Shrewsbury

Black Bull, by the station (Banks'). And the nasty greasy pizza shop across the road from it. I had pizza with mince and peas on it from there once.

We thought the Armoury was quite pleasant with a decent selection of ales.

But don't be prepared to find most of the ones the local CAMRA branch recommends to be actually open during the day.

Boy, was that a waste of time walking around Shrewsbury.

As mentioned, the Armoury will be open during the day with an impressive range of beers, and books - though expensive. Food is meant to be very good.

The Salopian Brewery isn't far a walk either, though what they actually have there beyond the brewery itself I don't know.

I go to the Onslow traction engine rally every year & make a point of drinking in the "Bull in the Barne" It is on the mount & is now a Salopian pub with 5 Salopian beers on handpump. Nice company & a lovely sloping garden into the valley at the back.

Thank you very much for your suggestions. As sometimes happens, we got a bit waylaid by two very good pubs.

I was handing out the CAMRA beer scoring cards to my friends and the results were as follows, just in case anyone 's interested.

The scale by the way is a 6 point scale for beer quality which goes

Yorkshire House: nice old building, but slightly alarming notices everywhere about not being served if you become drunk or aggressive. there was one on the door when you go in, another on the bar, and another on one of the wooden posts inside. All of a sudden, 60s music came blaring out.

Beer: Old speckled Hen rated 1 by me and 1 by my friend. It was quite the worst pint of OSH I've had for a long time, and in fact I'm inclined to rate it 0 as I left half of it.

Six Nations surely.

Never really followed rugby :)