White Hart Tap, St. Albans

Nice pub with a slightly suburban feel, which actually retains some wood-coloured wood, although much painted grey as is typical. This includes the ceiling beams, which reveal its age. The bar faces you in entry, with a long room extending off to the right leading to a garden, and a back room behind the bar. Six handpumps carried a wide range of beers and condition seemed excellent. Ciders also available.

Ha quite a make over since the last time I used it, several years ago. Quiet on a Monday night, so unfair to rate its ambiance but the one thing that will remember is the £4.40 for a Timothy Taylor Landlord. I visited all the Good Beer Guide entry pubs and I'm sure this was the priciest. Visit blogged at http://bit.ly/2x7wj5w

Nice, friendly beer house in between the two stations, long room with a row of wooden tables, good beer choice & quality

This is a smart backstreet pub with a single room layout and a reputation for good ale that was no doubt enhanced by its appearance on the cover of a recent edition of the Good Beer Guide. You enter directly to the bar area with the servery opposite the front door in a space with light wood flooring. Some low stools and standard chairs fill out what limited space there is in this front part of the pub, including in a bay window and over to the left where a couple of tables have been squeezed in front of a fireplace with a plain mirror above. Over to the right there is a fair sized carpeted lounge-style area with comfy banquettes, chairs and low stools underneath walls decorated with some nicely framed pump clips, various bits of breweriana and a small collection of old 'Good Beer Guide - We're in it' posters, including the aforementioned one bearing the pub's image. The room runs a short way behind the servery, into a laminate floored area with regular seating options, some decent brewery mirrors and a shelf stacked with a fair collection of board games. There is a nice garden to one side of the pub with some large trees acting as a bit of shade on hot days, whilst a few additional benches can be found out on a paved section to the front of the building. Various CAMRA magazines were available and there was a fairly mixed crowd in on my Sunday evening visit,including a few well behaved dogs dozing at one end of the room. The pub's reputation as a top ale house certainly preceded my visit and I had high hopes of some quality beer. I found a good selection on handpull, comprising Oakham Citra and Enough Rope, Brewster's Lucy Walker, Castle Rock Harvest Pale, Sharps Doom Bar, Taylor Landlord and Holden's Toffee Porter. I sampled a pint of the latter, which was as sweet, sticky and moreish as the name might suggest and it went down a treat, which was handy as I had a bit of a rush to get back to the station in time for my train home. The barmaid serving me was very polite and the place looked pretty spotless, so they obviously take a fair bit of pride in the service they provide here. This was a nice way to round off a pleasant mini-crawl around St Albans, as i was able to enjoy some quality beer in a friendly atmosphere, in keeping with my experience throughout the city all day. The place perhaps lacks a little of the character required to make it really stick out from the crowd in a city blessed with plenty of decent drinking holes, but it has enough going for it to make it well worth a bit of exploration.

Joined the already in full swing Pubs Galore St Albans crawl at this venue and was a very good pub to start. It’s not the most characterful of interiors but a good back street community pub and good to find a lively crowd utilising the main bar area and the recessed area behind the bar and then plenty in the pleasant enclosed raised garden area which can be accessed up some steps from the far door on the right. Good beer range available on the six pumps and the Castle Rock Harvest Pale was an excellent choice for first pint of the day.