Crafty's, Letchworth Central, Letchworth Garden City

Originally opened in 2016 as a bottle shop cum micropub in a former jewellery shop, this is now more micropub with the main internal square space and a small ante room at the back by the one toilet set with tables and only the right hand wall has racks and a fridge with bottles and cans for sale. And it takes advantage of being located on the pedestrianised Leys Avenue by having several outside benches on the pavement in front of the bar. The left hand wall is dominated by a large chalk board detailing the beers available which for my visit was two cask ales, served from barrels with cooling jackets on a table behind the serving bar, and 11 keg products and a couple of ciders, most from a Heath Robinson set up of tap board, cooler, kegs and a spaghetti of pipes at the back of the bar area. There are a couple of permanent keg pumps on the front of the serving area dispensing continental lagers and I didn’t think the other keg options were particularly aligned to modern cask options outside of one each from Kernal, Cloudwater and BrewYork. The two casks were Five Points XPA and 3 Brewers IPA and I went for the Five Pints brew and it was in good form. This still felt too much like a shop for my liking and I’ve been in much better micropubs for a drinking experience. But in a town centre virtually void of any decent ale choice or decent pubs, this place is worth its weight in gold.