The Red Lion, Doncaster

Please Note: This review is over a year old.

Will Larter left this review about The Red Lion

A Sam Smiths pub on a busy stretch of road just outside the town centre, and in the bright spring sunshine it was quite warm when I got inside - an open window might have made things better or quite possibly worse, given the volume of traffic. This is a large pub with at least three rooms that I could see, two small ones to the left, and the room to the right quite clearly having been enlarged from two or even three more rooms. The bar had a large selection of Sam Smiths beers, all on keg, and I finally spotted the dark mild on a section of the counter that faces the corridor to the left. It took a bit of pouring, but the server had judged it just right and it was as near a full half-pint as anyone ever gets in a Sams pub. And very enjoyable, too, despite the shock of paying £1.10 for the privilege.

The room has brown varnished beams and joists; traditional chairs and tables, the former with upholstered backs and seats; there are green upholstered bench seats around the walls, and forming dividers; and the walls themselves are decorated with a variety of pictures, not one of which, as far as I could make out, had any local relevance at all. On high shelves were the usual plates and other paraphernalia, but a surprise was a set of house keys on a ring - as large as a saucer in diameter - suspended from a hook in one of the beams. These are the sort of things that I notice when I'm not allowed to look at my phone in between drinks of beer. It's a good thing I'm still allowed to write them down in my notebook.

One of the things I wrote down was that this is the very image of a traditional pub, and well worth the walk out from the town.

On 27^th March 2022 - rating: 6
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