CityLife

City Arms

City Arms

IT may not feel like spring has finally sprung, but down at The City Arms you can certainly get a taste of what the new season has to offer.

Those dark, heavy winter ales have been cast back into the night for another year and the pub is now offering a choice of lighter beers that herald the coming sunshine (we hope!).

When I visited, the usual Tetley’s cask was alongside beers that included the decidedly seasonal Springhead’s Spring Chicken, Davenport’s Spring Fever and Early Bird from Shepherd Neame.

Like the best fashion houses, their spring collection is published in a mini catalogue which you can leaf through at the wood-panelled bar .

Tobacco-coloured walls

And the pub promises that five spring season beers will make an appearance among the 20 or so guests due over the coming weeks on the eight handpulls which are regularly changed.

This tremendous selection has helped the City Arms retain its inclusion in the Good Beer Guide for 12 years on the trot.
 

One thing that does not change is the décor. The tobacco-coloured walls and dark wood give the City Arms a timeless look, indeed it is one of those few unspoilt city centre pubs which seem to defy the passage of time and feels at one with the nearby Victorian architecture of the Town Hall. 
 

A watering hole for office workers at lunchtime and after clocking off is done and a mecca for real ale lovers, it also quickly turns around no-nonsense lunches with most eating in the subterranean lounge, which also, helpfully, has a blackboard reminding you of the ales on tap.

We had three sausages with mash and peas and a good onion gravy (£6.25) and a gammon steak with a fried egg and chips (£6.50). They also do curries, burgers and sandwiches.

More resonance

The one thing I’m not sure about, though, are the quotations on the walls – they always remind me of those awful Irish theme pubs that seemed to be everywhere 10 years ago.

But one saying stood out: “When you have lost your inns, drown your empty selves for you will have lost the last of England.”
 

Wise words, and ones that have more resonance today than when Hilaire Belloc wrote them 100 years ago.
 

Though, if there were more pubs like the City Arms, I’m sure we wouldn’t be losing too many of them.