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  • Bristol – The Three Tuns

    The Three Tuns is an independent pub with a comfortable atmosphere, although it proved to be too busy for us to stay too long. I was though pleased with the pub’s thoughts on Brexit which were mentioned on a chalk board on the back bar. There’s also some history to the pub which retains a traditional feel and it dates back to the early part of the twentieth century.

    Some of the beer selection which had been sourced from numerous breweries. I say some of the beer selection although the photo doesn’t exactly show much of the choice, although it does evidence that this was a local CAMRA pub of the year in 2012.

    The Three Tuns also does food and if I were ever to make a future visit, I’d pop along to try out the menu which is mostly themed around burgers and is operated by a separate company in the pub’s kitchen. Given that the pub isn’t that large in size, it seems a sensible choice to just operate with a limited menu.

    A poster in the pub detailing some of the many heritage pubs in Bristol.

    It was a shame that we couldn’t stay for longer in the pub and they did try and find us a table, but there sadly weren’t any available. There seems to be lots of events held here, including quiz nights, film nights and live music, and there was a community atmosphere even though it’s a city centre pub.

  • Bristol – Small Bar

    The pub name of Small Bar refers to the concept that small businesses focus on being the very best that they can be, rather than the size of the venue which is actually relatively large.

    I’m very much in support of this, which is any business being brave enough to be cash free. It means that people don’t have to carry about money, pubs don’t have to have money on site or transport it to banks and then pay to change it. It’s easier to be transparent with card only payments and it’s just quicker.

    This is why I don’t like pubs like the Jubilee in Norwich which still surcharge for card payments (or at least they did a few months ago, I’ve now stopped going in because of the surcharge despite it otherwise being a brilliant pub), even though the law has changed to prevent such price gouging.

    There are 31 taps available in the pub with the choices on chalkboards above the bar. The full list of bottled beers are available on a screen to the side of the bar, all very modern. It’s also much easier to keep a screen such as this up-to-date, it’s a shame that more locations don’t do this.

    And the crisps selection.

    The pub had a relaxing and on-trend feel to it, being both stylish and not over-stated. The beer quality was, as would be expected, excellent and the choice was considered and well thought through.

    Every modern pub needs some books. The pub served food, and it was an on-trend (like most things about this pub) menu based around Asian chicken. We weren’t ready to eat when we visited, but it did offer a tempting selection.

    Overall, a rather lovely pub, perhaps one of my favourites from all those that we visited over the weekend. Although it had a modern feel to it, there was no element of pretentiousness or excessive hipster atmosphere, just a comfortable and welcoming environment.

  • Aldershot – Garden Gate

    There are now just two pubs in Aldershot which are in the Good Beer Guide, and only one of them was near to the centre of town. This was the Garden Gate, which unfortunately didn’t open until 17:00, although since my train left at 19:00, I was able to get time for a visit.

    Slightly blurry, but this is the image that customers get when they first enter the pub. It’s a good first impression in my opinion.

    Pubs have to be brave to put up material such as this…..

    Although this was amusing (to me anyway), captioned “is my friend in the bunker or is the bastard in the green?”.

    The welcome in the pub was friendly, and they had a beer from the St. Austell Brewery and as that was the darkest they had, I went for it. It tasted fine and was well-kept, although I would have ideally liked a more inventive beer selection. The welcome seemed genuine though, although it was a customer who answered my question about what dark beers the pub had.

    A slightly old-fashioned interior, but that absolutely suits the style of the pub, which is a comfortable location for locals and visitors alike. There’s a feeling of tradition here and it’s only through good management that the pub has remained trading, as its future looked in doubt just a few years ago.

    I liked how the staff member offered me a friendly farewell as I left the pub, it’s never a very good final impression when staff just let customers walk out without making some sort of effort to thank them. Overall, it’s a decent pub and one which I imagine has a real community feel to it.

  • Challenges

    Over the last few years I’ve managed to visit a lot of JD Wetherspoon outlets, and so I will be trying to list and reference all of those that I’ve been to. The figure is just under 400, so there’s a long way to go. It’ll take me some time to get through writing about all those I’ve visited, but I’ll keep working on it.

    Much as JD Wetherspoon outlets have a lot going for them in terms of affordable prices, as well as a wide range of real ale and real cider, there are also many other great pubs out there. So, with the assistance of Nathan and his book, here is my list of pubs I’ve visited in CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide.

    In around 2013 there was a series of news articles about a tour company that was attempting to run a tour which would visit every UNESCO World Heritage site in the world. There are just under 1,100 sites on the list at the moment, but when I’ve had the opportunity in recent years, I’ve visited as many sites as I can. Some of the sites are so remote that I’ll likely never visit them, but since I love history and travel, I’m going to visit as many as I can, and I’ll try and write about them here.

  • Wetherspoons

    I didn’t initially set out to visit every single JD Wetherspoons in the country, but my travel habit has meant that I’ve been able to visit a large number of them without trying very hard…..

    Whilst in a JDW venue last year, I was given a directory of all of the chain’s pubs and I worked out that I had been in, at the time, around 330 of them. That figure is now nearer 400 and so I thought I’d better start to document exactly how many I’ve gone to.

    As a caveat, I’m not going far out of my way to visit JD Wetherspoon pubs, so I’m not going to towns just because they have an outlet. However, if it’s nearby, I will just go and pop in. Once I reach the 500 number though, I might start to go slightly out of my way, but that will be my limit…..

    I’d also add here that I don’t go to JD Wetherspoons because of the political views of Tim Martin, just because their real ale is reasonably priced and is routinely of a high quality. And some of their pubs are in really interesting buildings and they have very cheap unlimited coffee.

    And to balance things out, I also try and visit every pub listed in the Good Beer Guide as well. JD Wetherspoon do have their good points, but it’s equally important to visit independent pubs offering something different and who have a real focus on customer service and great real ale (and real cider). But, for the moment, this is just a record of my visits to all of the JDW outlets.

    This might take some time to put together, so I’ll have to do it by county, and I’ll start merrily adding more pages to this section shortly.

    WETHERSPOONS BY COUNTY: (this will take me ages to finish…)

    Cambridgeshire

    Greater London (A-B)

    Hertfordshire

    Norfolk

    Suffolk

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