In case you’re wondering, this is what a 20 minute post looks like.
I’m only writing this up because Arkell’s gets such bad press, and has so few of it’s pubs in the Beer Guide. More than BrewDog or Mallinson though.
As you’re no doubt bored stiff of me saying;
“There’s nowt such thing as bad beer*, it’s just they that keep it that spoil it”
And so with Arkell’s 3B, which I’ve enjoyed in Cheltenham and Swindon before, though not very often. So when we found ourselves with a closed M25 recently, a detour through Ascot and Windsor meant a tea-time stop here;
Ten years ago this came across as a cosy, unpretentious country pub, and the Duke of Edinburgh in Woodside (centre of the OS map) still is.
This was the end of March; I have no idea why there the Christmas Deccies were still up, but otherwise it was free of the clutter you get in Home Counties dining pubs.
“Can you feed us ?” I ventured.
“Do you like curry ?” Couldn’t he tell?
It was their curry night. Proper home-made Beef Madras and Red Chicken curry, £10.95 with a pint of 3B thrown in. For a place between Ascot and Windsor, a bargain.
Any notes I took are covered in Madras sauce (whatever that is), but the blokes opposite were dissecting Kante’s performance and the mysterious ways that Chelsea away tickets are acquired.
The curry was superb, the 3B good enough (NBSS 3), the cheery service a model to all. The roads had cleared by the time we finished. Mrs RM slept all the way home.
Where else should I be going for a decent Arkell’s?
*with a few home-brew exceptions
retiredmartin 
And quite a few short lived start-ups where their beer tasted like poor home brew?
Decorations should be put up in bars throughout winter to make them look more hospitable in darker climes. Preferably only put up mid January until mid April.
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Ha! Arkells. Makes Donnington taste like nectar from the gods 🙂
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The only thing that would make Donnington taste like nectar of the gods is that stuff in the jam jars 😱
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Strawberry or Raspberry?
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Decorations should never be put up in public houses. Cheeriness is unacceptable. Transgressors should be shot. That said, the lovely Ms Rachel Riley once stated on Countdown that if Newtonmas decorations are still on display after January 6th, then they should not be taken down until after the following Newtonman, thus I suppose if a pub has made the sin of displaying them in the first place, then fail to take them down on time, they must suffer the decorations all year.
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You do know there are public houses outside Yorkshire?
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Yes I do Scott. I dislike Newtonmas decorations in all parts of the country.
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Anyone who thinks that there’s no such thing as bad beer obviously can’t remember Vaux….
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Loved a good pint of Samson near Roker.
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I love to see a pub with an Arkells sign outside,shame it is not in their usual white colour.
I know i would have really liked the 3B,a shame the pub is a bit too hard for me to get to to complete my Arkells tied houses of which i am about 20 short of.
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Well i love Christmas if that is was Newtonams means,a time to get merry and give presents,i love looking at the Christmas decorations and we always put the Christmas tree up on the second week of December.
There seems to be a lot of bar humbug on different blogs,why not lighten up,you only live once.
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The 25th of December is Isaac Newton’s birthday, hence the Newtonmas line. He is surely just behind Justin Whittle in the stakes for the greatest Englishman to have ever lived.
I generally don’t have too much of a problem with people being jolly, however at the tail end of the year it becomes a bit overwhelming for a miserable git like me with everything and everywhere decorated for so long. My flat becomes a simultaneous utopia of sanity and sinility at this time. Undecorated pubs extend that available area.
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