this small scale hotel consists of several rooms / bungalows (the typical old style chinese ones), and a 4 bed dorm.
Staff is friendly, helpfull and keeps everything clean!
Right in the center of the real China. At night the street is very alive, full of small restaurants and street BBQ's. Nearest subway is 5 mins by foot.

I've stayed here a few weeks, and i can really recommend this unique experience.

They got a few computers and wifi.

I was excited to stay in the hutong and I will agree that the location is excellent. We arrived late and they were there for our arrival. Our king bed, that we had reserved, basically filled the room and the bathroom was so stinky, that we asked to see another room. We ended up opting for the twin beds and larger room, they were larger than normal twins, it had more space for our stuff, and we initially thought that the bathroom was better.... We froze, our fault, because we didn't realize the AC had heat too. The bathroom had no heat, yes, a heat lamp for when you shower, but not for during the night if you have to get up. There was plenty of mildew around the faucet. You can't have the hot water heater and the heat lamp plugged in at the same time... So, we didn't even use the heat lamp when we showered. Risking running out of hot water wasn't worth it. The beds were relatively comfortable. We awoke early and wanted to go walk around the hutong and basically had to break out of the place, secure yes, but nice to know if you want to leave, you can. Great location, but bathroom smell did us in.

We arrived at Alley Garden on the 2nd of August at 11 p.m.
A young and friendly boy received us and explained all the available services (free wifi, safety box, laundry and breakfast with fee, tour booking) and given us a city map together with some "tip".
We booked the hotel online for 6 nights and we paid all at our arrival, at once.
The hotel is a quiet siheyuan in a typical chinese hutong and is closer to the tube station and to the restaurants. Is really good position!
We found helpfull staff and nice guests.
But...Price exceeds proposal. Considering that we paid a 15% surcharge for service we expected more room cleanliness and one towels change, at least.

This is a small hotel near the Lama Temple (Yonghegong) in the Dongcheng district northwest of the forbidden city. It is in a narrow hutong where in the heat of the summer people spend a lot of their time outside in the streets. The hotel is completely renovated with small but clean rooms. They have a few double rooms as well as 2 dorms. Most rooms have single beds and some have a double bed. We booked 1 Standard room and 1 Deluxe. Don't book the Standard room since it has no window, and it is pretty damp inside. Only the aircon to refresh the air.

The Deluxe room was nice with a window towards a small courtyard. There are some chairs and tables for the guests to sit outside and there is a small patio on the roof with tables and benches. There is also space on the patio to dry your clothes.

The bathroom is small but clean. The towels are not changed everyday, which is a problem in the hot summer when one likes to take a shower a few times a day.

The hotel staff is friendly and most speak some English. Their guests are mainly young foreigners and young overseas Chinese. It is possible to get some drinks in the hotel and they can make you breakfast in the morning on your request. When checking in you have to pay for your stay in advance plus they require a deposit of 50Y pp per night. The remainder of this you will get back when checking out after they have deducted your expenses in the hotel.

There is a washing machine which you can use for a small charge. Their are 2 computers which you may use, Internet is charged per hour (8Y/
hour). The hotel also has 2 old bikes for rent, the fee is 20Y/day and a deposit of 200Y.

After having stayed in quite a few dirty but still expensive 4 star hotels in China, we thought this hotel a very good bargain. We paid 600Y per day for the 2 rooms. It was a nice experience and the hotel is surprisingly quiet in the middle of this big city Beijing. In the morning nothing else to wake you but the singing of the birds. There are plenty of nice local restaurants in the vicinity (Yonghegong Dajie and Andingmen neidajie). The Guozijie (Imperial Exam street) is also very near.