Great and Little Milton Pubs by Bike

If I thought Mrs PropUptheBar was worried about me using London public transport in Covid-times, that was nothing compared to the look of horror when she realised I was serious about borrowing her bike to visit a couple of East Oxfordshire villages.

Seems I'm not very trusted to safely navigate the B roads of the county on 2 wheels.
She even had to make a note of where I was going, lest search parties had to be sent out later...

So I cycled out westwards, the bike riding all very pleasant for a while until I reached the first hill slight incline.
Huffing and puffing and with a red-faced grimace, I wasn't giving anyone the illusion that I was enjoying this cycling lark.

I arrived in the village of Little Milton at 11:55, five minutes to catch my breath and take a picture of the pub before it opened (I hoped!)
And what a brilliantly charming thatched village pub this was.  It made it all worth the effort.

The kind of idiot that'd get on a bike for the first time in years in order to go the pub.

The Lamb Inn (High Street, Little Milton, OX44 7PU - web)

Inside, the Lamb is split into two separate areas either side of the bar, with the brickwork and wooden beams and posts giving it a bit of historical character.

I was pleasantly surprised to have a choice of three ales on a midweek visit - I figured I'd be stuck on the Brakspear, but alongside this was a local Amwell Springs brew ('Chairman Dave') and one from Church End ('Vicars Ruin'). 

The welcome in the Lamb was fantastically friendly and the beer in fine condition.  I sat outside on the lovely patio to the rear of the pub, in the sunshine, sipping my 'Vicars Ruin' in great contentment.
Yep, for the time being it hadn't sunk in that I'd still gotta cycle all the way back.

Before tackling the journey home though, it was a couple of miles northwards to get to Great Milton.
This was another charming East Oxfordshire village, not far from the M40, but quiet and idyllic on this summery afternoon.

Picture intended to back-up 'charming Oxfordshire village' claim.

Great Milton looks to be quite a well-to-do place, as evidenced by being home to Raymond Blanc's 2-Michelin star Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, which relegates The Bull to Trip Advisor's #2 place to eat in the village.
I'd dispute that.  Somehow I think I'd be happier (and have more money in my wallet at the end of the day) eating in the Bull. 

The Bull (The Green, Great Milton, OX44 7NS - web)

The pub has a fine location overlooking the village green.
Another thatched roof, more wooden beams and more village-local appeal.

Two front rooms are served by a central bar, whilst there's an extension to the rear leading to a patio and garden, so plenty of space for outdoor drinking at the Bull.

I figured I'd have to plump for a Doom Bar here, but then spotted the Loddon 'Hoppit' on the other side of the bar - their guest beer priced at a very reasonable £3 a pint.

I'm afraid that's about the limit of my inexperienced cycle riding exploits, so if there's any equally good pubs in villages a couple of miles on - sorry - too far for me!

It was great to find a couple of lovely village pubs, both serving good beer in good condition on a weekday lunchtime.

With it being a bit tougher to make longer trips at the moment, hopefully I'll find some more gems in the local vicinity over the coming weeks.

Cheers!

West London Pub Explorations

A Micro, a 'Spoons, a Heritage Pub and Dracula's Castle.
How's that for a bit of pub crawling variety in West London?

The previous post covered three pubs in Bayswater, ending in the Champion with a £4.70 pint of Doom Bar 😱.

I wasn't planning to visit Wetherspoons, but I needed to offset that upsetting bill with some value for money.
Plus, this stop handily passed a bit of time before the 4pm opening of the West Ealing micro pub.

I caught the tube (pleasantly quiet, although I bet it's not always like this) as far as Acton Town, then walked the short way up Gunnersby Lane to get to the uniquely named Red Lion and Pineapple.

Red Lion and Pineapple (281 High Street, Acton, W3 9BP - web) 
The pub is on a ridiculously busy junction, which is why I was struggling to take a decent photo whilst passing motorists wondered why the hell that odd bloke would want a picture of Wetherspoons.

I DID get my value for money - £1.99 for a pint of Twickenham Fine Ales 'Daisy Cutter' a wicked 6.1% golden ale.

A very gradual return of pub life to Wetherspoons

Had they been open, I'd have been tempted to revisit The Aeronaut or the Dragonfly, both nearby.  But on a Tuesday afternoon they weren't, so it was back to the tube and a short ride to Northfields station.

The Owl & The Pussycat (106 Northfield Avenue, London, W13 9RT - web)

Located in an old book store, this is both a micropub and microbrewery, with a 20hl brewkit in the back room creating beers under the moniker Marko Paulo Brewery.
It's great to see a micro back up and running, although the stacked up furniture to ensure social distancing between the tables was a little odd.

Not the tidiest bar I've ever seen, but friendly service and a nice range of beers on offer.

Beers were listed on a laminated sheet of A4 on each table, with 5 cask ales and 7 keg, all from the microbrewery in the back room.

I started with a half of the, very tasty, 'Genius Dry Stout'.  

Remarkably avoiding the imperial Russian stout, I still managed to pick something stupidly strong with the 7% 'Kviek Strong'.  A bit of a park bench special, if I'm gonna be honest.  Should've had the mild.

Beer List...

Selection of Good Beer Guides...

Gratuitous WC shot...

I'm very easily impressed, okay?  

And a sink ON TOP of the cistern was enough to impress me.  

Plus, I think the 7% ale may have gone to my head by this point.

The next destination was merely a short stroll up Northfields Avenue...

The Forester (2 Leighton Road, Ealing, W13 9EP - web)

There were five pump clips on display, but only two of the beers were actually available - surely it would be easier for staff and customers to not display beers that aren't on?

Like Jim Bowen on Bullseye, revealing the speedboat contestants could have won, had they not just lost.

"Let's have a look at the beers you could've drunk..."

This was my sixth pub of the afternoon.  I've earned the right to talk nonsense by this point!

I had a Dark Star 'Hophead', the beer up to a good standard, despite the make-shift pump clip...

The Forester has an absolutely lovely interior - there's probably loads to see here but, at the moment, publicans prefer we keep to our seats and don't amble around the place too much.
I'm sure I missed some great features from the extensive heritage pub entry.

It was back onto Northfields Avenue and a short walk to West Ealing station, where my final pub of the day was nicknamed 'Dracula's Castle', due to it's Gothic towers. 

Drayton Court Hotel (2 The Avenue, Ealing, W13 8PH - web)
This is a spectacular building, which I really haven't done justice to on my picture...

It opened in 1894 with 60 bedrooms and ornamental gardens to the rear.

According to Wikipedia, Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman Ho Chi Minh worked in the kitchens here in 1914.  

And the hotel appeared in Carry on Constable and an episode of Doctor Who (slightly less impressive than the first claim to fame, I feel).

The gardens at the rear are huge, and on a warm afternoon most customers had opted to sit out there.  I choose a window seat inside, with stuffed animal heads looming over me - everything very quiet and very uneventful.

The sole beer was another 'Hophead', this time not quite matching the quality of the pint in the Forester.

Sizable back garden at the Drayton Court Hotel.

With seven pubs visited, it was time to tackle London buses and find my way back to Shepherd's Bush and the Oxford Tube stop.

Hopefully I'll be able to tick off a few more in the capital soon, and fingers crossed they'll all be looking a little busier next time.

Cheers!

Three Pints in Bayswater

Midweek in July, the sun was out, and I decided to head into London for a day of pub explorations.
The plan was to start centrally in Bayswater before venturing a little further into West London.

Hopping off the Oxford Tube bus service at Hyde Park Corner, the first order of the day was to visit a couple of nearby pubs from the Good Beer Guide.

And to take a picture of the elephant statues in the corner of Hyde Park.

Twenty One Elephants

After a 15 minute walk along the north side of the park, the first pub stop was the Leinster Arms.
I reckon it looks absolutely glorious, with the pub name stretching across the tunnel that leads to the mews behind.

Leinster Arms (17 Leinster Terrace, Bayswater, W2 3EU - web)
Now I did arrive at 12:05, just a few minutes after opening time, so I can't complain that I was the sole customer in the pub.  Reviews suggest, in normal  circumstances, it's thriving with tourists from the many nearby hotels, plus a handful of locals and those drawn to live sport on the TVs.

I'm afraid I didn't liven the place up.  I sat quietly with my £5.10 (oof, that hurt!) pint of Fullers 'London Pride', with a soundtrack of Frank Sinatra and Bruce Springsteen in the mellow lunchtime music mix.  It would obviously be a very different experience in more 'normal' times, with a crowd of punters in.

The 'Pride' was in great condition, for what must have been the first one poured on the day.

Early doors at the Leinster Arms

I'm usually a sucker for a bit of Pub Heritage, but the area's headline heritage pub, The Victoria, had not yet re-opened.  As an alternative, I back-tracked on myself a little to visit The Mitre.
The wedge-shaped corner pub certainly makes for an impressive picture.

Mitre (24 Craven Terrace, Lancaster Gate, W2 3QH - web)
Inside it's pretty impressive too, with a sweeping wooden bar, etched glass and mosaic tiled flooring, in a pub that dates back to 1859.
The team here were taking the collection of contact tracing details very seriously.  There seemed to be a procession of local workmen popping in to use the loo, all of whom had to give their details in order to spend a penny.
Table service only too - even if that long bar is crying out to be leaned on.

Two hand pumps offered up Young's 'Original' or St Austell 'Proper Job', but in this instance I plumped for the draft Camden Town Brewery, 'To The Pub'.

This pale ale has been brewed to support and celebrate pubs as they re-open, with 260,000 pints being dished-out free-of-charge to bars alongside orders of keg Hells Lager.

Leaving the Mitre and walking down toward Notting Hill, there was just one more Good Beer Guide entry to visit in the vicinity. 

Champion (1 Wellington Terrace, Bayswater, W2 4LW - web)

The Champion initially re-opened without any real ales on, but by the time I visited they did have Doom Bar on offer.
Decisions, decisions, Doom Bar or more Camden lager on tap?
Against my better judgement I asked for the Doom Bar which started out tasting pretty fine, but the magic fizzled out and the second half of the pint was less impressive.
And it cost me a shocking £4.70.  For a Doom Bar.  Hell's bells.

I sat in the big leather seats by the window, today opened wide onto the traffic of Bayswater Road with the northern gates of Kensington Palace directly opposite.
Downstairs is the Mercury Lounge and a sunken garden.  The pub alleges a bit of rock'n'roll history, with '70's musicians frequenting it, most prominently Freddie Mercury.
I did try to do a bit of internet research about this, but got quickly waylaid and never did get to the bottom of whether 'We Are The Champions' was really written here.
But they say it was, so I'll believe 'em, and they've got a display on the wall with sheet music and pictures of the band.

Three central London pubs was enough for me today.  It was time to travel westwards into the suburbs in search of something a little different, the results of which I'll cover on the next post.

A (post-lockdown) Brighton Pub Crawl

At the beginning of this week a last-minute decision took us on a trip down to Brighton, where we'd find...
Heritage pubs...

Amusements on the pier...

l

...and street art...

I got to paddle in the sea, get sunburnt, eat and drink a lot, get a bit lost in the side-streets looking for a bar, and take photos of all the touristic hot-spots.  So, despite missing out on a summer holiday this year, we managed to pack all the key ingredients into 24-hours on the south coast.

First stop for a pint of Harvey's 'Sussex Best' was this outstanding mock Tudor building which overlooks Victoria Gardens.

King and Queen (13-16 Marlborough Place, BN1 1UB - web).

It advertises itself as being Brighton's largest public house, which would probably be beneficial for practicing social distancing.

As was drinking before noon on a Monday morning, to be fair.

There's been a pub on this site since 1860, but the spectacular building that you see today dates from 1931.  I'm not quite sure why they decided to re-build it creating a large Tudor hall complete with minstrels gallery, huge fireplaces and a ton of intricate carvings throughout.  But it's a sight to behold.

(More about the King and Queen on the Heritage pub site here)

I didn't take the Good Beer Guide with me, nor did I spend time making plans of which pubs to visit. Mainly because I was afraid of finding the pubs I most wanted to go to closed.  

Numerous pubs have quite understandably taken the decision to hold off on opening their doors, as we saw walking up through the North Laines, passing several of Brighton's classic boozers that aren't quite ready for us yet.

So we were winging-it, and ended up in The Pond (49 Gloucester Road, BN1 4AQ - web).

I approached the Pond with a bit of skepticism.
Gun-metal grey paint job... modern mural on the side... a baby bao kitchen?
But all was fine, and this was a pleasant lunch stop.

We did pretty well with our selection of Taiwanese street food.
Look out... Foodie Pic Alert...

Beers were all on draft, with no cask ale, but featured a couple of interesting choices and I suspect the range is wider at other times.
The Arundel Brewery 'Pondwater' seemed an appropriate choice at the Pond.

After lunch we ambled along the seafront for a while and had a pint of local Laine's 'Ripper IPA' at a beach front bar, before heading for some craft beer delights.

The Craft Beer Co (22-23 Upper North Street, BN1 3FG - web)

We were served at our table by the friendly barman, asking our viewpoint on his face-mask or visor dilemma.
Oxford United were on the TV screens, making their way to the League One play-off final.
And the beers... what a great selection of beers...

This offering from Wylam and De Molen was a contender for beer of the day:

But one thing I've always liked about Craft is the mix of craft keg lines and cask ale.  From the choice of three real ales, I followed the Wylam with a wonderful 'Parabelum' milk stout from Gun Brewery. 

We received a tip from one of the locals in Craft that Easy Tiger was just down the road, was open, and would have some decent beers on, so that's where we headed next.

Time for a bit of sightseeing en-route as I stopped to look at a window display with a dried rat - a "generous donation"...

My, what a generous donation.

A little further along Upper North Street was our destination,
Easy Tiger (57 Upper North Street, BN1 3FH - web)
To be fair, we didn't really see much of the interior of this pub - we followed the direction arrows through to the small back yard and settled on an outdoor table.  Safety first and all that, but following one-way systems through pubs is a little odd and deprives me of my usual snoop around.

Easy Tiger is owned by the same folks as The Pond - as we discovered with the identical beer menu.
Having never visited when this was painted white and still called The Hampton, I don't know whether the change is a good thing or not.  It's a pub/Indian street food tie-in and although we didn't try the food, it did look good.

It was time to visit somewhere that I had planned ahead and double-checked was open.

The Evening Star (55-56 Surrey Street, BN1 3PB - what pub).
I've usually been in the Evening Star on football visits to Brighton, so have been used to squeezing in and finding a spot to stand.  So it's strange to see it quiet, with around a dozen punters in besides us on a Monday evening.
The beer range has been reduced for re-opening, but still offered a great choice.

Decisions, decisions...

From the Evening Star we headed down to Brewdog for a burger and, in my case, the decadent choice of an 11% imperial stout from Omnipollo.

After that the final stop was The Mucky Duck (7 Manchester Street, BN2 1TF - web).

What did we drink in the Mucky Duck?  Was the place any good?  

Oh, I don't remember - I'm blaming the imperial stout.

So, the conclusion?  Plenty of places open, which was good to see.  All with reassuring measures in place to make visitors feel safe, and all with a great friendly welcome.

Obviously drinking on a Monday helps alleviate problems with availability of tables and crowds, which suits me down to the ground.

A big thank you to our friends for the invite and the driving - I didn't expect I'd be exploring any pubs outside of Oxford this soon after their re-opening, so this was a great surprise.

Cheers. 

The Admiral keeps an eye on the re-opening pubs of Brighton

No Propping Up the Bar - please remain in the vicinity of your table.

Back in the pub!
If my counting's right (and I wouldn't bet on that) pubs have been closed for 105 days.  
It's a whopping 16 weeks since I wobbled out of the The Plough in West Hanney, the last pub I visited before lock-down.

For investigative purposes - and definitely not because we were chafing at the bit, desperately eager to get to the bar - we set out on 'Super Saturday' to see what was going on along Oxford's Cowley Road.

First stop was The Library (182 Cowley Road, OX4 1UE).
A quick glace at TripAdvisor sees reviews for the Library headed "Hipster Paradise" and "Too Much Riff-Raff". 
I certainly veer into the riff-raff category rather than hipster, particularly with my uncontrolled four-month mop of hair.
But, dodgy barnet and all, we were given a warm welcome.

The 'new norm', for the time being, is being met on the way in, shown to your table, where drinks orders are taken and the contactless card machine is delivered for payment.

All a bit different to the last time I was in here, squeezing through to the bar, then taking my pint into a crowded basement where we were watching local bands.

The Library  just has the one handpump for cask ale, but it's generally a reliable local beer - on this visit a Loose Cannon 'Abingdon Bridge'.

So, where to next?

The original plan, before we were waylaid by the Library, was to visit The Star on Rectory Road.  A pub that doesn't do food and has a decent sized garden seemed a good bet.

 

More of the same here: meet and greet on the way in, slips of paper on which to provide your contact details, some arrows on the floor to show us the way through the pub, and service at the table.

We opted for a bench out in the back garden and ordered a couple of lovely pints of XT '3'.

There were plans mooted to open pub gardens back in June, whilst keeping indoor spaces closed, but we were about to experience the downfall of that idea - the British weather.

Pub garden life.  Was that a spot of rain?

We moved to a table indoors, which was quiet, with sitting in the garden definitely the appeal for many on this first day of re-opening.  Out in the garden you can kinda pretend that nothing has changed, but indoors the out of action pool tables, socially distanced seating and the perspex screens shielding the bar are a reminder that these are no longer the care-free heady days of February.

Propping Up the Bar no longer allowed.  I need a new blog title.

Then it all went a little bit wrong. 

We called into the St James Tavern and managed to get a table, but were beaten by technology.  Ordering was by scanning a QR code on the table but with the pub wi-fi working at a snails pace, the app to order was only 6% downloaded after 5 minutes. 

Was this really all worth it for a pint of Timothy Taylor Landlord?

No.

So instead we headed right to the top of Cowley Road with the view to visit Cowley's Wetherspoons, The William Morris (59a Between Towns Road, OX4 3LR). 

Wetherspoons have some amazing and lovely buildings throughout the country.
This isn't one of them.

The system was a little different here - we were able to pick the table of our choice, there was no requirement to use the App, and bar visits permitted.
But I can't say I was thrilled when I got there to be faced with the choice of Abbot Ale or Doom Bar...

As with many of the chain pubs, this is big enough for social distancing to work without much having to change.
There were a lot of tables of folks who looked like they'd really missed this.  And security having to intervene when a fella starting hurling wheelie bins across the street outside, having lost all his money in the games machine.  He could probably have done with the pub being shut a bit longer.

It's all a bit odd, but it's great to see pubs open again.  Fingers crossed that punters will be sensible, doom-mongering predictions of second waves won't come to fruition, the pubs will be able to start turning a profit, and I'll have something more enticing to pick than Abbot or Doom Bar next time round.

Support your local & take care.