The Crown, Nuneaton

Large looking building near railway station, smaller than you would think inside. A bit basic & the outside area needs a very good tidy up. Good choice of beers, though they were a little warm

This is a GBG pub that does food, as well as being a music venue and having a large garden/BBQ area. This pub, i think, was originally a Georgain looking building that has been 'modernised' in the Victorian/Edwardian style, with the addition of a front gable, the roundening of some windows and the addition of the moulded stone. The rest of the building is in undressed brick. There is a large music room upstairs (where i saw the Bleeding Hearts some years back). The main room has three areas, and a long wood serving bar. To the right on entry there is a comfy chair zone, with a nice fireplace. Off to the left there is a raised area with general tables and chairs. The middle section is the bar kind of area. The decor is red and cream with some bizarre unfinished brick wall sections, and a wood floor. There are lots of old photos and beer/music posters. The TVs had silent news on and the music was general and at a decent level. The service was fine, as was the pudding that Mrs Soup ordered. The clientele seemed to be mixed, but to the more mature side. Beer; usual stuff, with several continental and fruit beers on keg. Ten handpulls are at the bar, with 3 ciders, a perry and 6 beers - although two had gone. I tried 3 of the 4 left; Wentworth Black Sabbath, Wentworth England Ale (6 Nations thing!) and Cottage Brewery's Galaxy. All were good. Nice to come back here and one i would definitely do again.

I counted 10 hand pumps stretching along the lengthy bar at this Good Beer Guide listed pub. There were seven beers and three ciders available when I was here on a recent Saturday afternoon. I had Colchester Diesel, which drank better than the name suggested it would, and Muirhouse Melchior, a 6% strong porter that I allowed myself to indulge in, as this was the last pub of my Nuneaton crawl before catching the train. Both beers were in excellent condition. To aid selection, all the pumps have numbers as well as the usual pump clips, and a blackboard provides a menu from which you can order. This is, I suppose, an efficient system when used in a busy pub like the Wellington in Birmingham city centre, but I miss the opportunity for a word with the person serving, whose job should include some knowledge of the beers and a line of banter about how stupid it is to call a beer "diesel", for instance. The building is a fairly typical railway hotel, but inside this is now, as with so many, just one large room. An interesting feature to the far left is an area that has been set up as what I can only describe as a sort of indoor patio, with decking and incomplete brick walls.

Disappointing visit on Thursday. It was not busy around 4.30 pm when we went in, and the beer selection across the bar looked good. On being asked for a taste of a beer, the barmaid said policy is no tasters. Our friend queried this in a CAMRA pub. The Crown is in the 2012 Good Beer Guide. The barmaid gave him a taster glass with about 1 mm of beer and 2 mm of top, so a pint of the beer was ordered and it was off. We had a half each of another 2 beers and one of them was really bad too. They did change the beers for us, but I would be reluctant to buy a beer here in future unless I could taste it before buying it. All the beers were £1.95 a pint, but it did seem as though there were more beers than the clientele were able to cope with. Shame really as it used to be a good pub.