Heworth Inn, York

Google has this as a four star hotel so I thought oh-oh, poor overpriced beer with supercilious service. Not really a hotel bar, it’s nicely decorated and it does rooms but I’m not sure where the four stars came from. The service was far from supercilious in fact not that close to service really. Two rooms at the front, a seating lounge to the left and a larger bar to the right, counter to the left in there and running half way down the room. Entering the bar, there was a collection of lager drinkers, as ever blocking any view of the pump clips. Why do they do this? Anyway three pumps but only Purity Ubu available, it turned out to be a nicely turned out beer and (almost) made up for the other shortcomings including the deaf barman who thought Purity Ubu sounded like Campocruzo.

This used to be a doctors surgery before becoming the Shoulder of Mutton pub but it has changed it's name to the Heworth Inn apparently to attract more vegans and did not go down to well with the locals. The pub is set out in an hotel style and found it clean and tidy with decent furnishings. There was the usual suspects on tap to choose from plus 4 cask beers although only 3 were in operation.

A refurbishment a few years ago has now made the front of this pub very presentable. nice dark blue mixing with white makes this pub seem very inviting. one inside there is the main bar tot he right and a smaller lounge area. I have hard this pub is quite busy usually but on my Thursday evening visit there was only a hand full of people and no one was talking, this gave off a very strange, somewhat uncomfortable atmosphere. There were four real ales on the bar with John smiths cask, Doombar, timoithy taylor landlord and st austill proper job. The landlord and proper job were both very nice here and were both priced at a slightly sheepish £3.40. This was a nice pub and a nice are to sit and have a drink, when busier I can imagine it has a lot of atmosphere but sadly on my visit it was a little mundane. overall a nice pub with good beers and comfy seating, worth a visit if in the area.

I stayed at this pub for a couple of nights in June. The room was fine for the money. The pub itself was busy both nights and seems to have a thriving local trade. Was friendly and did good value food. Couple of real ales available. Lovely big garden out the back. My only gripe was that there was a group of very loud out of control children running in and out of the pub on the saturday early evening shouting and screaming. This did not seem to bother the staff one jot. Got the impression it was normal. There is a bus stop right outside the pub with a frequent service which is very handy.