Ale City

Roger Protz explores St Albans’ local pubs and brewing heritage in this lavishly illustrated guide.

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St Albans is a city rich in history, with its origins in the Iron Age and known as Verulamium following the Roman conquest in AD 43. Much of that history is enshrined in its amazing pubs, which include old coaching inns, a pub where soldiers fighting in the Wars of the Roses relaxed with ale, and Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, one of Britain’s oldest inns, dating from the eleventh century and possibly even earlier. Pubs connected to the railway age opened in the nineteenth century and there have been further additions in both the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These include the Farriers Arms where the longest surviving branch of the Campaign for Real Ale was formed in the 1970s. Today St Albans has fifty pubs, more per square mile than any other town or city in Britain. Commercial brewing was established in the city during the seventeenth century, with the Kinder family opening the St Albans Brewery on Chequer Street. Their history and that of more recently founded breweries are documented here.

Roger Protz has lived, worked – and drunk – in St Albans for fifty years. Packed with anecdotes and fascinating facts, he explores the city’s pubs and brewing heritage in this lavishly illustrated guide.