The George, Sutton Courtenay

When the 2023 Good Beer Guide arrived on the doorstep, I did what I always do first and flicked through to the Oxfordshire entries to see what had changed.
Just 2 new pubs for me to visit to complete Oxon this year, the first of which was in the picturesque village of Sutton Courtenay.  We reached this by travelling to Abingdon, then walking a couple of miles south of the town along the Thames Path.

The George (4 Church Street, Sutton Courtenay, OX14 4NJ - web)

Heading through the main door of the George, you're confronted with a small Deli which sells coffee, cake and sausage rolls, and seems to specialise in jars of chutney of multiple varieties.
The bar straddles the rooms to either side of the entrance.  We gravitated to the smaller and more basic room to the left where the hand pumps and locals were.

Two ales on offer, both from South Oxfordshire: Loose Cannon 'Abingdon Bridge' and Amwell Springs 'Rude Not To'.
The Amwell Springs was frothy and delicious - an easy NBSS 4...

The George (previously the George & Dragon prior to a make-over and shortening of name in summer '21) is part of the Oak Taverns group, who purchased the inn from Greene King in 2019.  Oak Taverns look to have a great little selection of pubs, including several beer guide regulars.  They've recently purchased the Cross Keys, a traditional boozer by the park in Wallingford, which I'll look forward to revisiting soon to see what they've done with it.

Back in the George, I grabbed a bench seat at a table next to the fireplace, whilst Mrs PropUptheBar went chutney shopping.
The locals were sat spaced out around the edge of room in conversational micropub style.  Poking the wood-burner a few times, they spent a good 20-minutes talking about fires ("You got an open fire, Phil?", "Got two").  This wasn't a topic I was ever going to join in with.  I've got a radiator.  

The Guide is looking okay in this picture at the George, but in reality, it's already beginning to get dog-eared thanks to me going back and forth trying to find anything in the regional rather than alphabetical layout.

The George is well worth a visit - a great-looking village pub, focused on drinks and snacks rather than set up for dining, with a fine garden to the rear for when the warmer weather returns.

From a half-timbered Grade II listed village inn to an Abingdon estate pub...
The next point of call was inspired by Life After Football, who has a knack of gravitating to places like this.

The Midget (Preston Road, Abingdon, OX14 5NR - web)
The pub was originally named 'The Magic Midget', in honour of the record-breaking Midget racing cars which were produced in the '30's in the Abingdon MG factory.
When this estate pub was set to open in 1974, a competition was launched to find a name for it, seemingly in the days when people looked at local heritage for inspiration rather than quickly coming up with Pubby McPubFace.

It's roughly L-shaped in design with the bar and a couple of raised seating areas in the front section, and pool table and large screen around to the side.

We discovered a wide-ranging Saturday afternoon crowd: gin-drinking ladies, local lads around the pool table with their pints of Mahou, families feeding pound coins into the claw-grabbing machine next to bar, trying to win a cuddly toy for the youngsters which they can carry around as pub-ticker mascots in years to come.
Not much of a haunt for real ale drinkers though, with just Morland 'Original Bitter' on offer.

The bitter wasn't the best (I don't think I've ever had a good pint of Morland Original), yet I still enjoyed the Midget.

Moving on, we walked back to Drayton Road and toward the centre of Abingdon.  En-route, in a small industrial area, was the Loose Cannon brewery...

Loose Cannon Brewery Tap (Suffolk Way, Abingdon, OX14 5JX - web)
Here's a blurry picture of the cask on offer.  Naturally, I'm gonna pick the one with the James Bond pun in the name...

And naturally I'm gonna include a shiny brew kit picture...

All tables were reserved for later in the evening, suggesting Loose Cannon have found a winning formula for their taproom.  There are tables and a couple of sofas in a more moodily-lit section under the ceiling of the upper level, or you can grab a seat in the middle of the brewery next to the fermenting vessels.
The downfall in winter months is that you just can't make a big space like this cosy - there's no beating a seat by the fireplace in a proper pub.

Good beer.
And fine pizza from the food truck outside...

We left Loose Cannon to head back toward the bus stop.
Except that we spotted that the Brewery Tap pub on Ock Street had this beer on offer...

Oh well, we can catch a later bus.