The Coventry Beer & Pubs Day Out

I headed to Coventry on the 12th August, a day when the city was sweltering in 33° heat and the news was full of excitement about how many people would damage their eyesight looking directly at that evening's partial eclipse of the sun.

We were in Coventry for Life After Football's summer holiday curated West Midlands pub crawl (ably assisted by Retirement Martin's itinerary advisory service).
There would be Bass.  And there would be the rogue diversions from the original plan.

After a delayed arrival on Cross Country (no, really...) I headed to the Golden Cross just before their 11:30 opening time.  Stafford Paul was banging on the door waiting patiently outside, having already made a first pub visit of the day prior to this.  The more professional bloggers than me were missing train connections in Derby or knocking back John Smiths Smooth in the Craft Union boozer.

The Golden Cross (8 Hay Lane, Coventry, CV1 5RF)
The Golden Cross certainly looks the part.  This classic timber-framed building with overhanging upper floors was constructed in 1583 and was officially documented as a pub in 1661.
Paul was pointing out the stained glass windows advertising NBC.  As they ceased brewing in 1974, having merged with Phipps 12 years prior to that, this is some pretty old glass.

We were first through the door, with a fair number of early customers following us within the next ten minutes, a healthy crowd of punters mid-week pre-noon.
Ales on offer were Ossett 'Silver King; Bath 'Gem', Titanic 'Plum Porter' plus a local golden ale from Warwickshire.

Deciding to drink local beer while I had the opportunity, I opted for the 'Lady Godiva', embracing Coventry's most famous legend.
We were soon joined by Life After Football, kitted out for the sunny weather with a National Lottery beanie (possibly a diplomatic blue hat option without the risk of antagonising the locals with Birmingham City headwear).
The Golden Cross made for a good start to the day, clinking our glasses together in a toast under the wooden beams.

Moving on, we took a moment to be tourists walking around the ruins of the old cathedral before making our way to the next pub of the day.
Here's a (very messy, arrow-heavy) map of the route ahead...

Sadly the Town Wall Tavern, which was on the original plan, had recently closed - hopefully to be resurrected in the not too distant future.
Stop number two (or No.1 or No.3 for some) was this superb red brick building at the top of Hill Street...

The Gatehouse Tavern (44-46 Hill Street, Coventry, CV1 4AN)
I do have a soft spot for the Gateway Tavern - a pub rebuilt by landlord Martin McKeown from the ruins of the gatehouse to what was once Leigh mills.
It debuted in the Good Beer Guide in 1996 and has been there ever since.
The single room consists a high beamed ceiling and stained glass windows with Six Nation rugby crests.  Proper pub seating; ski jumping pictures; a bit of breweriana on the ledges; and a cracking beer range are all features of this classic ale house.

Cask takes centre-stage, with local offerings from Twisted Tree and Church End, a North Cotswolds mild, Timothy Taylor 'Landlord', M&B 'Brew XI' and Bass.
🔺Bass please.
Along with a £10.50 plate of pub grub from a very trad menu which included faggots, pie of the day, sausage batches, and chips smothered in steak and gravy.
As the food took a fair while I popped back to the bar for the Brew XI which was on decent form. 

 

Plans were hatched to create a breakaway Brew XI faction from the Bass aficionados.

Retired Martin and Sir Quinno were already settled on a bench with pints in front of them in the Gatehouse when we arrived.  Sheffield Hatter followed a short while later, slightly out of breath having refused to let a delayed train deny him visits to the Golden Cross and Castle Grounds pubs.
Our half dozen Coventry pub researchers were now all present and correct..

It wasn't far to the medieval buildings of Spon Street, although everywhere felt far in the wicked afternoon heat.

Old Windmill (22-23 Spon Street, Coventry, CV1 3BA)
This is another great-looking ancient inn with walls that aren't quite straight, flagstone floors and wooden beams.
Entrance is via a corridor with a couple of characterful snug rooms leading off on each side, the bar counter towards the back of the pub.

Cask ales included beers from Nottingham Brewery, Thornbridge, Byatt's, Silhill and another Bass appearance, plus a whole board listing Lilleys cider varieties.

I picked the local Byatt's 'Hoplab Bitter V1.1' because I'm a sucker for anything with a version number in the name and can scoff with superiority when folks Untappd the wrong one.
The brewery plan to keep the same malt base but change the hops in each version:  Progress, East Kent Goldings and Fuggles in this one - a crisp, fruity brown bitter.
Although reports were that the Bass was on good form here, so I'm not sure I picked right.

Departing the Windmill, the striking frontage of the Fairfax Club caught our eye.  LAF, Martin and Will formed an advance party: myself and Quinno loitered outside to see if they'd be turfed out unceremoniously as non-members.
Just as we decided they weren't coming out (presumably due to being served rather than having befallen some terrible fate) a chap parked in his red Merc wound down his window and told us the club was open to all and worth a visit.

The Fairfax Club (182 Spon St, Coventry CV1 3BB)
I can find little information about this club, a Facebook page being under maintenance; one review on Pubs Galore and that was written by Will after our visit.
I did find this from Urbanary - Discover Your City...

There was little concern about exclusivity on a Wednesday afternoon, as five of us were served with a warm welcome and not a soul gave a second glance to our presence.
I'd be intrigued to see the criteria for selecting 'curated creative clientele'.

They did have cask ale available, one of two hand pumps serving a Greene King 'Abbot' for £4.30 a pint - all drinks lines handily adorned with post-it note prices.

No complaints about the Abbot - it may not be my favourite beer but it was in good condition.
Here are some of the curated clientele...

This was a great little additional stop - the kind of rogue venue that we hope - nay, demand - that Life After Football find.

I know long blog posts are all the rage these days, but I've realised waffling on about all the pubs we visited would make this a really long one.

So...more Bass, more grammatical errors, more Cov pubs & more reminding everyone that it was 33° and rising in the next post.

You Seem Pretty Sad for a Boy who's Almost Completed Berkshire

I was pretty sad, as I reached the final three pubs of the Berkshire chapter of the Good Beer Guide for 2026.
Mainly, because I was always going to one short, The Swan at East Ilsley being closed since March of this year.
Perhaps also because I had to tackle the suburbs of Wokingham.

Catching a Waterloo-bound train from Reading, I hopped off after a couple of stops at Winnersh.  My second time here - pub ticking takes you to some exciting locations.

Meal deal in the bag from the superstore, I caught the 128 bus to whisk me a few miles up the road to Hurst.  Situated between Twyford and Wokingham, this spread-out sleepy village is home to just over 2,000 folks.
In the past I've been to the outlying St Nicolas Hurst to drink Wadworth 6X in the Wheelwright's Arms.  Followed a couple of years later with a trip a bit further up the A321 to the Jolly Farmer, which I thought would mark the end of my visits to this neck of the woods.  And now the Castle Inn finds itself in the Beer Guide and I ended up in Hurst two days on the trot.

I strolled into the pub through the open door and asked for a pint of 'Dark Star' only for the young chap cleaning a keg line to inform me that they weren't actually open.
Seriously?  The door's open, the lights are on, you're standing behind the bar...I could've been gone in 5-minutes if he'd only been prepared to sell me a quick half.
Being as they have an active Facebook page, their own website, and their hours on Google...all of which said 'open', I was pretty miffed.  

After that disappointment, how about a stroll up to The Green Man which CAMRA declared would be open.  Nope, well and truly closed and out of business.  No doubt it'll be resurrected, serve marvellous beer and I'll be back here in 2028.

The next 128 bus heading towards Wokingham arrived at just the right time and I cut my losses in Hurst and jumped aboard. 
First stop - a revisit to the local award winner, which I guessed rightly would serve we a cracking belated first pint of the day.

The Crispin (45 Denmark Street, Wokingham, RG40 2AY)
The Crispin looks the part as one of the oldest inns in town, the historic buildings originally being 15th century cottages.  By 1830 the central cottage was occupied by shoemaker James Green who diversified into selling beer, hence it later being named after the patron saint of cobblers.

There were four cask options to pick from: Rebellion 'Overthrow', Hogs Back 'T.E.A', Delphic 'Knee High to a Grasshopper' and Bluntrock 'Ambassador'.
I picked the only non-local - the Bluntrock beer coming all the way from Cornwall, a best bitter inspired by the Burton brewing tradition.

It really hit the spot.  A proper brown bitter served in great condition.
I sat in the corner of one of the two main rooms that make up the Crispin, next to the fireplace underneath ancient beams.

Music came from TVs tuned into Now Music Summer Anthems: 2,4,6,8 Motorway, Summer of '69, Go Your Own Way... with regular adverts for Butlins, Aldi and a whole host of life insurance providers.  They know their audience.

Moving on, I set out to look for the GBG tick.

When Wokingham last exercised its right to put an out-of-town pub in the Beer Guide (the Crooked Billet, 2021) I passed The White Horse on the walk to get there - if only I'd have popped in for a quick half back then.
Since making an appearance in this year's Guide, the White Horse has been sucker-punched by roadworks.  Easthampstead Road is closed beyond the railway crossing from April '26 until January '27 ("if you're lucky" cry the residents on Oxford's Botley Road).  I foolishly figured there would be a pedestrian way to bypass this...but no. 

On foot I followed diversion signs FOREVER under blazing sunshine, eventually hitting new distributor roads through fledgling housing estates.  Wokingham is rapidly expanding with 10,000 new homes planned which - on my first grumpy impressions - looked horrible.

The White Horse (Easthampstead Road, Wokingham Without, RG40 3AF)
The 2-mile diversion for residents of south Wokingham to make what would have been a 5-10 minute stroll to the White Horse has had such an impact on business that the tenants of 10-years have decided to call it quits.  Signs around the bar stated how difficult a decision this had been, thanking the loyal patrons.
Judging by the glasses hung over beer taps and depleted stock, I guess I visited just before the pub shut down (it was already marked as closed on the CAMRA website).
There was a Tim Taylor 'Landlord' pump, but this was declared as finished, leaving just three active keg lines to pick from.  A reluctant half of Thatchers 'Gold' for me.

The pub has one rectangular room divided by pillars, a stage area in one window bay, and outdoor seating front and back.  Belinda Carlisle played in the background, a half dozen locals stood around the bar, a tiny dog raced around like it was on the canine equivalent of catnip.

A miserable pub visit through no fault of their own.

Oh well...I guess when those big new estates get built there will potentially be a massive new customer base when the White Horse can no longer be called an out-of-towner. 

45-minutes slog along the same dull pathways.
Back in the town centre, hot and sweaty and hoping for a decent ale.
Let's try The Rose...

The Rose Inn (30 Market Place, Wokingham, RG40 1AP)
The original Rose Inn was located on the northern side of the market place, prior to the landlord relocating to two 15th century houses on the current site, due to them offering better stabling.  In the not so distant past it was a Café Rouge, returning to life as a pub in 2018.
A fairly smart one with bookshelves, armchairs, and a rear section which is 100% restaurant.  Beers were from Hertfordshire brewery McMullens, which I don't come across very often.
The IPA for me, £5.70 for a pint of the 4.8% mild, malty trad brew.

The Rose was a big place whose average customers probably don't come out at 3pm on a weekday afternoon.  There were a few folks sat by the bar and some in the sunshine in the back garden.  But I had the wooden beams and panelling to myself, just content to be sat down with an ale in front of me after much more treading the pavements than I'd anticipated.

IPA finished, I wanted to visit somewhere else that was new to me in Wokingham, so decided to head up the Reading Road to Emmbrook.  Another Wokingham walk to an unheralded pub - I really am a sucker for punishment.

The pub sign has seen better days... 

But the pub itself was open and inviting, a number of young folk in polo shirts advertising local contractors sat under the significant awnings covering the front garden.

The Rifle Volunteer (141 Reading Rd, Wokingham RG41 1HD)
It dates back to the 19th century but has been much modernised within, creating an open-plan layout with TV screens initially used to play Heart FM, then switched to cricket during my visit.
Here's the beer choice... 

I paid £7.20 for a pint of Vale 'Brill Gold' and spicy Cheeze-Its.  Either the beer or the snacks were ambitiously priced for a local boozer a mile out of town.
I needed those cheesy snacks to disguise the taste of a dubious Brill Gold - a thin head dissolving to form little islands on top of the beer.  Not enjoyable, but I wasn't convinced it'd be exchanged enthusiastically.

Next evening - a bit begrudgingly - I returned to the Castle at Hurst.

The Castle Inn (Church Hill, Hurst, RG10 0SJ)
Situated at the southern edge of the village, this ancient pub is owned by the splendid-looking church on the other side of the road.
I found the place in full swing, every table outside in the sunshine occupied by locals enjoying happy hour drinks.
Less uptake for the indoor seating.

Cask options were 'London Pride', 'Dark Star' or Rebellion 'Roasted Nuts'.  My least favourite of the local Rebellion beers, so I stuck with Dark Star.
Served in good condition.  Half of it sipped outside propped on a barrel with a view of the adjacent bowling green, the rest finished sat in the corner of a good trad country bar.

After visiting the Castle, I found my way to my final Berkshire Good Beer Guide '26 tick, the Duke of Edinburgh at Winkfield...

Primarily a dining pub, with the bar to the left of the entrance the only bit without knives and forks on the tables and waiting staff ready to pounce on you.
I grabbed an Arkells '3B' ('Pile Driver IPA' the alternative Arkells brew) raising a quiet toast to Berkshire and it's beer guide pubs done for another year.

I appreciate that Berkshire is one of the less challenging counties to complete when it comes to GBG ticking but I'm an amateur at this game and am taking some satisfaction from this achievement.
How am I doing with Buckingham?  No comment.

Newbury - In Dog Beers...I've Still Had Too Many

Having barely visited Berkshire in the past year, I found myself making a flurry of trips to the neighbouring county to tick off the 2026 Beer Guide pubs I hadn't previously visited.
Even though the new edition will land on the doorstep soon, inevitably finding a gastro in a West Berks village with no public transport and an obscure cricket club bar as new entries.

My current goal was to visit the Delphic Brewery Tap in Newbury.
Delphic have upscaled a bit since I last visited the town, at which point they brewed beers in a garage in Thatcham and the Wheatsheaf was your best bet to sample their wares.

The relatively new taproom opens 4 days a week, confusingly at a different time each day.  Hence I arrived a bit too early, glanced at what else was nearby and ended up in the Dolphin.

The Dolphin (113 Bartholomew St, Newbury RG14 5DT)
At first glance, this looks like a proper traditional town pub, but it had a revamp around 2018 to turn it into a "boutique pub hotel".  Their website also promises it is "fun filled".  Uh-oh.
You probably need to visit on a weekend evening for optimum fun, unless the dolphin in the fireplace counts...

 

The pub itself is a vast open-plan place, with a conservatory and pleasant courtyard beer garden to the rear.  The route to the upstairs WCs rivals the longest of long distance toilet treks within the Wetherspoon estate, highlighting just how far back from the street the Dolphin stretches.
Cask options on the bar were two familiar brews from Yorkshire.

I don't see 'Lightfoot' in these parts very often, so picked this, a 4.1% blonde ale that was promoted from summer seasonal special to permanent beer.  It was quite acceptable although probably would have been better had anyone else in the Dolphin looked remotely interested in cask ale.
I took this to the front room which they've named the Batholomew Bar.  In an open-plan layout, why does this bit need it's own name?  At least it's reasonably pub-like with some proper seating.

Razorlight, The Hunna, The Wombats, and Blossoms provided a soundtrack that looks like my line-up from hell at a family-friendly music festival.
I declared it was time to drink up and move on when Catfish and the Bottlemen came on, strolling back to the old auto parts shop that now houses the brewery tap room.

Delphic Brewery Tap (Mayors Ln, Newbury RG14 5DR)
Delphic Brewery started out in 2017 as a home brew project, then properly established themselves two-years later with an upgrade in equipment and capacity.  The icing on the cake is the town centre tap room which opened in 2024.
No surprises within - it's a little bit cavernous and industrial, the brewing vessels lit up by coloured lights and set behind the bar and a ledge which divides the room.

From three hand pumps, two cask ales were being served.

The 'World's End' pale for me - brewed in the first week of lock-down 2020 and now a permanent fixture - and a 'Cherry Bakes Well' white stout (?) from the keg lines.
Both super beers.
I took these to the sofa in the corner which I sank far too far into, the rest of the furniture made up of a mix & match of regular pub surplus, plus one particularly intriguing tabletop...

Delphic provide this month's shiny brewing equipment picture...

And the fact that I managed to photograph WC artwork from two of the three toilet cubicles suggests that dehydration wasn't setting in...

 

The next venue on my itinerary has been awarded the accolade of West Berks CAMRA Pub of the Year 2026, so is a dead cert for Beer Guides of the future.

Weirside (Merlion House, W Mills, Newbury RG14 5HP)
This small and comfortable bar is run by a chap who was previously landlord of Newbury's Clock Tower pub in the early 2000s.
It has been set up in a unit which previously housed a Mr Moo Juice shop.  Things are looking up for beer drinkers in Newbury, but not so rosy for those wanting moo juice.

On the bar were four cask ales, all priced at £5.50: 'Old Hooky' from Oxford, Electric Bear stout from Bath, and two Arbor Ales brews from Bristol,
The Arbor 'My Little Sabrony' for me - very good.

The keg, for £1 more a pint, was a little less inspiring, the inclusion of Hawkstone lager stretching the definition of 'craft'.
The outdoor weir-side seating is minimal - no chance for me of a seat on the tiny outdoor terrace overlooking the water at the back of the pub.  Inside there are two rooms with the last free table being in the larger of these at the front.  It was doing a good trade and was certainly proving a popular place to be early on a Friday evening.

Backtracking on myself, I'd spotted somewhere en-route that looked rather interesting...

Parched (16 Bartholomew St, Newbury RG14 5LL)
Parched opened in October 2025 in premises which were previously a Japanese restaurant.
It's a typical smart modern bar which has already built up a large collection of pump clips on a beam above the bar suggesting an ever-changing range.
Current offerings included lager, pales, hefty IPAs, porters and a sour, from craft brewers you've (mostly) heard of.

Hmmm...I thought sensibility was going to go out the window with a 6.8% Azvex IPA with the tempting name 'Lethal Hop Dose'.
But actually, sensibility REALLY went out the window with the Tempest/Sudden Death collab, 'Doom Scrolling', an 11% imperial stout.  It was gorgeous though, and worth every stumble on the walk down the road afterwards.

Parched is a superb addition to Newbury's drinking scene - in fact, have Delphic, Weirside and Parched turned Newbury into a beer hotspot?
Looking back, I wish I'd returned to a couple of other pubs in the town, but - y'know - 11% stout...  It seemed wise to head to the train station and at least get one step closer to home.

Breaking my journey at Reading, I strolled up Station Road for my bi-annual check that the Bugle hasn't reopened as the best beer bar in town.
Nope.

Then trekked around onto Greyfriars Road to call in to a pub that's had a name change.

The Railway Tavern (31 Greyfriars Road, Reading, RG1 1PA)
I've passed this hundreds of times, yet never set foot inside when it was called The Gateway.  I've only known it as an Irish bar, but as of the end of 2025 it's had a refurb and rebranded to the original name.
I guess back in the 19th century, when it first opened, this was the closest pub to the station.  The name seems a bit odder now, being as you pass two other pubs and the railway club before reaching this mock Tudor corner free house.
Adding to the interest: relatives of Kate Winslet ran the pub in Victorian times; and in 1972 a group of University students set up the Reading Gay Alliance here.

It's had a smart makeover, but still offers a pool table in the back and provides a friendly welcome. 

Unfortunately, my Timothy Taylor 'Landlord' was very ropey.
I did much better in the Three Guineas at the Station.

But inevitably found I had 3½ minutes to polish off a very pricey half pint before my train departed.
Next up: Wokingham