Weaving around Witney

The 7th Annual Witney Beer Festival and a Couple of Pubs for good measure....

Forty-five minutes on the S1 bus took me to the West Oxfordshire town of Witney, basking in glorious Bank Holiday sunshine on May 5th.
Witney is part-Oxford commuter-belt, with a sprawling housing estate and a troublesome teenager racing around the green on a loud, souped-up motorbike.
But it's also a Cotswold town, with charming stone brick buildings, a market, craft fair, and a butter cross. 
And 'Wellworth It!' - about as 'proper' a shop as you can get.  None of the retailers in the Westgate centre have displays of coloured buckets and sweeping brushes outside.


I started my morning with a Wetherspoon breakfast in The Company of Weavers (31 Market Square, OX28 6AD).  This is housed in what used to be the Palace Theatre.   It became a gym for a while, before 'Spoons arrived in 2012.  Witney was famed for its blanket making and the name and decor of the pub reflects this, with an old loom on display and some lovely woollen lampshades.  It was very busy with people looking grumpy on this particular Saturday morning - the family at the next table to me getting very, very angry because the blueberries were missing from their porridge.

Looking past the 16th century butter cross towards Wetherspoons Company of Weavers

The main reason for coming to Witney on this occasion was the bank holiday beer festival at the St Mary's The Virgin Church.  There was already a queue, folks waiting for the doors to open, the prospect of sitting in the sunny churchyard, beer-in-hand, obviously bringing folks out early.
It's not every day that you get a beer festival in a church so it was nice to get there before it became too crowded and take in the surroundings...
They had an ambitious amount of beer to get through in one day.
70 beers on the list.... Roughly 72 pints in a barrel.... That's 5,040 pints (plus the ciders).  All served a startlingly good value price. Which probably equated to quite a few headaches in Witney on the following Sunday morning!
There was a good showcase of local breweries, including Bellingers, Church Hanbrewery, Little Ox, and Oxbrew.  A fitting start to the Oxford Beer Week.  

Fans of the higher ABV were well catered for with some weighty offerings from Tring, Battle Down and Hook Norton.  But it was the North Cotswold Brewery 'Monarch' that I couldn't resist.
A tasty 8.8% Belgian-style brown ale and a completely irresponsible choice at 2pm in the sunshine.

Before I got carried away and tried all the beers that were 6% and above, I decided to move on as I also wanted to visit a couple more spots in town.

There are two pubs which look out onto Church Green: The Fleece, which is the preserve of Good Pub Guide gastropub enthusiasts;  and The Angel,  a proper town local, which I decided to call in to.
The Angel (42 Market Square, OX28 6AL) dates back to 1707 and has some great, bulging, historic bay windows at the front.  Inside it retains a bit of an olde-worlde feel with low beamed ceilings, but there are modern trappings of several TVs showing the Premier League, fruit machines and a juke box.  The beer range comes from Marston's, my pick being the Wychwood house beer 'Angel Ale'.

The Three Horseshoes, Witney

Next, I popped into the Horseshoes (78 Corn Street, OX28 6BS), an alternative to the New Inn on the same street which keeps old-school lunchtime and evening hours and caught me out.

You can tell the Horseshoes is going to have lost some of its character by the fact that they've hacked 'The Three...' off the start of the name.  The focus has been geared towards dining here, although the small bar area by a large fireplace in the front room has a bit of country charm. 
I settled here with an Otter 'Amber Ale', almost always a reliable beer choice.

My final stop this afternoon in Witney was the marvelous Eagle Tavern (22 Corn Street, OX28 6BL).  This is oft-touted as the best pub in town, with an unspoilt traditional stone and timber interior and a friendly welcome.  There are a few different nooks and crannies in this pub, plus a beer garden to the rear.
A lovely, well-served 'Hooky Gold' brought a nice afternoon in Witney to a close.

Burton Pub Crawl

Second Time Lucky for the Oxford Beer Festival Helpers Trip...

Back in February the weather beat us and the Oxford CAMRA bus couldn't make the trip up the snowy M40.  We weren't exactly basking in glorious Spring conditions this time around, but just after midday the coach disgorged 50 beer festival helpers and associates, armed with maps, lists of pubs and eager to explore this iconic Staffordshire brewing town.

First port of call on my list was the Coopers Tavern (43 Cross Street, DE14 1EG).
This is a Heritage Listed pub, attractive both inside and out and serving a cracking choice of ales to start the day.
I so wanted to be sat on the great high bench seating in the serving room at the back of the pub, but being slow off the bus saw us well and truly beaten - best seats taken and a queue to be served.

The pubs near the station were proving popular with football fans as Bolton Wanderers arrived to play Burton Albion in a relegation six-pointer.  We declared the Last Heretic micro-pub as being far too busy and called in, a few doors up the road, to the Roebuck Inn (101 Station Street, DE14 1BT).
This was effectively the Ind Coope brewery tap for many a year and Draught Bass was launched here in 1976.  So only fit and proper, I thought, to sample the Bass here - I guess reading the blog of Retired Martin has affected me and I've being unwittingly lured to the red triangle.
The Roebuck is a single-roomed locals pub, busy with folks watching a dull 0-0 Liverpool-Stoke draw on several TVs and a good 'proper' town pub.

The next destination involved doubling-back upon ourselves and skirting the shopping area to get to The Fuggle and Nugget (81 High Street, DE14 1LD). 

The last incarnation of this terraced shop unit was a hairdressers, before it was converted to a micro-pub in 2015.
With no bar, the beer choice is on a blackboard and the friendly owners will take your order and pour the beers from the stillage in a small side room.
I opted for 'Easy', red ale from Derbyshire brewer Abstrakt Jungle, from a choice of four beers.
Kudos for one of the smartest displays of pump-clips decorating the walls that I've seen - impeccably grouped by brewery by someone who's possibly got too much time on their hands.

We called into the bar of The National Brewery Centre (Horninglow Street, DE14 1NG) - due to it being one of the few pubs on our list that served food.
Rather disconcertingly there was a wedding party in attendance who were all packing the bar on our arrival.  Now, I don't begrudge people getting married, but a wedding party in a pub is possibly worse than a gaggle of children over-energised by one-too-many Robinson's fruit shoots.  Too many smartly dressed people making me feel like I'd somehow crept in in my scruffy attire, breaching the dress-code.  
We had to stay as I was lectured that a pint of Bass was not a suitable substitute for lunch and if I didn't eat I'd make myself poorly.  Which is, of course, absolutely true.

The bar is housed in what were once the engineering, craft and maintenance workshops of the Bass Brewery.  Beers here come from the Heritage Brewing Company, a 25 barrel brewery built within the National Brewery Museum and recreating beers from the past.  I tried a 5.6% IPA called 'Masterpiece' which was fantastic.

Next up was the Alfred (51 Derby Street, DE14 2LD) for some Burton Bridge Brewery ales.

The mid-terrace pub dates back to the 1860s.  A central bar serves two separate rooms, plus there is an interesting little room behind the bar, but I'm guessing the cardboard boxes stacked on the seats back there meant the landlord didn't want us sitting there.  A tasty 'Festival Ale', a 5.5% XL mild was my chosen tipple in the Alfred.

The Old Cottage Tavern (36 Byrkley Street, DE14 2EG) was, in my humble opinion, a bit of a back-street gem.  It consisted of three rooms - a front bar busy with dogs, a cosy snug to the side and a basic wood-panelled lounge to the rear.  We settled in the latter, watching the football scores come in on the TV, where the landlady joined us for updates on the fate of Burton Albion.  They achieved a cracking 2-0 win over Bolton, but a Barnsley victory meant relegation places would be decided on the final day of the season a week later.

Four beers on the bar came from Burton Old Cottage brewery - I plumped for the 'Oak', a 4% copper ale before being drawn towards  'Dual Diamond', a recreation of a fearsome brew from the past.  The 3.6% keg Ind Coope 'Double Diamond' represented everything that CAMRA was founded to fight against.  But this is brewed to the stronger, full-bodied bottle receipe that preceded the keg version.  I'm still not sure I actually liked it, but it was good for novelty value and historical intrigue.

Two more 'micro's' to try then.  The first of these was the Weighbridge Inn (Grain Warehouse Yard, Derby Street, DE14 2JJ).

The pub is in what was once the coal yard offices and has been serving up drinks since 2015.  It doesn't fit into my definition of a micro.  Rather, it's a small bar.  They have lager drinking regulars, a spirits shelf and 'prosecco for £4.20'.  The location is full of quirky character, with two small rooms to drink in.
I had a nice pale ale brewed by Old Sawley from Long Eaton, across in Nottinghamshire.  Skipped the prosecco this time.

Next up was a visit to the Last Heretic (95 Station Street, DE14 1BT).  It was still busy, with a few football fans back from the ground proclaiming today's match to be the best of the season.  Beers and ciders are served from a small tap room, through a glass door behind the bar.

Troublesome characters heading into the Last Heretic micro

We put £1 in the charity tin for a Habanero and Scotch Bonnet pickled onion, which came with an animated, enthusiastic warning from the barman that they're hot as hell.  As half the bar heard that, I found myself the unwanted centre of attention for a brief moment as I tackled it.  Lovely.  No  embarrassment of it being too hot in front of an audience.  And all for charity.  

Micropub life in Burton-on-Trent

Just time before the end of the day for a swift couple of halves in the Devonshire Arms (86 Station Street, DE14 1BT).  It was a bit of a flying visit here, with two final beers from Burton Bridge and Morton Brewery to set me up for the trip home.  

Burton was great.  It's got more good pubs than I could get around in a day.  I want to come back and drink more Bass.

Best of luck for Burton Albion staying in the Championship.  And a big thank you to the important folk at Oxford CAMRA who arranged this trip (twice!).

Lured by the Siren

Siren Craft 5th Anniversary & a short exploration of Wokingham

What a difference a day can make...yesterday I took the opportunity to paint picnic tables outside in warm sunshine & blue skies.  Then by Saturday morning Beast II (© all the newspapers) had hit, bringing with it Arctic winds and more snow.
I'm frustrated that I didn't get any photo's which demonstrate quite how bad the weather was this day.  The best I can do is point out that there are at least 10 woolly hats in the picture below...

On Saturday 17th March, Siren Craft Brewery opened their doors in an industrial unit near the village of Finchampstead to celebrate their 5th anniversary.  So with tickets pre-booked, we jumped on the shuttle bus from Wokingham station to get there ready for opening time.  There were two temporary bars set up in the brewery, plus more beers available in the recently added Tap Room (the warmest place in the venue, where all the in-the-know folks bagged their seats on arrival).

The programme offered up a spectacular list of intriguing, experimental and often very strong beers.

Mrs PropUpTheBar declared her first choice, 'Fresh Cream 1: Coconut' (an 11% 'bourbon milkshake with toasted coconut') to be a 5* beer and she's usually the meanest beer rater ever seen on Untappd.

The Brett IPA 'Wilde Geest', the 'Salted Caramel Shattered Dream' and the 'Maiden 2017' 11.3% barley wine were all highlights - in fact there wasn't anything that we tried during the afternoon that we didn't rave about a little bit.

And among'st some great music they played Black Lace's 'Agadoo'.  

That wasn't a dance - I was just shifting from foot to foot to combat the cold....

We sampled everything we wanted to, popped a couple of bottles in the backpack, then caught the shuttle back to Wokingham, giving ourselves ample time to visit a few of the towns pubs. 

Jam Jars

Close to the railway station is The Queens Head (23 The Terrace, Wokingham, RG40 1BP). It's a picturesque old English pub and charming inside as well as out, with low beams and a log fire.  This was a Six Nations day so the pub was full of part-time rugby fans occasionally shouting "G'wan Wales" and such like at the TV. 🏉 😠
Each beer has an identically coloured jam jar sample in front of it, to help you choose.
I picked the Hogs Back 'TEA'.  Great to have it served in a lovely Hogs Back tulip glass, which quite possibly made it taste better.
Apparently the garden is very nice, but probably not when it's -2℃.  

As we walked towards the centre of town, we spotted the Broad Street Tavern (29 Broad Street, RG40 1AU), which had a Cask Marque sign and looked like it may be worth calling into as the next retreat from the cold.

The red-bricked Broad Street Tavern

This is a Wadworth house with their full range of cask ales on offer.  I opted for the '6X' which I hadn't had in a while and which was tasty and in good condition (or was I just suckered in by another beer served in the right glass?).
It's a bustling town boozer, with a long room stretching back past the bar, plenty of customers and, yep, more rugby on TV.
There was a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere in the Broad Street Tavern.

Grabbing a bite to eat from an interesting-sounding menu we opted for a Baked Cheese Board Sharing Platter.  Both agreeing that we would have happily not shared it.  

We made a final push on through the centre of town in increasingly heavy snow - perhaps I've bit a bit too blasé about the trains home running smoothly and this bout of bad weekend weather not causing any disruption?

The town centre is the site of the most hefty roadworks I've come across since Antwerp last month....

Wokingham roadworks.   It's not blurred.  The camera is on a Siren Craft Barley Wine setting....

Our final pub of the evening was the Good Beer Guide listed Crispin (45 Denmark Street, Wokingham, RG40 2AY).  This is one of the oldest inns in town, named after St Crispin, patron saint of cobblers (and that's something I do write a lot of....)

As we'd started at 1pm, I think I can be forgiven for not actually remembering much about the Crispin.  Except that I liked it and was surprised that this wasn't CAMRAs local pub of the year (the Queens Head is on a good run of winning that particular accolade). 
And it had two front doors. 
And a decent selection of ales from which I picked a Rebellion 'Relativity'. 
And that I finally succumbed and got hooked on the end of the last rugby match of the day on TV.

Wantage Beer Festival 2018

A Friday evening trip out to West Oxfordshire to visit the 8th installment of the Wantage beer festival.

This festival is held in a modern venue, The Beacon, which puts on activities such as 'body control pilates' and 'Egyptian dance classes', so it's probably a bit of a different crowd this weekend who are attracted by 28 real ales.

On a small scale, the festival always has a friendly and welcoming atmosphere.

And it's always a nice touch being served by a man in a fez....

Fez

With the smaller CAMRA festivals I do approach with a scepticism that there will be one too many 4% golden ales on the list.  But here, it's a relatively adventurous selection, taking in US IPAs, a coffee pale ale, a forest fruit porter and a port mild.  All the kinda stuff I like.
As last year, White Horse CAMRA have focused on a number of local beers, but many of these are things that I don't often find in central Oxford pubs: Bellingers, OxBrew, Church Hanbrewery. But someone has also been gathering ales from Northumberland thus ensuring no-one should be grumbling that they've "had 'em all before".

A man with a guitar and a less than captivated audience

With the main room where the bar is being full, we settled in the cafe area, taking advantage of the pasties on sale, while working our way through the most interesting beers on offer.  The Flash House 'Forest Fruit Porter' was very tasty and reminiscent of the much lauded Titanic Plum Porter.  But I reckon it's Wild Weather's 'End of the Level Boss', a double IPA, that is the winner for me this evening - fearsomely easy to drink for its hefty 9.2% strength.

Drinking up, we decided to head 5 minutes down the road to the Royal Oak (Newbury Street, OX12 8DF).

The Royal Oak, Wantage

This is a classic corner pub which has won a multitude of awards and clocked up 25 years of inclusions in the Good Beer Guide.
The long-standing owners have the privilege of having two West Berkshire Brewery beers named after them - 'Dr Hexter's Healer' and 'Dr Hexter's Wedding Ale'.  Both were originally brewed specially for the pub and have since become widely available. 
Heading through the main door there is a choice of two rooms.  To the left is a public bar with table football and darts whilst to the right is the busier and more comfortable Saloon, which we gravitated towards.  There are no distracting TVs and games machines here, just a big display of pump clips and hop bines attached to the iron-work above the bar.  The  walls are adorned with awards and pictures of maritime 'Royal Oak' namesakes.

Ales are chalked up on a blackboard at the side of the bar and are fetched from the cellar, straight from the cask.   I opt for a tasty pale from Totally Brewed, then can't resist the 10% 'Belgian Trippel' by Fisher's from High Wycombe.  Which acts as a lovely nightcap before catching the bus home.

London Drinker Beer Festival

The End of an Era

After 34 years, 2018 sadly sees the last ever London Drinker Beer & Cider festival.
For many a year this was my local beer fest and I think I'm right in saying I haven't missed one in the past 18 years.  The venue, the Camden Centre, is closing in the summer and it's understandably nigh-on impossible to find an affordable alternative in the Camden area. 

Yep, I used to pop in here for a crafty couple of halves on a lunch-break and try to visit all three days of the festival when I lived in London.  Over the years I've drank in here with my dad, friends, Italian brewers, a less knowledgable Italian work colleague who claimed everything was being served at the wrong temperature, and a slightly unhinged Chelsea fan who was trying to compete with us to see who could drink the most stupidly strong bottled beers.

Third of a pint measures dude...a big half in the early
afternoon will have me getting on the wrong train home
.....yeah, I did.

So, visiting on Wednesday, I'm summarising the pros and cons of the London Drinker ...

⊕ Since focussing solely on local breweries in the past few years, it's a brilliant showcase of London beers.
⊕ Great variety: saison, imperial mild, milk stout, most tastes are catered for. 
⊕ 'Craft' beers aren't billed as the evil enemy & there's some cracking stuff on the keg bar.
⊕ I've always enjoyed the food here - cooked by volunteers, rather than pro-caterers, and great value, filling plates of food.

⊖ It's busy! A tight squeeze to get around.  
⊖ It's a long trek to the balcony seats and theatre seating sucks at beer festivals.
⊖ Plenty of strong beers, but no third of a pint measures?

The 12% Moncada vanilla custard imperial stout was supposed to come in a ⅓ pint serving.  Except I was given a half pint of this.  And a generous half pint at that.  This hefty portion was probably responsible for scuppering my plans to visit a few of the local Kings Cross pubs afterwards. 

Bit of a toss-up for my favourite beer here, but perhaps the more sensible strength vanilla stout, 'Gravedigger' from Gorgeous Brewery. 
Or the German style black lager, 'Druid' from  the Czech expats at Bohem Brewery.
Hell, I liked them all.
It's just a shame we won't be able to do it all again next year.

Trouble-makers.

....they're actually a posse from the Red Hat Society, which I'd not heard
of before Googling it today.  Much cooler than my mums WI who go
to coffee mornings and, to the best of my knowledge, have never set
foot in a beer festival.

The Ampleforth

It turned out (this time anyway) that the weather warnings came to fruition.  The snow fell on Oxfordshire and it led to the postponement of the eagerly anticipated Oxford Beer Festival helpers trip to Burton.

So, with wintry weather and at a bit of a loose end, we headed into East Oxford to visit a newly re-opened pub.

The Ampleforth, Oxford,one half open, one half closed & the last few bits of snow remaining from the 'Beast from the East'

The Ampleforth (53 Collinwood Road, OX3 8HH)
The pub closed in the first half of 2015 after a troubled few years and looked to be lost for good.  But a valiant effort by local residents saw it listed as an asset of community value and, after much hard work, reopen at the end of 2017.  There's a link to the Oxford Mail story of the fight to save the pub here. 
I wonder why they sent their crime reporter to cover this story?

Black Sheep Bitter in a cool glass

The Ampleforth Arms opened in 1939 in the middle of what was then the new Risinghurst estate.  All stories about it like to recount that C.S.Lewis lived nearby and frequented the pub, so I shall mention it too.
As with many estate pubs, this was a huge building.  Just half the pub has been reopened, with the strange sight of the left hand part of the building still boarded up.  That closed half will be converted to residential use, but it still leaves plenty of space with two separate areas in the pub. 
There were two real ales on the bar: Black Sheep Best Bitter and Shotover Prospect, both in fine condition.  A decent number of folks filled the bar on a Saturday afternoon and I really hope that this continues and the pub fares well.

It's just a short walk, crossing the bypass road and delving into the Headinton Quarry area to get to 
The Masons Arms (2 Quarry School Place, OX3 8LH). 
This has been winner of Oxford CAMRAs city pub of the year several times, and it's the home of the Headington Beer Festival in September.  There's a convivial atmosphere on a Saturday afternoon.  The TVs show the latest football scores from the matches that survived the weather.  There's a bit of darts being played.  And the beers here are of a fine quality with many award-winning brews being served.

A reliable selection of ales on offer at the Masons Arms, although the Old Bog beers are now a rarity, sadly.

We found our way down to Cowley Road, as the snow started to fall again.
The City Arms (288 Cowley Road, OX4 1UR) was conveniently located to take shelter in.
I've always had a soft spot for this very studenty, sporty pub and on occasion have had some great beer and food in here.  This evening Liverpool are beating Newcastle on screens in every part of the place - it's tough luck if you don't like the football here.
The City Arms is busy although no-one's braved the cold to sit on the colourful picnic benches outside.

There's not one, but two rugby-themed beers on cask (bah!) so I move on to the 'craft' tap list and pick a Brewdog 'Dogma Scotch Ale'.

And it's Brewdog we're heading to next. It's a 10 minute walk to get to Brewdog Oxford (119 Cowley Road, OX4 1HU). 
This is a company that very much divides opinion.  They're not so good if you insist on your ale being real and coming from the cask. But I'd argue that they're one of the key places that have won over an audience who would otherwise have settled for mass-produced crap lager. This weekend there is a 'Michigan Mash Up' with beers available from Dark Horse, Jolly Pumpkin and Lattitude 42.  And an interloper in the form of Central Waters Brewing Co who hail from Wisconsin.  
Geography mash-up.
The Dark Horse 'Double Crooked Tree IPA', with an ABV north of 12% is the beer of the evening for me.  

I wonder if their dominant march to open new bars will lead to a saturation point - Reading is next in line in our neck of the woods.  Will we reach the stage where we visit a town and take it for granted that they've got a Brewdog bar just down the road from the Wetherspoons? 

Pubs of Cricklade

I'd have passed through Cricklade on my Thames Path walk some time ago if I was a bit better at being active and lacing up my hiking boots.  As it is, that's kinda stalled at New Bridge for the time being and I find myself in Cricklade by way of Stagecoach buses on a chilly winter Saturday.

What's brought us here is a beer festival at the Red Lion (74 High Street, Cricklade, SN6 6DD) a much respected pub and home of the Hop Kettle brewery.

The Red Lion at Cricklade - sunshine, blue sky, but sub-zero temperatures

The superb festival beer list was what tempted me to make the journey into Wiltshire.

There are a few things on a beer list which turn visiting a festival from being a vague idea to absolutely essential for me...  "brand new brewery", "smoked chilli porter" and "the only cask in existence" being three of them.
The brand new brewery on this occasion was Ashton, located just 3½ miles from Cricklade.  They've only been brewing for a matter of weeks and have so far posted just three times on their Facebook page - although that's more posts than I've managed in three years.  Their 4.5% golden ale was a tasty, enjoyable brew.
Elusive Brewery supplied the chilli porter.  Clocking in at 6% and named 'Aztec Challenge', this is a collaboration with London-based Hop Burns and Black.   I scored this beer a perfect 5 out of 5.  Yup, I liked it.
The "only cask in existence" was provided by Tiley's, a brewery based at the Salutation pub in Ham, Gloucestershire.  This lovely looking pub also seems to be somewhere I should be visiting....the list gets longer.  The beer was an Extra ESB, with a strength of 6.3% and also scoring pretty high on my ratings.
We also supped some of Hop Kettle's own beers and a tasty keg ale from cuckoo brewer Velvet Owl as well as having a couple of fine pizzas.
I can't comment too much on the Red Lion itself as we sat ourselves in the heated marquee next to the brewery out back, where the festival beers were being dispensed from.  Just briefly passing through the pub it seemed like a comfortable, characterful place with a roaring fire in the hearth on this cold day.  

With a decent number of ticks on the beer list and all our tokens spent, we moved on to check out the other two pubs in the town, both handily located along the High Street.First up we called into Arkells pub, The Old Bear (101 High Street, Cricklade, SN6 6AA).  This was once a coaching inn although apparently the front was rebuilt in the 1930s after a fire.  It's a good old fashioned pub design - bar to the left, lounge to the right.  The bar is busy today with folks hooked on the screen showing Six Nations rugby. The Six Nations mean a proliferation of oval-ball themed beers appearing everywhere....'Dirty Rucker', 'Filthy Tackle', 'Crafty Flanker', and the like.  In comparison other sports related beer names are few and far between, aren't they?I shun the sports and settle in the quiet lounge bar although I've ended up with a rugby-themed Arkells beer, 'Big Hit'.

Completing the trio of pubs, we visited the White Hart Hotel (High Street, Cricklade, SN6 6AA). 
More Arkells here.  And more rugby.  The White Hart is another old coaching inn that traces its history back to the 17th century, although, like the Old Bear, this was rebuilt in 1890 as it transformed into a more prestigious hotel.  There's more of an emphasis on food here, with a number of the tables set up with cutlery.  Just two cask beers available on the bar, both from Arkells - 3B and a Wiltshire Gold, but both well-kept and tasty.

Inside the White Hart Hotel

Cricklade church

We caught an afternoon bus back to Swindon where we grabbed a bit to eat in 'Spoons then finished the evening with Hop Back beers in the wonderful Glue Pot.
The news is full of stories of the 'Beast from the East', bringing Arctic temperatures and snow to the country for the week ahead.  We seem to get lots of weather warnings these days, so I decide it'll never happen....