S4 Pub Tour

North Oxfordshire Pubs by Bus

The S4 is the Stagecoach bus that runs between Oxford and Banbury, serving a number of small towns and villages en-route.  £8.20 (or £14.50 for two adults) buys you an Oxfordshire Day Rider ticket, which I realised offered a fine opportunity for some hop-on hop-off pub explorations.
So on a sunny Saturday in June, first stop - 30 minutes ride from central Oxford - Tackley.

Looking picture-postcard perfect in the sunshine - the Gardiner Arms, Tackley

The Gardiner Arms (93 Medcroft Road, Tackley, OX5 3AH - web)
This weekend offered the added bonus of the 2nd annual Tackley beer festival taking place at the Gardiner Arms.
The staff were telling us that the Friday night had been a roaring success, with more beer being sold that evening than the whole festival weekend last year.  And this is great to hear, as it's obvious that a lot of effort has gone into putting on a great range of beers and gins alongside some good music at this event.
Beers were served in the function room across the car park from the pub, with a fine selection including 2018 Beer of Britain Siren Craft 'Broken Dream', local offerings from Animal and Church Hanbrewery and plenty more great ales.
The pub itself is a friendly and welcoming traditional village inn, well worth a visit at any time. Little Ox brew 'Tackley Bitter' and 'Tackley Gold' especially for the Gardiner's.

Early doors at the Tackley Beer Festival

We jumped back on the bus at 13:50 and travelled a few miles northwards to the small town of Deddington.
Here there was a choice of three pubs: The Deddington Arms which graced last years Good Beer Guide; The Unicorn, overlooking the market place; and the Hook Norton-owned Crown and Tuns, also known as the Pie Pub.
(A fourth, The Red Lion, was in the midst of a refurbishment on this visit).
For reasons unknown I had an old scribbled note pointing to the Unicorn on my map, so this is where we ended up.
Seriously, I can't believe there was a pub known as 'The Pie Pub' and I went somewhere else!

Deddington

The Unicorn Inn (Market Place, Deddington, OX15 0SE - web)
As we'd decided we only had time for one pub in Deddington I'm none the wiser if we picked the best or worst of the lot.
The Unicorn is an old coaching inn dating back to the 17th century.  
With a stone unicorn sitting on a flat roof on the pubs frontage - probably not an original 17th century feature.
And does being called the Unicorn really excuse the toilets being labelled 'Fairy's' and 'Trolls'?
 

The interior of the pub has been recently refurbished - all a bit neat and tidy, with modern pub furniture that I felt detracted a bit from the old inn.  Beers came from Charles Wells, including their guest 'Wandering Brewer' creation 'Copycat Pale Ale', which was a fine, refreshing ale.
Whilst supping our beers in the pleasant back garden, we consulted the map and opted to make the most of the fine weather and walk to our next destination, Adderbury.
So we headed across the fields, which went a little bit like this...

🕒15.10 - Marvel at the first real summery day that we've had in June.
                 "Lovely, isn't it?", "Bout time we had a bit of summer" etc etc.
🕝15.13 - Complain that it's too hot.
🕝15.30 - Negotiate safe passage past herd of cows diligently guarding their field.

🕓16.00 - Reach charming and peaceful village of Adderbury, where a pint of Hooky awaits.

The Bell Inn (High Street, Adderbury, OX17 3LS  - web)

The Bell is a marvelous village inn with a number of different rooms and a quiet garden to the rear.  The bar had an impressive line-up of six pump clips all dispensing Hook Norton beers - their full range plus specials, I do believe.
I picked the Mild, for rarity value, as I don't think you come across this on cask very often.

The pub is the base of several Morris dancing groups, with murals of these in the back room.

Heading just a few minutes eastwards along the High Street we reached the large village green with a choice of two pubs on different sides of it.  The Greene King Red Lion looked the busier of the two, but I wanted to try the 2019 Good Beer Guide entry, the Coach & Horses.

The Coach & Horses, Adderbury

The Coach & Horses (The Green, Adderbury, OX17 3ND - web)
This pub has a great location facing the green, with a run of picnic tables lining the front of it.
The first thing that strikes me is the blackboards advertising some frankly amazingly priced food.  And look on the bar - yep, roast dinner on a Wednesday for £4...

As the pump clips in the picture may give away, this is a Wadworth house.  Whilst they're okay, none of the above beers are what I'd call my favourites.  And how can an IPA possibly be just 3.6% ABV?
We visited at a quiet time - but I'd be intrigued to see how busy it gets when they're serving food and just how good a £4 roast can be!

At this point we changed direction to head back towards Oxford.  On the route back we hopped off the bus as we reached Steeple Aston.

The Red Lion (South Side, Steeple Aston, OX25 4RY - web)
This is another charming Hook Norton village pub at the northern end of the village.
The oldest part of the building dates back 250 years, whilst it's capacity has been increased with a modern conservatory extension to the rear.
The traditional bar room has a stone chimney and wood burner in the one corner, with casual seating and no TV's or music or modern distractions.

There's a more stream-lined range of Hook Norton beers here than we'd seen in the Bell - 'Hooky' or 'Hooky Gold', but who needs more when the Hooky was tasting as good as was on this visit.

From Steeple Aston we made out way back southwards, alighting in Kidlington.
Here there's a run of three (unexciting) pubs: The Black Horse, The Black Bull and Red Lion, although the Black Bull was in it's last throes, with an 'everything must go' closing down sale as we passed.
What had caught my eye though, was a micro bar a little further up the road...

Drunk Dry (12 Banbury Road, Kidlington, OX5 2BT - web)
This has been open since 2016 and has managed to somehow slip under my craft beer radar for the past 3 years.

Located behind a hair stylists and tattoo studio, it's a flat roofed building at the end of the back yard. To the right is a bar and bottle shop, to the left a small seating area, whilst there's plenty more outdoor seating in the yard.

There's no cask ale on offer, but if they don't have the call for it, hence couldn't sell it fast enough whilst in good condition, then they're rightly best to stick to the nitro-kegs.  Of which there's a pretty good choice.  My Dark Revolution 'Luminous' was a straw colored, piney pale ale, whilst the Wander Beyond 'Rising Embers' was an amazing stout, full of chocolate flavour - pudding in a glass.

Drunk Dry is well worth seeking out if you're a fan of craft ales.  It's open midday til 9pm (11pm on Friday and Saturday).