The Greyhound Tidmarsh (& Further Ale Trail Pubs)

Sunshine and unseasonably warm February weather were what greeted us on our fourth excursion on the mission to complete 2019's Reading Ale Trail.
We alighted the train today at Pangbourne.  If I had a little time to spare when passing through on the return journey I figured I could go shopping for cars in the dealerships near the station.

Yep, the green one looks like a nice little run-around and will solve my problems about how to get to The Bell at Waltham St Lawrence in a couple of weeks time.

Walking southwards following the River Pang took us through some thoroughly pleasant countryside.

PUB 15: Greyhound (The Street, Tidmarsh, RG8 8ER - website)
It was around a 1 mile walk to get to Tidmarsh where we soon found our first destination of the day, the Greyhound, a picturesque thatched pub.
The building dates back to the 12th century and has reportedly been a pub since 1625.  We're fortunate that it's still around, with a destructive blaze in February 2005, then firefighters being called back again in 2017 to put out a chimney fire.

If you could all just move your cars for the perfect pub picture, please.

No denying that it's looking glorious in the sunshine today.
The ceiling of the front rooms is not designed for tall customers with a clearance of 5ft 8in and soft cushions attached to the lowest beams to prevent injuries.  This being a Fuller's pub, 'London Pride' appears on the bar alongside Gales 'HSB' and Dark Star 'Partridge'.  With a half of the Dark Star we sat in the front room where a TV had been set up for the Six Nations rugby coverage.  The low-volume commentary of France v Scotland on TV was competing with Elton John and Kiki Dee from the pub speakers.  All things considered and Elton notwithstanding, this was a great little relaxed country pub.

Inside the Greyhound at Tidmarsh

From Tidmarsh we re-traced our steps back to Pangbourne and caught a train to Reading. And from there it was a bus ride out to Woodley. 

PUB 16: Good Companions (194 Loddon Bridge Road, Woodley, RG5 4AG)
I'd imagine that this is the pub that would have raised the most eyebrows when the selection of 24 chosen for the Ale Trail was unveiled.  
An estate pub?  In Woodley?  Serving Greene King IPA?

We arrived with impeccable bad timing, as the lone barman suddenly became engulfed with customers arriving ahead of Wales versus England rugby excitement.
I'll be fair to the barman, it may not have been service with a smile, but he served everyone efficiently in the right order and didn't let the onslaught of punters phase him.
Ho hum...GK IPA, Abbot or Rev.James on the hand pumps.  All my favourites...
The Good Companions essentially does the job an estate pub should be doing - it has a local following, big screen TVs for sport, a pool table and pub grub.  It's not going to turn out to be my favourite pub of the Trail, but I'm the first to bemoan huge housing estates without a pub, so wish it a continuing success.


From here, back through town and out west to....

PUB 17: Forester's Arms (79-81 Brusnwick Street, Reading, RG1 6NY)
There's a big 'To Let' board attached to the Brewers Tudor frontage of the Forester's Arms.  With this being a regular in the Good Beer Guide and listed for it's heritage interior, I do hope that they can get the right tenants to take this pub on.

Today the front room is busy with folks just returned from the football and moaning about something the referee did or didn't do, with rugby action on the TV.  We retreat down the side corridor into the quieter back room.  This is a bare-bones pub room, with darts board, pool table and a scattering of dumpy stools to sit on.
The Forester's sticks to serving just two beers with the choice today being Timothy Taylor's 'Boltmaker' or Fuller's 'Swing Low'. 
Why oh why do I keep picking these rugby beers? Not a contender for beer-of-the-day this one.

PUB 18: The Butler (85-91 Chatham Street, Reading, RG1 7DS)
As per the Forester's, I've covered the Butler and the nearby Nags Head on this blog in a recent post.

Their beer mats advertise that they're part of Timothy Taylor's "Champions Cl
ub", so I guess a 'Landlord' may have been the right choice on the bar. But instead I went with an Andwell 'King John' in the search for something darker.

We settled into the big armchairs in the quiet side room of the Butler. Then struggled to get out of them again....four pubs in and we're worn out.

PUB 19: Nag's Head (5 Russell Street, Reading, RG1 7XD)

Somewhere that all Ale-Trailers will undoubtedly be very familiar with. Busy, with a great selection of beers to cater for all tastes.  Need I say more?  Nope, not today.

PUB 20: Castle Tap (120 Castle Street, Reading, RG1 7RJ)
The Castle Tap was celebrating its 4th birthday this weekend, with the 'books 'n board games' corner set up as a stage for some live music.  This is a pub that I've often called into, although generally of an afternoon so I've never seen it anywhere near this busy. 
We squeezed into a corner as best as possible and watched some chap with a guitar swear a lot.
The beer selection may not be as extensive as at the Nags, but it's always damn fine, with craft keg lines and five cask ales on offer.  Finally I was onto the dark stuff with a pint of Wander Beyond Brewery 'Great Rift', a pleasant 6% milk stout.
We stayed for another whilst a country-rock Ramones cover-band took over from sweary bloke.

The Castle Tap in Fourth Birthday Party Swing

And that's another chunk of the Ale Trail complete - four left on the final leg to be tackled sometime in March.  Cheers!

Reading Ale Trail 2019

We'd begun the challenge of the 2019 Reading Ale Trail a week ago and clocked up 10 of the 24 pubs so far.  This weekend our plan saw us setting out early on a Saturday morning, catching the train to Reading, then grabbing a day-pass for the buses.  The aim was to tick off a couple of pubs on the western and southern fringes of the map.
Jet Black 1 (not quite as cool a bus as the name suggests) took us to the village of Woolhampton and our first stop of the day...

PUB 11: The Rowbarge (Station Road, Woolhampton, RG7 5SH - website)

The 18th century Rowbarge pub at Woolhampton

Smart interiors - the Rowbarge

I've not knowingly visited a Brunning and Price pub previously and various pub blogging reports of them hadn't made me excited to break that duck.  B&P's own website claims "each pub has it's own style and flavour", although plenty of folk contest this and accuse them of being very formulaic.
Cut flowers on the table, lots of black & white framed pictures on the walls, scatter cushions, Baylis and Harding soap in the bathrooms...
But their pubs have a strong presence in the Good Beer Guide due to commendable dedication to cask ale. The Rowbarge holds the crown of West Berkshire CAMRA regional pub of the year, and justifying this there was a good range of beers on with several local breweries represented. We settled down in the front room with an Indiginous 'Nosey Parker', a great 5% mild in good condition.
The Rowbarge has a wonderful location, next to the canal with a large outdoor area which would be a winner in the warmer months.  Arriving just after 11am there were only a couple of other customers and we'd left before an inevitable bottle-neck on the single-track canal bridge as family 4x4's arrive for gastro-pub dining experiences.  The phone at the bar had been ringing constantly for table reservations whilst we'd been there.

Heading back to the main road we hopped back on the Jet Black 1 in the direction we'd come and alighted at Theale.
South of the village, past the railway station, our second destination was a short walk away... 

PUB 12: Fox & Hounds (Station Road, Sheffield Bottom, Theale, RG7 4BE - website)

This pub is around 200 years old, previously a farmers inn called the Drum and Monkey.

Fox & Hounds, Sheffield Bottom, Theale

Not a recognised pub snack.

I was initially sceptical as the beer guide entry stated that "the emphasis is on food" and sure enough, on entering, the staff hit us with a "will you be dining with us?". 
On this occasion we decided it would be a good option for lunch, but visiting for just a drink would have been fine.

The Fox and Hounds advertise themselves as "Britain's dog-friendliest pub" and have won a string of accolades for this.  Almost every customer who walked in seemed to have brought their dog for a lunchtime pub experience.
But today the show is well and truly stolen by Bear, an enormous St Bernard and apparently a bit of a pub regular.  Something of a celebrity, he's stroked and photographed and his owners answer a string of questions whilst diligently mopping up the copious amount of saliva that Bear deposits behind him.

St Bernard, Bear, blocks the route to the bar

The pub is a Wadworth house and, whilst okay, I never really get overly excited by their beers. But lunch was excellent and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend visiting here.  The sticky toffee pudding for dessert fueled us with the energy required to tackle Tilehurst.

There are no less than THREE Fox & Hounds on this year's Reading Ale Trail - we'd started the trail in the Caversham one, had thoroughly enjoyed swooning over big slobbery dogs in the second and were on our way to the third, to achieve Fox and Hound completion.
We'd decided to tackle the next leg of the journey on foot and had roughly a 3-mile walk ahead of us.  This involved following the Kennet & Avon canal, then branching off to the right into fields, across the railway line and finally into residential streets.  I'd made a detailed map of how to navigate these suburban crescents and cul-de-sacs. 
But I left it at home, so we inevitably got lost.
Walking through an alleyway I was still insisting I knew where I was and proclaimed that the pub would probably be right in front of us at the end of the alley.
And it was!

Fox & Hounds No.3

PUB 13: Fox and Hounds (116 City Road, Tilehurst, RG31 5SB - website)
We were the odd ones out here, being obviously the only non-locals.
At all previous pubs on the Ale Trail we needed to request the stickers for our booklet, but the girl behind the bar offered them to us here, without us asking.
Strange folk arriving and ordering half's of real ale...."how did you know we were collecting the ale trail stickers?"
"Sometimes you can just tell..." she replied.

A chap in the front room near us was talking about Frank Carter's circle-pit around the tent at Reading Festival last year.  Which is the sort of conversation I'd happily have joined, but this was a quick visit, plus whoever heard of doing crazy things like talking to strangers in pubs?!
A pretty ordinary half pint of Hogsback 'T.E.A' finished, we moved on quickly to catch a bus.
The number 33 took us on a touristic route through the housing estates of Tilehurst.
Bus fatigue was setting in as we caught another from the centre, southbound to the village of Shinfield.

PUB 14: Magpie & Parrot (Arborfield Road, Shinfield, RG2 9EA)

Strange things you find in pubs

The Ale Trail had promised to throw up somewhere a little different in its selection of pubs.  And the Magpie and Parrot was just that.
Located just off to the edge of the village, this is a roadside country house, with the bar housed in the extension to it's right. It is a fantastically quirky place  with two small rooms, filled to the rafters with a treasure trove of odd decorations.  On one side of the fireplace the pub dog is curled up in an armchair, to the other side the landlady is sitting reading her Stephen King paperback.
There's a framed long-service award stating that she's been doing this for 35-years - running the pub that is.

The Magpie and Parrot has limited opening hours, serves food at lunchtimes only (with the exception of a popular Friday evening fish supper) and just features the one hand-pull on the bar serving up Fullers 'London Pride'. But this was well kept and an enjoyable pint in a pub that I really liked. 

It's a dogs life...  The Magpie and Parrot, Shinfield

With ten pubs remaining on the Ale Trail, we called it a day and caught the train back to Oxford.  The Pint Shop on George Street was closing on this evening, so we made an effort to get back there for a last visit.
More Ale Trailing next week...

What's My Age Again?

On a short afternoon visit to my home town of Nottingham, I had the chance to call into one pub for a pint and a spot of lunch.  So I decided to head back to a heritage classic:
Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem (Brewhouse Yard 1, Nottingham, NG1 6AD - website)

Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, Nottingham

Stepping inside the pub, the first room encountered is the Ward room, named after the family who owned the inn between 1894 and 1989.  It's one of the most unique pub rooms in the country, burrowing into the sandstone rock.
The handful of tables in this room are popular, and despite us arriving early families and pushchairs had settled there scuppering my attempt to photograph it.  So you get a dull shot of a sign over a door instead...

Vaguely Historical Bit...

During the Crusades (silly fighting over the Holy Lands in the 12th century - something we've of course sorted out in this civilised day and age) Richard the Lionheart made use of Nottingham Castle and legend has it that  knights on the way to the third crusade gathered there.  And naturally stopped off at the inn at the foot of the rocks beneath it.
The date painted on the side of the pub, 1189, is the year that Richard ascended the throne,
rather than a year that anyone can determine the pub originating.

Nottingham Castle sits on the rock above the pub and originally dates back to 1068.  Archaeological digs have shown that the caves were used extensively at this time and it appears that brewing took place in the spot where the Trip now stands, adding some credence to the historic claims. 
But what we don't know for sure is if any kind of inn existed in these early years.  The buildings as we know them today are a 17th century affair, dating to around 1650, although historical maps show an earlier building on the site.  The name Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem was first recorded in 1799.

We settled on a table in Yorkey's Lounge.  This room lies in the front section of the current building with a large oak beam stretching across an uneven ceiling propped up by a central iron post.
Just beyond this, through a doorway next to the fireplace is a small room called the Haunted Snug.
On our visit it seemed to be hosting some sort of meeting, with a procession of retired gents passing our table and struggling through the awkward door.  The majority of them also managed to trip over the raised hearth in front of the fire, proclaiming that it's moved since they were last here. 

Yorkey's Lounge, Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem

Up a small flight of stairs from the bar you'll find the Rock Lounge.  This room is also carved out of the sandstone rocks, although unlike the truly cave-like room downstairs, this feels like a more modern undertaking. 
This room contains the cursed galleon.  The only people who've set about cleaning this are said to have met mysterious deaths. As a consequence it has been put in a glass case and has been gathering dust, untouched for the past 50 years.

The Rock Lounge, Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem

Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem is an essential stop if you're visiting Nottingham.  Both pub and tourist attraction.  It's now owned by Greene King, but you wouldn't initially guess it from the range of ales on offer - on my visit there was a run of five hand-pulls on the first section of the bar featuring local breweries, with Lincoln Green, Nottingham Brewery and Shipstone's beers available.  There is also a beer named after pub, the widely-available 'Olde Trip Bitter' originally brewed by Hardy & Hansons.  This is on the bar here, and where better to have one?

There are a lot of pubs and bars that I need to come and visit/re-visit in Nottingham.  Today, with my mum in tow, I couldn't undertake a mammoth pub crawl (she only does those on a Thursday, after skittles).

So instead we explored the city that was her home-town and has changed a lot in the years since she's last been here.

Nottingham Market Square - "they've made a right mess of it" according to my mum, who liked the old fountains.

Later that evening we found ourselves staying in a village north of Nottingham and I'd picked the nearby Old Green Dragon (Blind Lane,Oxton,NG25 0SS) to call in to.

If I was doing something completely bonkers like trying to go to all of the Good Beer Guide listed pubs in the country, I'd be declaring this a 'pre-emptive tick'.

The pub has won Nottingham CAMRA's 2018 Village Pub of the Year award.

Solid line-up.  Transparent pricing. 

The Green Dragon is owned by Dave Brett who founded Way Ahead Records, a ticket agency and shop where I spent a lot of money on dubious metal CDs at the end of the eighties. 
A regular in the pub, he watched it being sold to property developers a few years ago.  But when the development company went bust he brought it himself and set about returning it to a simple village local.
There is one main bar with a giant TV, then two more lounge-like rooms leading off this.  To the rear is a restaurant, closed on our visit, with Monday and Tuesday being the chefs' days off.  But they brought around free slices of pizza, which was much appreciated.
And what a great drinks range for a village pub - craft keg lines, three real ciders and five cask ales, offering beer from local breweries.
I hadn't expected to find a pub like this near where we were staying, so the Old Green Dragon proved a pleasant surprise for the end of the day.

The Pub in the Woods

An overcast day at the end of January saw me travel to areas I'd not previously explored in Oxfordshire and visit two of our Good Beer Guide listed pubs...

The Black Horse (Checkendon, RG8 0TE)
This is a pub that has eluded me for some time, perhaps because it's relatively remote by Oxfordshire standards.  It's popular with walkers and cyclists, but in the end I took advantage of having the use of a car for the weekend to get there.
The Black Horse still tried to evade technology, with our sat-nav proudly announcing "you have reached your destination" when we were half way down a muddy, pot-holed, lane in the middle of nowhere. 
I resorted to asking passing horse-riders for directions and we pulled up at this wonderful rural pub on a gloomy Sunday afternoon.  

Black Horse, Checkendon, Oxfordshire

Retro lounge at the Black Horse

Taking us somewhat by surprise, we found it bustling with visitors.  One room was full of cyclists sporting mud-splattered bare legs and Lycra, the quirky lounge housed ramblers with pots of tea, whilst the locals hung out closest to the bar and a warming log fire.
The Black Horse has been in the same family since 1905 and is some 350 years old.
Beers are served straight from the cask and brought from the cellar, with two available from West Berkshire Brewery and one Rebellion beer.  I grabbed a 'Mr Chubb's Lunchtime Bitter' and we settled on a bench along the wall near the fire.
There's a cordial atmosphere around the bar, with talkative regulars and a chunky dog called Charlie doing the rounds on the hunt for any unwanted crisps.  The chap sitting on the other end of our bench told us he'd been coming here for 40 years and when you walked through the door it hadn't changed a bit.  Which is the real charm of this pub.
 

We'd started our day some 13 miles away at Chalgrove, south-east of Oxford.  With old cottages, thatched roofs and a brook running alongside the high street, it's a pleasant village.  It has a healthy total of three pubs: two Greene King houses and the Good Beer Guide listed Red Lion which we were headed to.   

Chalgrove Village Green

Red Lion (115 High Street, Chalgrove, OX44 7SS - website)
This village pub is owned by St Mary's parish church and dates back to the 16th century.  It's set back from the main street with a nice front garden and cracking traditional free-standing pub sign.  

Dark skies loom over the Red Lion, Chalgrove, Oxfordshire

Step inside and there are thick stone walls, a front room divided into three cosy areas plus a small restaurant extension to the rear.  To the left of the bar a wood burning stove in a large hearth warms the room on a winters day and the large round table next to this looks to be the locals table - the only one where a few folk sipped their pints.  All other tables were being used for Sunday lunch dining on this visit.

Beers on the bar were Butcombe Best and Fullers 'London Pride', with a guest ale from Rebellion: 'Contact', a 4.2% copper ale in a themed Aviator series.
Picking the Rebellion beer we grabbed a table to eat and stayed to enjoy a filling, tasty lunch. With us arriving at midday, they were still printing the menus and it took a while for the kitchen to get underway and the food to be served. But all was fresh-cooked and worth the wait.


We obviously saw the Red Lion with the kitchen in full-swing, but the food was drawing the punters in. With all tables occupied, this can't be a bad thing in these days of the beleaguered village pub. 
I would guess that it would a fine place to call into for just a beer at different times and it also has a large garden to the rear for the warmer months.


I plan to make a concerted effort to get to more Good Beer Guide entries for Oxfordshire in 2019.
Having discovered the Peyton Arms, Stoke Lyne and The North Star, Steventon in the past couple of years I can add the Black Horse to this list of slightly eccentric, historical and wonderful pubs in the county.
I just hope that there are more that I'm yet to stumble across.

East London Pub Crawl

South Central CAMRA Region London Crawl

On Saturday 19th January members from Berkshire, Bucks and Oxfordshire CAMRA groups gathered at midday in the 'Spoons at Liverpool Street station, ready to undertake an ale trail around some of east London's hostelries.
I hooked up with the friendly folk of South-Oxfordshire CAMRA, for whom I'm very grateful for letting me traipse around the pubs with them.
Leaving Hamilton Hall a little late, we were definitely bringing up the rear of the procession as we ambled along Shoreditch High Street.

The shiny new buildings of the City encroach upon the Crown and Shuttle

🕐 Crown & Shuttle (226 Shoreditch High Street, E1 6PJ)

The downfall of arriving late was that we found all three pump-clips turned around and the cask ale drunk dry by those before us at the Crown & Shuttle.

Fortunately - for most - the keg lines offered some quality alternatives - in my case a pale ale by The Kernel brewery.  
The pub features lots of exposed brick-work with a ramshackle, half-finished look to it.  To the rear was a large garden with an array of multi-coloured benches - not a feature we could really appreciate on this cold day. 

During our visit, the barman diligently cleaned the lines and pulled through the next two real ales.  Which put us even further behind as we decided we should stay for at least a half-pint of the freshly-tapped beer.  It'd be rude not to.  I picked the Hammerton 'N7' - well worth the wait, with Windsor & Eton's 'Kohinoor' being the alternative.

Moving on from the Crown & Shuttle, a short walk took us past the shipping containers that make up Shoreditch Box Park, then along Bethnal Green Road to our next destination...

🕑 Well & Bucket (143 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG -  website)

The Well & Bucket was a pub between 1818 and 1989, at which point it closed, became a Chinese restaurant for a short time, then turned into a shop called Leathertex.

Great news for pub fans (not so good for purveyors of East End fashion wholesalers) it returned to life as an ale house in 2013. 

And they've done a splendid job.  As much of the grand Victorian tiling as possible has been restored, looking somewhat battered, but that adds to the character.  The single large room features an island bar with an elegant glass shelving centrepiece full of spirit bottles.  Unsurprisingly for a rejuvenated Shoreditch bar, craft beers featured heavily with a good range including Mondo, Stone, Mikkeller and Thornbridge breweries.  

We didn't stop at Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium.  But it was certainly proving a popular attraction along Bethnal Green Road...

Cats.

We then deviated from the pre-planned route and headed to the Kings Arms. 

🕒 Kings Arms (11a Buckfast Street, E2 6EY)
This is a well respected drinking establishment that I'd visited several times in the past.  At first glance it looks like an old-school corner boozer, tucked next to housing blocks just off the main road.  But inside it's a smart, modern craft ale bar. The beers are listed on a large board to the back of the room - providing an impromptu eye-test - with the beer taps themselves being un-badged.
For those who'd suspect a CAMRA pub crawl would be full of weird, beardy, odd-bods who'd shun anything that's not cask conditioned real ale, you'd be wrong. 
Some of us were weird, beardy odd-bods who were quite keen on a brilliant craft ale list too.  And there were some treats here including Siren Craft 'Mind on my Honey' (too strong for this afternoons pub crawl at 10.1%, but I'd been blown away by it at the Nags Head a few weeks earlier).  Instead I opted for a slightly weaker 'Steady Rolling Man', a 5.2% hoppy pale ale from Gloucestershire's DEYA brewing company.

From here we walked for just over 10 minutes to reach the eastern outlier of the crawl:
🕓 The Camel (277 Globe Road, E2 0JD)
This is an historic pub that was ear-marked for demolition at the start of the millennium. Stiff local opposition and a 500-signature-strong petition saved it from being converted to flats. 
On this Saturday afternoon it was a buzz of activity with plenty of folk in.  It was the only pub of the day to have a TV in it - channel-hopping erratically between showing snooker, tennis and Final Score.  At the opposite end of the narrow pub was a large mirror giving the illusion the room is bigger than it really is. 
Pretty much the whole of our group picked the 'XPA' from Five Points Brewery, a wonderful tasty 4% American pale that was a contender for beer of the day.

The Camel - photo-bombed by members of South Oxfordshire CAMRA.

We headed back from here by tube to Liverpool Street, from where we could set out on foot to Brick Lane.  Which may not have been the best option as we temporarily lost half our party in the station; then found the one member of the group who had chosen to take the bus standing at the bar half way through his pint.  Next time: follow Bob on the bus.

🕔 The Pride of Spitalfields (3 Heneage Street, E1 5LJ)
This is a long-standing Good Beer Guide entrant that hasn't changed much over the years.
My picture in the dark of the pub came out a bit rubbish, so here instead is a photo of Lenny, the pub cat.

Lenny, resident cat at the Pride of Spitalfields,  Relaxed.

Maybe that's the secret of blogging success?  More cat pictures.  
Just look how popular the Cat Emporium was earlier.

I first visited The Pride of Spitalfields some twenty years ago when I'd just moved down to the capital.  And I don't think it's changed a bit since then, other than the price of a pint going up a fair bit.
It's a wonderfully convivial little traditional pub where a wide variety of punters from all walks-of-life rub shoulders.  There's standing room only this evening as I enjoy a pint of Crouch Vale 'Brewers Gold' - Champion beer of Britain in 2005 and 2006.   

As most of our group were calling this the last stop of the day, I headed off by myself into the dusk in the effort to reach one more of the crawl's destinations:

🕕 The Mahogany Bar - Wiltons Music Hall (1 Graces Alley, E1 8JB - website)
And I was really pleased to have made it to this unusual venue.

Wilton's music hall is located in a building dating back to 1690.  Originally houses, it later became an ale house trading under such names as The Albion Saloon and The Prince of Denmark. In 1828 it was furnished with a magnificent mahogany bar and luxurious fittings earning it the nickname 'The Mahogany Bar'.
Sadly this building spent the last half of the 20th century derelict until the Wilton's Music Hall Trust reopened it in 2009 with final repairs to make it structurally sound completed in 2015.
Rather than being returned to a pristine state it has been left with rough walls, bare bricks and occasional battle-scarred bits of plaster-work - all reminding visitors of the derelict state it's been saved from.    

Whilst this last point of call was very different to the other pubs we'd been to today, I'd recommend each and every one of the venues on this great pub crawl.

I missed one - the Dog & Bucket, so couldn't claim ale-trail completion.  Thanks again to those who devised this crawl and all who were so welcoming on the day.

Nags Head Reading

& Two Further West Reading Pubs

In my humble opinion, the Nags Head in Reading is the best pub within less than an hour of my front door.  I reckon it ticks all the boxes for what brilliant pubs should be.
Yet I've never gotten around to covering this or any of the other good drinking establishments in Reading in this blog.  Early January saw a Nottingham Forest fixture at Reading so with tickets booked for this I decided I'd focus on three pubs across the A33, just to the west of Reading centre.

The Nags Head, Reading 

I've dug out an old picture of The Nags Head  (5 Russell Street, RG1 7XD - website) - we didn't have nice blue skies like this on our January visit.

Hopcraft Stout and the football news

Arriving early, I settled down and grabbed one of the daily papers from the rack.
The news had broken on Friday morning that Aitor Karanka had asked to leave his role as Forest manager, propelling the club into a bit of disarray yet again. 

This only made a small corner in the paper's sports section of course, with anything outside the self-styled 'Greatest League In The World' being largely inconsequential.

I pondered whether all the upheaval yesterday would effect the team's performance on the pitch this afternoon?
**Spoiler**
Yes. Of course it would.

But before having to endure 90 minutes of football, I had 120 minutes to enjoy the Nags Head.  So why's it so great?

Firstly they have a fantastic drinks selection, once billed as a "beer festival every day" and pretty much living up to that promise.  Twelve cask ales are lined up along the bar from a mild on the right, increasing in strength to the dark stuff on the left. 
Should nothing take your fancy in that line-up, a keg-wall was added a couple of years back offering up all manner of crafty delights, as well as lots of boxed cider and Belgian bottled beer being available.

Sports fans are catered for with all major football, cricket and rugby fixtures shown across two screens. 

And when the volume isn't turned up for sport the musical soundtrack isn't too bad either.

And there's a roaring log fire on grey winter days like today.

And there's some old Elm Park memorabilia...

The pub became progressively busier, with a pretty limited demographic of middle-aged blokes with Reading tops & scarves this afternoon.  Arsenal were on the TV screens being beaten by West Ham.  My pick of the beers was the 'A.W18 Bitter' from Cloudwater and 'Campania' a milk stout from one of my favourite breweries Hopcraft, but we got through a few more than this and all were good.

There's a special match-day bus from the Nags Head to the football ground, so at a quarter-past two we drank-up and climbed on board.

The Nags Head Football Special

.....
  .....
So, let me go back a couple of months to a visit to this part of town at the tail-end of 2018.
Trust me, it's better to reminisce from last year than to report on the turgid football that we endured at the Madejski Stadium this weekend. 

Foresters Arms, Reading

Foresters Arms (79-81 Brunswick Street, RG1 6PE)
This is a Good Beer Guide listed pub that I'd somehow completely missed, so I set out to rectify this.

Impossibly white trainers.

It's located on the outskirts of town, around a 25 minute stroll from the centre.  Along a residential street it's unmissable with a prominent emerald green tiled front wall.  
We were the only customers when we entered, disturbing the lady behind the bar from tinkering with her iPad. 
There was a simple choice of two ales on the bar: Palmers IPA or Tim Taylors 'Landlord'. 
We sat in the peace of the front room, with rugby on the TV, supping our pints.
And then a third customer came into the bar wearing impossibly white trainers.
Here was a no-nonsense punter: pint of Fosters and a whisky chaser, quick fag outside then back in for another pint.  He propped up the bar and asked for the TV to be changed to ITV4 for the horse racing.
Nooooo...horse racing on TV.....it's almost always a signifier that you've found yourself in a 'certain type' of pub.

The Foresters is a real back-street local, serving up a decent pint of ale and I appreciate it would probably be a different experience when busier.

Back to the present, and we'd witnessed a miserable 0-2 defeat at the hands of Reading (not so miserable for the home fans on the bus back though).  Two red cards and an awful display - I really should have stayed in the pub.

Post-match we were looking for somewhere to watch the evening kick-off between Chelsea and Newcastle - to see how proper football teams played.
Much as I love the Nags, it's never busier than when the Madejski bus disgorges it's passengers on a Saturday afternoon, so we headed just around the corner to....

The Butler (85-91 Chatham Street, RG1 7DS)
This crept in the GBG in 2018 but seems to have lost it's place this year.
Towered over by a multi-storey car park to the right, it's got a stand-out frontage of many colours.  Inside there is a side room to the left with sofa's and a trad cosy section just to the rear of the bar, where we found a seat in good view of the smaller TV screen.  To the right there is a bit of an empty-looking area where bands set up, then a back section with the focus on the TV.
Beers available on this visit were a 'Proper Job' from St Austell, Tim Taylor's 'Landlord' aand, my pick, 'Crouch Hold Engage' from Andwell Brewery.  A reminder that the Six Nations is just around the corner again.

The Butler, possible one of Reading's best-looking pubs?

Outside toilets are a bit of a rarity these days, although often the mark of a great pub.  The gents at the Butler are out the back through a small yard and are bitterly cold this evening.
But this may be soon to change.  There is currently a planning application to add upstairs rooms for bed and breakfast use and move those chilly loos to the first floor.


By Monday lunchtime Martin O'Neill had been appointed as Forest manager.  A success or another ex-player sullying his reputation in the managers hot-seat?  Only time will tell.
As long as both clubs stay in the same league I'll be back next season for my annual grumble as we lose to Reading, but at least I'll be guaranteed a few good pints beforehand.