The B'Day Pub Crawl in St Albans....

Well, what better way for The GrandMaster to spend a sunny day in London than to leave it....esepcially when that destination is St Albans, a town with one of the largest concentration of pubs in all of England. Not only that, but it is also home to the HQ of CAMRA and was also recently rated as having the finest quality of cask ale in all of the UK by Cask Marque (with a 98% rating).

Of course, it wasn't all beer, there is some pretty good scenery along the way as well - the St Albans Cathedral was quite the picture.

Of course we were really there for the beer. The pick of the lot was definitely The Lower Red Lion. A fantastic array of beer, 6 varied ales on cask, and another 3 available through the cellar run. It was The GrandMaster's paradise!

The pick of the ales there, well that would have to be the Cottage GWR (Great Western Railway) Ale - a dark amber ale with a strong malty aroma and a delicious chocolate malt flavour.

Of course, with so many fine ales on offer there were sure to be some casualties towards the end of the night.

Though we manage to save the duck from its imprisonment at The Farmers Boy and he now comfortably resides at the Green-Watt household. Also the site that same night of the unveiling of the one-piece, which will be the subject of my next post....

For some more pics, click here.