No. 48 The Mill Hotel

Visited on 5/5/11. The Mill offers the widest choice in real ale of any venue in Chester - approximately 2000 different branded beers per year are sold here. You know what though ? I don't really like it. I find the choice of ales is so big as to be bewildering and for me, it's served too warm. In addition, it's often crowded and is dominated by massive TVs. To be fair, the night of the races probably isn't the best time to visit and on this occasion the place was heaving - it's difficult to enjoy a pint when you're in the midst of a scrum of inebriated middle-aged fatties (both male and female), all shouting and tottering. At one point I was poked in the eye by a 'fascinator', then a bloke wearing sunglasses walked into me. It was 10:45 at night. Initially, I was after a pint of the fabled Wapping Smoked Porter, but couldn't see it anywhere so we stuck to the more well known ales from Cain's and Weetwood. Maybe I'm being too critical - the ale was OK, and certainly cheap (£2:20/pint). Should go back on a quieter night really. Probably will.