64.
Newbury, mainly mediocre pubs,
Dr Dave Wacey
and I decided that it was high time to get a Summer
pub crawl done. Unfortunately the weather was shite
on 26th June, so we had to get a train to Newbury and do a walking crawl rather
than by bike. Seeing as we had dicked up getting the
train, we had to break up our wait at Reading station, and therefore popped
into the Three Guineas which was a reasonable pub, though nothing special. For
somewhere that mediocre, they had a good selection of ale: Adnams
Broadside, Abbot, Gales D Day, HSB, Festival, Tetley, Young's Bitter and Hogs
Back TEA. Having had enough of this we went on to Newbury by
rail.
At Newbury, our first stop was the dire
King Charles Tavern which had no redeeming features and a rough clientele.
Abbot and IPA (rough too) were on when we eventually got served. The Catherine
Wheel was heaving with some quite rough people too, but at least the atmosphere
was a little better, and they actually did a very good line in bar snacks. The
6X and Courage Best were decidedly average. Interior was a bit more Olde Worlde and generally
welcoming too. Over the road was the swish Queen's Hotel which did a most
expensive pint of Courage Best. The only decent thing about this place is that
there are some quite nice squashy sofas which are normally free at slack times.
The Hogshead was also rather average,
though the pint of Deuchars IPA was good (didn't try
the London Pride). Otherwise a typical, long thin Hogshead.
The Old Wagon and Horses had no real beer, and the pub was really just a parlour at the front of what may well have been a much
larger pub converted to some sort of restaurant. Dave and I supped our halves
as we sat on some high stools. Pride and Courage had apparently been available
at some juncture in the reasonably recent past.
A couple of disorganised
muppets served us at the Snooty Fox. The only beer on
was Deuchars, but the interior was OK, and it has a
frontage which can open outwards for those hot Summer
days. The toilets minged however: urinals full of
fags, piss and pubes. Despite its unflattering score, you could probably spend
a bit of time there. The Lock, Stock and Barrel was
the next stop, and it was a reasonable, bright, airy Fullers establishment
doing ESB, Pride and an excellent pint of Summer Ale. Unfortunately it was a
little foodier than we'd hoped.
The Tap and Spile
(Monument) is a charming rustic, slightly metallers'
pub which reminds me of the Gloucester Arms in
Just before dinner, we popped into the
Cross Keys, a slightly aggresive looking pub because
it was painted with lots of George Crosses, and there were a lot of hard
looking blokes in there. In actual fact it wasn't too bad, though not
outstanding, and we had some reasonable halves of Arkells
3B, if there is such a thing. On the way to Shite Donalds, we passed the nearest that there is to a kebab
van, a converted Transit camper van selling Chinese food. We wisely gave it a
wide berth.
After dinner, we hit a marvellous
pub, the Lion, with an excellent array of Wadworths
products (6X, Henry's, Summersault). This is pretty much a traditional, though
not too fussy pub with a good spectrum of punters. Our barman got top service
marks because he went down into the cellar to put a new barrel on, pulled three
pints through and discarded the first one in order to give us the
highest quality. Sadly, this high standard was not about to continue as we made
our way to the Dolphin, quite a rough establishment. London Pride was on offer.
They even had a couple of bouncers at the door, so we made our stay a brief
one. Finally, to catch extra time of
Dan
Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com
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