong bitter and a white milk stout, with a keg selection of 16 of their own brews, one guest and a couple of ciders. As usual for crafty places the prices were a bit steeper, froom £5.80 upwards. Food is also available, mostly of the pizzas/wings variety. Fine for sampling their beers but I can't say it would attract me for a session.

Unlike the previous reviewer I did have the opportunity to spend some time here and thought it a pretty good Tap room. It’s quite large if you consider the three main areas of the ground floor with the main bar, the upstairs room where the toilets are, with its own bar that can be used as a function room for hire, and a decent outside patio space that has the cathedral as its backdrop. I thought the main downstairs bar had enough character with one wall decorated with framed Mad Squirrel adverts and the largest wall decorated with two framed St Albans City football shirts, as Mad Squirrel sponsor the team shirt. The wooden bar, with its three ale pumps, twenty two tap wall and two large TV screens detailing the beers on dominate the far wall as you enter. Two ales on the three pumps with London Porter and Evolve Bitter available, both of which were very good and then between us we tried the Big Sea West Coast IPA, Shamrock Irish Stout, Hopfest Session Pale and Roadkill New England IPA from the Mad Squirrel brews available on the keg taps and there were a few keg guests if you wanted to go away from the breweries own products.

I've been in a number of Mad Squirrel taprooms, but this one was a new one for me. What we assumed was the main entrance (as per the photograph on here) can be found in a dreary shopping precinct. However, the bar was empty and wasn't showing any signs of life. Luckily, we decided to take a closer look and found a set of steps to the side. If you descend these, you will find the ground floor of this taproom. What we had originally seen was an overflow first floor area. Instead of the empty bar we saw, the ground floor was quite busy. There's no particular character here, with a simple room with bench-style seating. Beers are displayed on TV screens. There were a couple of their cask ales - Aussie Aussie Aussie & Diablo. However, the focus here is on their craft beers. The selection was Sumo, Fog Off, Hopfest, Evergreen, Zealous, Big Sea, Pulp Fiction, Roadkill, Sunrise on the Pier, Utopia, Apres Ski, De La Nut, Pin Drop, Huka Falls, Busted Biscuits, Foggy, Awaken, Baked Alaska, Aztec, Elephant Juice & Shamrock. I'd imagine that craft beer enthusiasts could enjoy a good session here. We didn't have too much time before we needed to get a bus to Luton. So, it was a swift half for us, which may have meant that we didn't quite get to appreciate it as much as it deserved. I suspect I will give this place another go one day, when I have a little more time. First impressions were that this is a half decent place