NEW MOOS FROM MILTON KEYNES

 

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Three offensive items in the photo above.  Can you name them ?  (not Beer Moos).

Yes, a (voluntary) trip to Milton Keynes, tantalisingly close to Leighton Buzzard, which I really ought to add to Pub Curmudgeon’s shortlist of best pubbing town.

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All your favourites

I’ve been relatively kind to MK over the years (see here) , despite the roundabouts, the arguments in IKEA car park and the lack of independent enterprise (never mind interesting pubs).

I got very excited (doesn’t take much) when I saw this in the centre,

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but it transpires even German Doner Kebab is a chain.  Keynesians like chains, it seems.

As I said, not much new in town, though I missed this unusual sculpture commemorating the 1924 “Pitmen swinging TVs” competition.

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No idea

Not much new, but plenty of change.

Tucked in the Theatre Quarter, Brewhouse & Kitchen used to be one of the three Wetherspoons, perhaps the “liveliest” one and therefore the one to be sacrificed.

Lose a Spoons, gain a homebrew pub with War Horse advert.

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Quite good theatre, apparently

I know you CAMRA folk love your shiny new breweries, endlessly increasing choice.  This one is very shiny.

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More ! More ! More !

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I guess you’ll be wanting to know if I got to practise my beer-returning skills.

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Tickers paradise

Of course. The weak one, 12th Street, was virtually undrinkable, while the interesting keg taps taunted me.

“I’m not sure about this one, it’s very sharp”  I offered.

“It only went on yesterday.  Perhaps if I pull it through ?” said the nice man.

Yes, perhaps pulling it through at the start of a session is a good idea.

The replacement was a bit better, I gave it a 2.img_20180905_124856-1950301072.jpg

But hardly enjoyable. And worst of all, no pot plants.

In its defence it’s an attractive looking restaurant, comfortingly identical to their outlets in Gloucester and Highbury and Bedford etc.  Bar a couple of lunching ladies on Prosecco, it was empty at 1pm.

Where were all the lunchtime diners ?  I headed for the Spoons.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

37 thoughts on “NEW MOOS FROM MILTON KEYNES”

  1. Before the summer we were bombarded with posts on beatiful Scottish pubs with carpets, open fireplaces, wooden furniture etc. In early summer, we got to follow your visit to Leeds and other great places for pub connoisseurs. In your posts these days, I’m struggling to find a single pub that I’d like to visit.

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    1. Don’t blame me, Morten, I didn’t delay the new GBG ! ;-))

      You’ll hate the next one, then there’s a couple of nice ones in Leeds, then a couple in Peterborough you won’t warm to. I may go out tomorrow (I’ve had man-flu) and use some secret intelligence about new Guide entries…

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  4. A Wetherspoons converted to a Brewhouse and Kitchen means Milton Keynes has something in common with Lichfield.
    That Upside Down Brewery would surely be the Arse About Tit Brewery were it t’other side of Watford Gap.

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    1. But wouldn’t it be terrible if every time you went to a pub you had to rub shoulders with those horrible people who only use a pub on Christmas Eve ?
      And if you wanted a lunch it had to be booked well in advance and cost £60 ?

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      2. Christmas Eve usually isn’t too bad, it’s that Friday in the middle of December when the works night out hits you need to avoid.
        I used to have a boss who went to the pub every day apart from December 31st.

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      5. Christmas is the worst time of the year with everyone pretending to be happy for a few days.
        It was much better when I were a lad. We’d have a whole week not being thrashed at school and seven nights not doing a shift down t’pit. We’d wake up on Christmas morning with a sock at the bottom of t’bed with two tangerines and half a dozen walnuts in it and, if we’d been good all year, several bright new pennies – and they were the proper sized pennies with Britannia on t’reverse not those piddling little pennies we’ve had to use since 1971. And instead of M&B Mild ( not that there was owt wrong with M&B Mild ) for a few days we’d sup Draught Bass. Aye, we’ll not see Christmases like that again. Nor will we have proper winters like in 1962 to ’63.

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      7. Martin,
        The thaw set in during March 1963 so it was at the end of that proper winter that your parents realised the best way of keeping warm !

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  6. “Tucked in the Theatre Quarter, Brewhouse & Kitchen used to be one of the three Wetherspoons, perhaps the “liveliest” one and therefore the one to be sacrificed”.

    Milton Keynes actually has two current ‘Spoons branches : Moon under Water, Xscape, 10 Avebury Boulevard, Milton Keynes ; Wetherspoons, 201 Midsummer Boulevard, Milton Keynes.

    It also has two former ‘Spoons branches, both of which have been disposed of relatively recently : David Garrick, 7 Savoy Crescent, Milton Keynes (now Brewhouse & Kitchen) ; Secklow Hundred, 316 Midsummer Boulevard, Milton Keynes (now Draft House).

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    1. Thanks Fred.

      I said it used to be one of three Spoons. I wrote about the other two, eponymous one (now in the Guide) and the Xscape ones last year.

      COME TO MILTON KEYNES

      I confess I’d forgotten that Draft House used to be one too in an almost identical location to the eponymous Spoons. Bet I got confused when I visited those ! Incidentally, Draft House is now a branch of Brew Dog, and I’m just about to post on it !

      I think Mansfield had four Spoons at one stage too.

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    2. Fred,
      I spent a fortnight of 1973 in Stony Stratford and about a dozen nights since then in Bradwell so know bits of Milton Keynes but not the centre.
      I’ve used the Countryman a couple of times and also a Wetherspoons near the station which, unusually, was a new build, not that that made it much different from Tim’s re-use of redundant buildings.

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  7. I believe that Northampton has had more ‘Spoons branches than any other town (as opposed to city) in the country. But I do not think that it ever got to four simultaneously !

    I make it three branches in Mansfield. We currently have : Stag & Pheasant, Unit 4, Clumber Street, Mansfield and Widow Frost, 41-43 Leeming Street, Mansfield. The closed branch is Court House, Market Place, Mansfield, which is now a Hawthorn Leisure / New River establishment.

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      1. When I went to the one in Dorchester (which admittedly was on a boiling hot day) I gave the cask a swerve and went for their own lager, which was actually pretty good.

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  9. “Three offensive items in the photo above. Can you name them ? ”

    1) Anything to do with Christmas before Remembrance Day;
    2) ‘Open Me Here’ – why can’t I bloody take them off the table and open them somewhere else?
    3) Wrong type of beer mug hidden behind the sign?

    “All your favourites”

    That photo doesn’t show for me.

    “Keynesians like chains,”

    And not just metaphorically either! 🙂

    “No idea”

    I think that’s the Silver Surfer meets Thor (with a bit of Pokemon thrown in).

    “More ! More ! More !”

    What… more 70’s music from Andrea True Connection? 😉

    “Tickers paradise”

    It’s like a mini beer festival!

    “worst of all, no pot plants.”

    What! You’d think such a hip establishment would be festooned with plants from the Cannabaceae family. 😉

    Cheers

    PS – “worst of all, no pot plants.”

    Capitalise. You can take the capital from the sentence below:

    “In its defence It’s an attractive looking restaurant,” 🙂

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      3. I never made it to Wolverton, but I only rated the Stony Stratford pub in the GBG, Bletchley albeit better than the MK offerings, wasnt anything to write home about, I mean the reason no-one builds decent pubs in MK is the centre of it is like some horrible cross between an airport and a shopping centre, its all massive glass frontages which leak warmth in winter and create a greenhouse in summer, which fits Wetherspoons and some of the craft places, but when the experience is akin to you unconciously looking up for a non-existent departure board every 5minutes, its time to leave and go somewhere better.

        but Ive been to a few Brewhouse and Kitchens, I dont think they are as bad as people make out the issue is always is the onsite brewer any good ? because they have free reign on the beers they can make, and each location has its own beers, if they arent then people will naturally fall back on the beers they know about and treat it as a foodie place that serves reasonably decent keg/craft beer, but not touch the cask cos theyve never heard of these beers, that are still attracting the craft premium prices, and which the staff arent exactly falling over themselves to upsell, or maintain properly. So I can see where the problems originate from,but when it comes together well, they are actually very good,though as always in the pub trade its about employing quality staff who are more than just tap turners and screen tappers.

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      4. I think that’s spot on. The beer was good at the Angel, Islington and Gloucester, and I agree it’s basically treated as a foodie place rather than a pub. A very poor pub compared to Spoons.

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      5. Stono,
        “Its all massive glass frontages which leak warmth in winter and create a greenhouse in summer” might be to try to create the ambiance of the GBBF.
        During the summer of 1973 I got round all the Stony Stratford pubs, which included my first ever Charles Wells in the Plough, and was bought a pint of Red by the Milton Keynes Development Corporation in the Watneys pub in Milton Keynes village,

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      6. Martin,
        In Islington I always found the Glass Works to be better than the Angel but it’s the Glass Works that Tim has closed.

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