The Golden Lion, St Peter Port Town, St. Peter Port

I blame Guernsey CAMRA for setting my expectations of this one. This town centre pub opposite the former Market was the first pub visited during our weekend in St Peter Port, primarily because it was the Guernsey CAMRA Pub of the Year 2019 and 2020 and WhatPub has it as a one room pub with a long bar selling up to 6 real ales and 4 real ciders. Well it’s still one long room internally with a staircase up to an upstairs function room and lots of trestle tables on the pedestrianised road outside. But the beer description was pre covid and for our visit there were three ales on, in the form of Butcombe Gold and Original and Liberation Brewing Mary Anne alongside a solitary cider from what I could see. Between us we tried all three ales and have to say I’ve had better pints of Butcombe and the Mary Anne wasn’t to my taste, but that could have been the beer itself. The good news was that the ales were on at a permanent £3 a pint, presumably because as the pub doesn’t do food it has to complete with the waterside pubs somehow, and this remained as the cheapest pint we had on our trip to Guernsey. The bad news is that in a town void of a Wetherspoons or equivalent this pub appeared to be the go to place for the forms of life attracted by cheap drinks and even at mid afternoon the air was full of what my Grandmother would have recognised as industrial language and the odour of plant based substances which she certainly wouldn’t have recognised. Although three ales turned out to be one of the highest choices of the pubs in St Peter’s Port we didn’t return to this one.

Official site of The Golden Lion - www.thegoldenlion.gg

Official site of The Golden Lion - www.thegoldenlion.gg