The Market Tavern, St. Helens

I'm often a little wary of pubs in shopping centres, as they can sometimes be a little rough and often don't have anything worth drinking in the real ale line. Maybe we were lucky in finding this one, just after 11am, in a pre-rough phase. It's fairly smart and bright, with plenty of TV screens. The bar counter is on the right on entering, and we had to wait a few minutes to be served as there were quite a few customers but only one server. She was efficient and prompt, however, and I was soon revelling in having only to pay £2.30 for two halves of Theakstons Old Peculier. The beer itself was in reasonably good nick and made a good start to the day's pub crawl around St Helens. Not the best pub of the day, but not the worst by a long way.

A large barn-like place. Open plan and very TV orientated with a shed load of tellies dotted around to watch football or fall asleep when horse racing or rugby is on. A fairly generic selection of fizzpops available. Its not a bad pub but its far from great.