Chester punches well above its weight for cask ale. The city has nine pubs in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide 2025, a brewery taproom that won Best Pub in Cheshire, and a handful of places where the landlord genuinely cares whether you can see through your pint. If you drink real ale — or you're curious about starting — these are the pubs worth knowing about.

The Brewery Tap

Start here. The Brewery Tap is the taproom for Spitting Feathers Brewery, set in a sixteenth-century feasting hall on Lower Bridge Street. It won CAMRA's Best Pub in Cheshire in 2025, which isn't a surprise to anyone who's been. You'll always find Spitting Feathers' own beers on cask — Thirstquencher is the easy-drinking session ale, while Old Wavertonian is the darker, maltier option — plus a rotating guest line. The building alone is worth the visit: exposed beams, flagstone floors, no piped music. Pints are typically in the £4.00–4.50 range.

Bluestone

Bluestone is a micropub on Boughton, about a ten-minute walk from the city centre. Three handpumps, no TV, no lager fonts — just well-kept cask ale and up to four real ciders. The beers rotate nationally, so what's on changes every few days. It's in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide 2025 and it's the kind of place where you end up in a conversation with everyone at the bar. If you've never been to a micropub, this is a good introduction. Small, focused, and the beer is always in top condition.

Ye Olde Cottage Inn

Tucked away on Brook Street, Ye Olde Cottage Inn is the kind of pub you could walk past a hundred times without noticing. That's part of the appeal. The regulars include Otter Bitter and Wye Valley HPA — both excellent session ales — plus two rotating guest pumps. It's another CAMRA Good Beer Guide entry and the sort of pub where cask ale isn't a sideline, it's the entire point. No food, no frills, proper pub.

Telford's Warehouse

Telford's Warehouse sits in a converted canal basin warehouse, which gives it a character that most city-centre bars can't compete with. The regular cask ales include Salopian Oracle and Weetwood Cheshire Cat — both Shropshire/Cheshire breweries, so you're drinking local — plus two rotating guest lines. It's in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide 2025 and also does live music, so you can combine a decent pint with an evening out. The canalside terrace is a bonus in summer.

The Pied Bull

The Pied Bull has been here since 1155, which makes it Chester's oldest coaching inn. More relevantly for this list, it has its own in-house microbrewery. The house ales — Greenmoor and Chester Aged Honey Ale — are brewed on the premises and start at around £3.45 a pint, making them some of the best-value cask beer in the city. The quality is consistent and the prices stay low because there's no distributor in the middle. You can see the brewing kit through the glass if you're sitting in the right spot.

The Old Harkers Arms

The Old Harkers Arms is a Brunning & Price pub in a converted Victorian canal warehouse. The cask ale selection is reliably good — typically four or five handpumps with a mix of regional and national breweries — and the staff know what they're pouring. The food is solid pub-restaurant fare, so it works for a meal as well as a drink. The canalside location is one of the best settings in Chester for a pint, particularly on a warm evening.

The Cross Keys

The Cross Keys dates to 1550 and sits on Lower Bridge Street, which is quietly becoming Chester's best street for a pub crawl. The cask selection rotates regularly and the staff are knowledgeable enough to steer you toward something you'll enjoy. It's a proper city-centre local — not trying to be a gastro pub, not trying to be a cocktail bar, just a pub that takes its beer seriously.

The Cellar

If your idea of cask ale extends into craft territory, The Cellar is worth a visit. It's a specialist beer bar with rotating cask lines alongside an extensive keg and bottle list. They run monthly tasting events and the range leans more adventurous than your average pub — expect pale ales from smaller breweries, sours, and the occasional barrel-aged oddity. Not a traditional real ale pub, but a place where the beer is always interesting.

Brewhouse & Kitchen

Brewhouse & Kitchen on Foregate Street brews its own beer on-site. The house cask ales change with the seasons and they run brewing experience days if you want to get hands-on. The food menu is designed to pair with the beers, which works better than you might expect. It's more modern than the other pubs on this list but the beer is well-made and you're drinking it metres from where it was brewed.

Honourable mentions

A few more pubs where you'll reliably find a decent cask pint: The Saddle Inn on Grosvenor Street, The Shropshire Arms near the train station, and The Albion Inn on Park Street — the last of which is a properly old-fashioned pub that feels like stepping back about forty years, in the best possible way.

Planning a cask ale crawl

If you're doing a pub crawl focused on cask ale, a good route is: The Brewery Tap → The Cross Keys → The Pied Bull → Ye Olde Cottage Inn → Bluestone. That takes you from Lower Bridge Street out through the centre and up toward Boughton, covering five of Chester's best cask pubs in about a mile of walking. Allow half a pint at each and you've got a very good afternoon.

For current prices at all of these venues, check the Chester drink prices page. And if you're after deals alongside your real ale, the deals page tracks what's running across the city.