Jubilee Beers in South Oxon

A trek into South Oxfordshire yields three Jubilee themed beers, Union Jack bunting, and knitted post box toppers.

I headed to the villages of South and North Moreton, which sit between the Thames market town of Wallingford and the delights of Didcot.
The 2½ mile walk from Wallingford wasn't a bad one, although it was overgrown enough to leave us brushing grass seed and twigs off clothing to make ourselves presentable when we reached pub number one.

The Crown (High Street, South Moreton, OX11 9AG - web)
We needn't have worried too much.  The Crown was a pretty down-to-earth village pub that was as welcoming to scruffy ramblers as bank holiday diners.
There were three areas to the pub with a mix of regular dining room furniture and deep sofas that would require someone to come and pull you back out of them.  We stuck to the safe option of the picnic tables out front.

This was previously a Wadworth pub, before closing down and eventually being opened by the local community in 2019.  We do like a community pub in Oxfordshire.

Three beers from local breweries (Loddon, Amwell Springs and Loose Cannon) - better than Wadworth 6X, I feel.
This provided me with my first Jubilee brew: Loddon's 'Platinum Jubby'.  A name that could only be worsened by calling it Plat Jubes, but was actually a very nice hoppy pale ale.

The next leg of the walk was a much shorter one, retracing our steps back under the railway line and along the edges of fields to North Moreton.  Although if you can locate the footpath that takes you right to the pub, you're a better map-reader than me.

The Bear (High Street, North Moreton, OX11 9AT - web)
The Bear has undergone more moderisation than the Crown which you see at a glance with the wooden floors, writing on the wall above the bar, and general shininess.
There's a dining room to the rear, although the front bar has casual seating around a fireplace, occupied by a handful of locals.

They offered up a good choice of four more unusual beers for Oxfordshire - including Fuggle Bunny, Ramsbury, Chiltern Brewery and something honey-orientated from Bristol.
I stick to the theme and order the Chiltern 'Jubilee Ale'.

Next to the pub's outdoor tables is the village cricket field, where we sat eating sandwiches watching the North Moreton ladies team in action.
Which I think is a great way to spend the most British of Bank Holiday weekends - better than squeezing along the mall to get a glimpse of Rod Stewart playing the Jubilee concert.

Where Prop Up the Bar tried and failed miserably to explain the rules of cricket

Well, it makes a change from pictures of pubs, doesn't it?

We set about returning to Wallingford on a different route which mainly took us on gravel farm tracks before leading us into a maze of housing estate paths when we reached the town.
Successfully coming out the other side, we stopped for a refreshment break at the George, easily tempted in by all the balloons in the entryway.

The George Hotel (25 High Street, Wallingford, OX10 0BS - web)
This is a lovely looking 16th century coaching inn, with the various buildings of the hotel and bar surrounding a courtyard.
No Jubilee beers here, so I caved in to the idea of a sweet still cider from the box. 

Leaving Wallingford, we walked along the Thames path northward, reaching the weir and lock at Benson.

Benson provided another Good Beer Guide '22 tick by way of the Crown.  There's a niggling feeling that we've been here before on our way back from the pub in nearby Roke.  But if we did, it's had a makeover since, having been purchased - in a rare venture this far south of the county - by Hook Norton.

Crown Inn at Benson (52 High Street, Benson, OX10 6RP - web)
Inside, the bar is in the back room, with smaller cosy areas directly by the door to the main road.  There was much hustle and bustle, with table bookings for diners at a premium and a fair-sized crowd of folk drinking in the courtyard.
And, wow, they could make a racket.
Footy songs were led by the least likely of folk, taking particular delight in Scotland's World Cup play-off fate - 'there'll be no Tartan army in Qatar'. 
I'm not really sure it's in the spirit of Jubilee weekend to mock the other home nation's football upsets, but never mind.

Jubilee Beer #3, Hook Norton's 5.2% (see what they did there) Jubilee Ale

With the evening wearing on and grey clouds overhead, we made a chip-stop at The Village Plaice, then caught the X40 bus back home.
(I make it sound so easy - we had to sit by the Thames for some time, having missed a bus by 30-seconds - the exact amount of time Mrs PropUptheBar spent patiently cleaning curry sauce off my t-shirt before we started walking to the stop).

Her majesty calls into Witney beer festival