Not ALL the Winchester pubs had forgot what “pub” is an abbreviation of. We had a great night there; we always do.
Winchester is an odd place. At times it seems the exclusive preserve of well-off 25-35 year olds; the pubs packed with folk with enough cash left after their mortgage for a proper night out. You can’t say that about Cambridge.
Those places can seem a no-go zone for oldies (that’s me and Mrs RM) presumably confined to the string of upmarket chain restaurants north of the Cathedral.
I was keen to drag Mrs RM the half mile south of town to my second GBG tick at the Queen, but she insisted we ate first.
Overdraft was advertising tacos. And craft beer. See how blurry Mrs RM becomes when she sees craft beer.
It’s a posher mini version of your London craft bar, and once we’d got through the bouncers we liked it a lot, in the way you can’t help liking the beardy places in Walthamstow. Shame they’re all so dark, which is my excuse for the photos.
Long trestle tables though, one of them only a third occupied by a couple of blokes who just shrugged when Mrs RM asked if we could share.
Some good beers on cask and keg, so I reckon this is an exemplar pre-emptive tick. A nice, sensible 7% Stout from Siren. Thinking about it now, it’s surprising they served me a pint. Perhaps they knew what Mrs RM would do if they asked her if she’d rather have a half.
Clearly the more old skool the soundtrack, the trendier the place. We got “Never knew love like this before” by Stephanie Mills, the sort of 1980 disco track I secretly liked but would never actually buy from Andy’s Records.
But I come to praise Overdraft, not to slag off young people. Good beer, expertly prepared messy tacos, naff disco. Hard not to love.
Just mind the stairs when you’ve had that 7% stout.
You can read PubHermit’s review of the sister Overdraft in Shirley here.
retiredmartin 
Referring back to your previous post – did you notice the sign, “Upstairs Room to Hire!” That’s the way it should be done.
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I think the Overdraft has added another rung to the Winchester beer ladder, you don’t often see many pubs/bars opening a couple of doors down from a spoons.
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I may sound thick but i do not no about half of the things you talk about on your blog Martin.
What is tacos, never heard of it before.
I also do not get most of the music things that others seem to, so i must be thick.
I do really like music and prefer to listen to it over watching TV, my guilty pleasure is watching old music videos usually on Top Two,i was just enjoying watching Tears for Fears and Sister Sledge last night when the wife wanted to watch Britain’s got Talent so Britain’s got Talent it was.
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I can assure you you’re not thick Alan, your comments on here about Proper Pubs are as sensible as anyone’s.
Tacos are Mexican style small flat breads (bit like mini pittas) with beef or pork and beans in them.
Everyone likes different types of music; no-one’s musical tastes are right or wrong. Unless they like Coldplay.
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Coldplay, goes without saying…
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I do have two Coldplay Cds Parachutes and A Rush of Blood to the Head also a best of Kyle CD,but i really like Pink Floyd, Oasis and Noel Gallagher CDs, when i was younger it was Hawkwind and Tangerine Dream, i even did a talk on Tangerine Dream at school as part of my course and made my poor class mates listen to parts of tapes i copied on my dads music centre.
We both have absolute Radio on in three rooms during the day.
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“Cathedral, obviously”
I thought it was an album cover for the Vaudeville Band. 😉
“sensible 7% Stout from Siren”
The blackboard says it’s 6.5% (the Broken Dream, yes?).
“#We Want Plates”
For something that messy, maybe bowls. 🙂
“Just mind the stairs when you’ve had that 7% stout.”
That looks like something out of Escher.
Cheers
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Hey Russ, can’t a simple man round up to the nearest percentage point 😉
Actually, what good eyesight you have. Do you grown carrots in the ice ?
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“Actually, what good eyesight you have.”
Thanks. (he said, as he took off his glasses to clean them) 🙂
“Do you grown carrots in the ice ?”
Pfft. We do that in our underground cities:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_city#Canada
Cheers!
PS – oh ok, I’ll give you the rounding up. (LOL)
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Thanks Russ ! To be honest, I find it quite difficult reading the ABVs on those black barrels.
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Whilst I like trad pubs it’s nice to see new style versions full of younger people…it’s the future! 👍
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Broken Dream AND Dark Arts (even if latter the keg version) on in one place at the same time – am in love! (Looks to see what league Winchester City are in, and when they next have a Saturday home fixture.)
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Yes we were impressed too. It’s just the trestle tables…
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I remember going to Winchester once. Very pretty place with some interesting buildings; Cathedral, Abbey Gardens etc. What surprised me, and often does down south, was how skanky the clientele were in the town centre pubs, we considered staying over, but what we saw at lunch time made our minds up to move on; considering it bills itself as quite an upmarket sort of a place with exorbitant house prices. Probably explains the presence of bouncers, on what looks like an ordinary sort of night, on the pub/bar door?
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I know exactly what you mean, but if there were skanky people in Winchester, I don’t know where they go. Oh yes I do, it’s the Spoons…
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No, in the other pubs, we called in a few town centre boozers and never had a drink because of it. I’ve seen it in a lot of places like that where you wouldn’t expect it.
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Apols Richard. What I meant was all the town centre pubs we passed last week were full of smartly dressed people except the Spoons, of which more later.
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