64. Newbury, mainly mediocre pubs, Saturday 26th June 2004

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 Oxford. Beers are most interesting: Old Peculier, Butts Traditional, Gales HSB and Old Speckled Hen, with maybe some others sometimes. We enjoyed our stay here, and could have stayed for some more. The Bacon Arms was next, deathly quiet in there although they had a good selection of newspapers. The beer wasn't so hot, being only Courage Best, but it tasted OK.

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.

Transit camper van selling Chinese food in Newbury

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 Sweden vs Holland, we ended up in the Coopers' Arms, a typical old man's pub with two bars, and an old man in a blazer serving behind both of them. He kept average pints of Arkells 3B, so I hate to think what the 2B was like, and more importantly, an excellent array of bar snacks. Well worth a visit if you like old farts and pork scratchings.


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Dan Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com

Last updated
21st July 2004.