Roger says

A warm bright summer's day lay ahead and Hertfordshire was my oyster. I picked St Albans as my destination on the grounds that, as CAMRA is headquartered there, it must have some very nice pubs with very good beer. I had little idea what any of them were, so I asked Twitter. Among the replies was one from Roger Protz naming seven establishments, and I took that to be as close to authoritative as I was going to get. Two had to be knocked off for not being open while I was there, but five is still a decent afternoon's crawling.

The cathedral bells behind me were striking noon as I strolled down through the park to stop one: Þe Olde Fighting Cocks. It's a rambling multiroom establishment, so proud of its wooden ceiling beams that it placed them at face height. Taller punters beware. There was a modest selection of beers to choose from and I went for Black Listed from local brewery Farr. It's a black IPA brewed especially for the house. The day's disappointments began with my half being served in a tall highball glass of the sort I haven't seen since several visits to London ago, and which I deem unsuitable for beer.

Still, it looked black when poured, only revealed as slightly red when placed in direct summer sunlight. It's 4.5% ABV and claims to be smoky and heavily hopped. It's not either. I found it mostly rather plain; dry and roasty, like a very basic Irish stout. There's a little fruit in the finish, some blackberry and blueberry, perhaps, but no hop punch. Should I give the place a second chance and order something else? No, it was too early to halt this pilgrim's progress, and so I moved on.

While the Cocks feels almost rural in its parkland surrounds, the next stop was the most urban of them. The Boot is located in the heart of the city's shopping zone, and even before lunchtime was attracting custom. It's a fairly small one-room job, on a street corner, showing the telltale sign of having been there a long time by being out of line with nearby buildings. Although ceiling beams do feature, the place is bright and sparsely decorated, adding a touch of Scandi minimalism to the traditional English pub look. This was first on Roger's list, and one of three he suggested prioritising. It's no exhibition pub, though, with only two unfamiliar cask beers for me. I picked Possum Holler, a west coast pale ale by Pomona Island at 4.6% ABV.

At least I got a proper glass this time, and the beer inside was a mucky orange colour, but that's hardly unusual for British cask beer here in The Haze Age. By "west coast" they mean powerfully bitter, which it is, packed with grapefruit pith and a rawer, less pleasant, hop leaf effect. There's a tang of oily resin in the finish.

Shortly after I was served, another customer came up to the bar and ordered a pint of it.
"Is this supposed to be cloudy?" he asked.
"Not really," said the young man behind the bar, turning the clip around and replacing the withdrawn pint with one of Beavertown Gamma Ray.
It felt quite disconcerting to be left with most of a half pint of a beer which the pub had decided wasn't actually fit for sale. Not what I would expect from a top-end cask venue. Whatever merits I had been finding in the beer had since evaporated, and the bad taste in my mouth wasn't only the dry-hop dregs. Time to move on again.

My fortunes began to improve when I reached pub three: The Mermaid. This place I had heard of, what with it winning a slew of awards from local CAMRA. It's a freestanding, block-built, double-fronted establishment, exuding stolid trustworthiness. Inside it's the same square deal, the L-shaped barroom covered in antique breweriana; mostly English but with nods here and there to classic German and Belgian brands to show it's a serious place for quality beer, or a quality place for serious beer. To round out the Moon Under Water picture, there was a porter on cask: Limehouse from Lister's in West Sussex. That's my first pint of the day sorted.

Given that I needed a thirst-quencher it was a bit of a gamble but it paid off beautifully. It's only 4.1% ABV and is very straightforward in its construction, based around dry dark-toasted grain with flinty spices and a little blackcurrant and crab apple tartness around the edges. No chocolate, but I didn't miss it: everything present was perfectly harmonious in its understated complexity. I made short work of the pint and, reluctant to leave just yet, had an additional sneaky half from the cider menu. The Mermaid is the sort of pub I came in search of.

Next was The Robin Hood, close by my eventual exit point of St Albans City station. It's a welcoming and roomy pub with a bright and sunny aspect. Cider is the specialty, with a bank of bags-in-boxes stacked at one end of the bar counter. The cask beers are confined to three handpumps and, since one of them was Harvey's Sussex Best Bitter, I don't have a new tick to report for you. I thoroughly enjoyed my pint of this old favourite but time was beginning to run short and I still had distance to cover before the finish line. I'm glad I stopped here, though. It's a very nice place.

The next one wasn't from Roger's list: two other Twitter participants suggested The White Hart Tap. I can only guess ('cos I ain't looking it up) that the name is a throwback to a now-decommissioned brewery, because it doesn't appear to be the tap of anywhere specific and serves beer from a variety of producers. Inside it's another bright pale wood job and this afternoon had lots of cheery locals popping in and out. I got the impression it's a neighbourhood hub though not really a destination.

I had seen a few clips for Two By Two brewery, a long way from their home at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall on Tyneside. This was the only one I tried: Leap Frog, a pale ale. It's hazy, but this time I think that's deliberate. The flavour certainly didn't suffer, showing a clean and pristine blend of lime, melon and coconut. It's all very modern and new-world, and down-with-tha-kidz, but quality is quality and I liked it a lot. Assisting the taste was the fact it was the coldest cask beer I got all day, something very much appreciated when I had spent so much of the afternoon walking.

That, or my growing tiredness, was enough to make me stay for a second here, and another brewery I had seen around: Tring, and Side Pocket For a Toad golden ale. To me it tasted very much like a traditional bitter, and a very very good one at that. Tannins hit the throat first, then a light hop-derived floral summer fruitiness, leading to a mineral finish and scene. I picked out raspberry, strawberry and zinc, which isn't an obvious winning combination but by golly it works. I would love to have this as a regular go-to in my local pubs, just as I would Sussex Best, Landlord or Tribute. I'd probably want it to have a shorter name, though.

And now comes the real commitment to the bit. Pub number two was supposed to be The Lower Red Lion. It's just around the corner from Þe Olde Fighting Cocks and I, assuming Google was correct in saying that it opened early in the afternoon, had circumnavigated the premises, peered in the windows and tried all the doors, but it was definitely closed. Later, WhatPub suggested that opening was actually 4pm on a Monday, which had just passed. Here I was on the east side of town, not far from the station. Was it worth hoofing all the way over there and then all the way back to try and make it onto the train after the one I had intended to be on? What kind of pilgrim would I be if I didn't?

On arrival I found the Lower Red Lion had indeed opened for the day and I was the only customer so far. It's set in a terrace of houses so is wide and shallow, its two rooms bisected by a bar offering five cask beers. I decided to stick with Tring and picked Pale Four. Why the name, I don't know, but this is amber coloured, not pale, and 4.6% ABV. There's the same signature dryness as in Side Pocket, and similar fruit, but brighter and more tart, the strawberry blended with redcurrant here. I wasn't quite as wowed, but it's still a very good bitter. I'm glad I made the effort.

All that was left was the final sprint back to the station and on to salubrious Luton Airport and home. After a bit of a false start, St Albans proved to be just the charmer I had hoped it would be. If you're in the neighbourhood it's worth stopping by for a crawl. And if you plan it better than I did, you might get to visit The Farrier's Arms and The Great Northern as well.