Staines and Egham Pub Crawl

A bit more Surrey, in which we indulge in the homebrew at Thames Side Brewery, discover that magnificent University buildings exist beyond Oxford, and gatecrash a baby shower.

As per usual...we started in Spoons.
A Spoons with a long frontage, minimal hanging basket effort, and a man getting comfortable in the hands behind your head pose in the window.

The George (2-8 High Street, Staines, TW18 4EE)
It's a relatively modern building, constructed in the '90's to replace a market which burnt down.  Prior to that you'd have found Tesco in this location, and - much further back - an old inn called The George, from which this took the name.

Alongside the 'Spoons regular beers there was Frome 'Funky Monkey', Maxim 'Double Maxim', and a Coach House 'Blueberry Best Bitter' available when we visited.

We ordered two of the above by the app, saving ourselves from standing in a Wetherspoon's queue, two identical pints arriving shortly after.
"Which is which?" we asked.
"Dunno, I just pick them up from the end of the counter and deliver them".

Hmm..that's a downfall of ordering by the app, isn't it?
Although, to be fair, there have been occasions where two beers have been poured right in front of me at the bar and I've still managed to forget which is which.

It looks like I didn't take any pictures inside The George.  I made up for that when we arrived at the Thames Side Brewery, a short walk away.

Thames Side Brewery (1 Hale Street, Staines, TW18 4UW)
This brewery was set up by a chap called Andy Hayward in 2015, moving a couple of times before settling here.
You'll find the brewing kit down one side, a stage at the end of the room, and various rescued furniture throughout a large open space.  It had a bit of a social club feel to it, albeit without the punters early on a Saturday afternoon for us to socialise with.

Nice jukebox and stylish seating in the front corner near the door..

And a hefty choice of beers available at the bar.  There were the Thames Side regular cask offerings, plus several 'White Label' series brews.
I'm a sucker for pump clips depicting slabs of vinyl and anything that claims to be limited edition.  Hence ordered two of these: the Deep Purple orientated 'Black Night', a tasty 4.3% stout, and - long beer name alert - 'You're never too old to rock & roll if you're too young to die".

 

The latter was a hefty 6.3% old ale, of the pond water murk variety...

I don't think I'd have wanted more than a half of it.  I would have been quite happy trying the other beers on offer, but needed to pace myself if we were going to make it to the rest of the pubs on today's list.
Despite it being quiet, I really did like the Brewery - good music and lovely staff in a taproom with a lot of character.

Before moving to the current site, Thames Side Brewery used to concoct their beers in a modern building on the riverside.  That site is now run as an independent craft bar, so we figured we'd pop our heads in and have a look.

If it's good enough for Gene Simmons, it's good enough for us. 

 

Last Hop (Unit 2, Thames Edge Court, Clarence Road, Staines, TW18 4SU)
As with our previous destination, this was a wide open space without enough people in it.  There was a stage for live entertainment, and a stack of those Tank beer things to one side.  It's smaller than the Thames Side Brewery, but has the bonus of the riverside location.

There were two cask ales on offer: Windsor & Eton 'Koh-i-noor' and Titanic 'Plum Porter'.
Both familiar, so I tried to order the strong Windsor & Eton keg stuff, only to be disappointed the Belgian Diablo and Storm had both run out, despite still showing on the electronic screen.
So I ended up with a local Stardust 'Innuendo' 6.5% hazy NE IPA.  Then drank it too fast when we checked the train times and realised how long it was going to take to walk to the station.

We moved on from Staines for the next part of our day out.
A quick march down to the station, then onto the South Western train for a 5-minute hop to Egham.  I did come here many years ago for the beer festival at the Services Club, beloved by the tickers but - other than that - this town is a mystery to me.

We walked along the busy A38 towards our pub, then got distracted by the Royal Holloway University of London.   This distracted us from our mission, as we diverted into the grounds, attracted by the impressive architecture on a grand scale.

And there I was thinking we had a monopoly on University buildings back home in Oxford.

Our destination was in quieter side streets, just beyond the bounds of the University campus.
And it had an absolutely top-notch pub sign...

The Happy Man (12 Harvest Road, Englefield Green, TW20 0QS)

This dates back to Victorian times when two residential properties were converted into the pub, original custom coming from the workers building the Royal Holloway College, who would have worked up quite a thirst judging by the size and intricacy of the parts we'd seen.

The pub has mostly retained the original layout, consisting of several snug interlinked spaces, the bar itself straddling the two front rooms.

Here's the cask choice on our visit...

Beers from London, Devon, Hampshire, and wherever Laines concoct their ales (they've become quite prolific and it can't all come from that Brighton brewpub).
I picked the Bowman 'Wallops Wood', predictably misreading it and asking for 'Wally's' Wood.  A decent chestnut coloured, malty bitter, enjoyed in a cracking proper pub.

We had a half-mile walk around residential Englefield Green streets to the next Beer Guide pub on our list.

The Beehive (34 Middle Hill, Englefield Green, TW20 0JQ)
The alarm bells began to ring when we saw the 'Fully Booked' A-board.  Then, as we squeezed through the crowds under the awnings to the side of the pub, it dawned on me that everyone was much more smartly dressed than I was (not difficult) and I spotted the flower displays and a large table of presents.  Baby shower.  Bugger.

I almost gave up, but popped my head back in through the side door and asked if we were okay to grab a pint and take it out to the front tables away from the event.  One check by the staff later and we were sat under the umbrella out front with a pricey pint of Pride.

WhatPub tells us the "Cosy well kept open-plan Fuller's local has a light and airy feel."
I'll have to take their word for that, having only seen it briefly in a state of chaos.
Not really a great pint, either, so a bit of a fail all round, our visit to the Beehive.

We walked from there back into the centre of Egham, with one last destination...

The Red Lion (53 High Street, Egham, TW20 9EW)
The Red Lion was packed to the rafters inside too, but with a much more pubby crowd.
There is a reference to a Red Lion on the High Street dating back to 1641 and an even older date-stone amongst some of the red bricks.  It would have once been a coaching inn on the London-Penzance road.

It has had a fair few refurbishments inside since the coaching inn days, becoming a smart and shiny open-plan place, football on the TV screens, lots of Madri and Old Mout cider being knocked back by a crowd of all ages.

I finished the day on the Courage 'Directors', which we used to think was the bees-knees when we drank it in the Withington Ale House as students in the 90's.

And with that, we were back on the train for the trek back through Reading and homeward-bound, several new Surrey Good Beer Guide pub ticks under my belt.