The Dragon Inn, Worcester

This has always been a friendly popular pub, and is a regular in the Good Beer Guide. Always a good selection of ales, although a lot of the handpulls now taken up with Little Ale Cart beers due to the link with the Wellington in Sheffield and it's brewery. Still has a large blackboard on the side wall displaying food available plus an area giving subjects not allowed to be discussed in the pub!! The beer board is good giving tasting notes of the beers on tap. Close to the station so a good place to start or finish your crawl of Worcester. Outside area through the bar where the toilets are.

A real classic Georgian terraced pub with rear patio. The upper stories are in plain brick with even spaced sash windows. The ground floor frontage is in cream and red with fake rustication and a side entrace for horses. Great. The interior has a large L-shaped room, the old rooms being knocked out. The serving bar is at the back on the left. The walls are in coffee with some wood panel, with a white artexy ceiling and a blue patterned carpet. The perimeter seating and bar stools are in a greenish colour. They do food, but i didnt eat, so can't comment on that. Lots of beer and whiskey memorabilia are on the walls and dotted about as ephemera and there is a nice beer board to show you what is on. I didnt see a TV and the background music was general and quite quiet. The service was fine and several mature locals were in. Beer; usual tap stuff with Church End Hop Gun, Vale Mill Old Git, West Berkshire Brewery's Over the Sticks, Millstone Brewery's True Grit and Vale Mil, Little Ale Cart's chocolate Stout and one other. I tried the stout and it was decent. A great pub, with a good range of beer. A place you can stop in for hours with a newspaper or book. Try this place.

The real attraction of The Dragon is its top quality ale. The pub itself is gently lived in and comfortable with the upholstery ringing a distinctly 80's bell in the memory. Both staff and regulars are friendly and very knowledgable on the wide selection of ales. I'd be happy to slide in unaccompanied with the expectation of a chat, even if only with the one or dogs enjoying the convivial atmosphere. The pub is owned by the Little Ale Cart brewery from Sheffield so there's a fair representation of their own ales but, as Mr Fastard notes, the guests are also top quality. Available on our visit were Little Ale Cart Cambridgeshire, Coal Train Chocolate Stout and Riot in Paradise as well as Mighty Oak Maldon Gold and Captain Bob, Blue Monkey Ape Ale and Pictish Southern Cross. We tried everything except the Mighty Oak beers and all were excellent in terms of both flavour and condition and flew down. Worcester has one or two decent boozers but this would be the first place I'd head to in the city and without any expectation of visiting the others in the same evening.

My non reviewing casketeer mates stated that they would never award a 10 for anything (not even Joanne Whalley in The Singing Detective),but after a night in here they could see my rationale for such extravagance.The pub itself is pleasingly basic and a little unkempt,with a seating area and fireplace on entering,a bar down the middle of the left wall with some seating surround while out the back is a covered terrace with benches and the loos. The pub walls are covered with photos of the mascot in various far flung locations and pics of the bar staff and regulars in different states of inebriation. The highlight is the contents of the blackbord listing the ales available.Little Ale Cart beers always feature at unbelieviably low prices,while there is no fear to pitch these fine ales against other microbrewery stars such as Blue Monkey and Millstone.The quality was top drawer and the selection varied across a number of styles.Service is knowledgeable,swift and accurate and the pub's atmosphere is bibulous. If you want a curry afterwards ,you can take pints from the Dragon to (the unlicensed) Abduls which is down the road past two other Indian establishments but which served up superb,good value grub.Abdul returns the glasses to The Dragon the following morning. To describe this pub as a must visit is an understatement,you would be mad not to spend a very long session in here if fine ale is your aim.