Pint Of Ale

Reached down one of Bath’s many small interesting side streets, The Volunteer Rifleman’s Arms is an interesting pub. It comprises one small deep red room, dominated by the central bar. A staircase in one corner is plastered with old movie films as it leads down to the toilets. Another staircase leads to the non-smoking room upstairs. The pub is covered in framed World War II morale-building posters extolling the virtues of the black-out curtain, and not talking to strangers for fear of them being enemy spies.

There were many beers on the well stocked bar. There were three from Abbey Ales and a Mole Catcher from Moles Brewery. We sat next to the large windows, dominated by huge potted plants, and we watched the shoppers milling around in the street outside. We sipped our fantastic, warm brown, rich-coloured Abbey Steeplejack as we listened to the dulcet tones of Dire Straits playing on the pub’s CD player.