The Red Lion (JD Wetherspoon), Ripley

Built as a pub in the 1960s, with a huge mural pub sign really standing out across the Market Place. Subsequently given the Wetherspoon treatment inside when they took it over, but on a fine spring day, the side patio garden was the place to be. Excellent selection of ten real ales and the Katy Perry apple/pear cider combo from the two banks of six handpumps, including a pair from Derby, one from Nottingham and others from a range of other breweries from further afield. In the end, I went for the Holderness Dark from Great Newsome (£2.10), one of three darker beers on offer.

A right old Spoons, housed in a pretty impressive example of 1960’s architecture on a junction; glamorous it is not but it was originally built to house a pub. The interior is nothing to write home about, though some of the windows concertina back so you can enjoy the particulates on a summer’s day. Pleased, then concerned, to see a whole heap of guest beers (it’s in the GBG…) and the two Derventios were atrocious, both undrinkable, taken back (via glacial service, mentioned in many reviews here and elsewhere over the last few years) but not taken off. The Oakham my companion sensibly had was better. Very poor stuff, one of the worst Spoons I’ve done. Suspect it got away with it a few years ago when Ripley had a fairly low-grade stock of ale pubs but that is no longer the case. God knows how this made the local CAMRA GBG listing.