Nags Head

Should you feel daunted by the astonishing range of 14 beers at this terrifically enjoyable little pub, the cheery staff will happily help you choose by offering you a taster. House beers are Banks's, Bathams, St Georges Charger, Friar Tuck and Dragons Blood, Sharps Doom Bar, Woods Shropshire Lad and Wychwood Hobgoblin, and they've changing guests (last year they got through over 1,000) from far-flung brewers such as Battledown, Cottage, Kinver and Three Tuns. They also keep two farm ciders and about two dozen malt whiskies. The superb range of well kept beers, tasty bar food, splendid individuality and easy-going chatty mood attract a good mix of jolly visitors and locals. A series of snug individually decorated rooms, with one or two steps between, gives plenty of options on where to sit. Each is characterfully filled with all sorts of chairs including leather armchairs, pews sometimes arranged as booths, a mix of tables with sturdy ones stained different colours, bare boards here, flagstones there, carpet elsewhere, and plenty of interesting pictures and homely touches such as house plants, shelves of well thumbed books and broadsheet newspapers, and there's a coal fire opposite the central servery; shove-ha'penny, cribbage and dominoes. There are picnic-sets and rustic tables and benches on the front terrace (with heaters and umbrellas) and in the garden.