My last Oxfordshire GBG tick
took me to Banbury, as good a place as any to finish a chapter, given there’s no exciting parlour pubs selling Hooky from the jug still to be discovered.
And that’s the downside of having completed 80-90% of the Guide; you’ll never HAVE to do the Peyton Arms or the Leathern Bottle again and all the new pubs will be micros or Brewery Taps and/or dreadful. I envy BRAPA sometimes, But not the hangovers.
A nice simple walk into town past the shoppers (what on earth do people buy ?) takes in the canal, Castle Shopping Centre and the town’s most (only ?) famous pub.
As I must have said before, St Mary’s is a splendid church, with exciting modern music, just like Oxford.
I was devastated to have just missed the Chipping Norton Choral Society before they started their tour with Fish.
More disappointingly, I also missed Life After Football, (BeerMat), who was in the Bell while I was in the Bailiff’s.
BeerMat found Sharp’s and a septuagenarian Landlord in the Bell who liked “Bitter”. He’d have loved the “Bitter, Pale, Stout, IPA” blackboard at the Bailiff’s.
But whoa ! That stout is 8.5%, a bit strong even for Mrs RM.
So I went for Nobby’s, as local as it gets. And it was good (NBSS 3/3.5), even in the weird glass. The cooling jackets had done their job this summer, I was told. Great stuff.
Down the road, BeerMat had a comfortable two-roomer with Hi-Vis and dominoes.
I got a two roomer with less comfortable seating and two cheery blokes discussing what they were going to put on Untappd, the evil that beer men do.
The sign said “No WiFi, we talk to each other here“. I tried that for a bit, before the attention drifted back to Untappd uploads. Friendly but distracted, and the silence was awkward.
Still, good beer, and that’s what counts, isn’t it ?
Finally, just to make Dave and Dick and Russ and Mark and Prof jealous,these are the beers in the Exchange, a Spoons apparently revitalised and back in the Guide.
I described it as “lively” last year, as Si will no doubt find out in 2029.
retiredmartin 
Get to Banbury micropubs when you can.
The Old Town Ale & Cider House there opened with a “vision of low rent, low or no business rates, VAT free and less than 500 sq ft.” – or ‘on the cheap’ in common parlance – and didn’t last long.
Stopping off in Banbury on my way home from Oxford last February I didn’t get round many pubs as I couldn’t tear myself out of t’Old Reinedeer so good was it.
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That Wadworth has me jealous. Not far off…
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Three posts on Boxing Day – very impressive.
If your catching-up exercise carries on at this rate, we should be on live blogging by February. that will help those of us who keep forgetting the current time-travel feature of this blog.
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I hope to be up-to-date by year-end, Fred, as I haven’t been to a pub since the 22nd my birthday) and want to bring you some exciting highlights packages.
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Yes, I seem to spend so much time reading beer blogs that actually going to the pub is becoming more and more unusual.
Anyway, belated happy birthday !
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> My last Oxfordshire GBG tick
Until next Autumn, unless you know something that we do not.
> …and all the new pubs will be micros or Brewery Taps and/or dreadful.
Or worse – cold, draughty market stalls with two seats and ale at £5.25 per pint.
> …these are the beers in the Exchange, a Spoons apparently revitalised and back in the Guide.
Revitalised since ‘Spoons got rid of their other Banbury branch, the Fleur de Lys.
> I described it as “lively” last year, as Si will no doubt find out in 2029.
Is that when the 2020 Guide is expected to be in the tickers’ hands ?
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Ah, I recall Fleur de Lys. Beer was good in the Narrows last year.
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The Fleur de Lys :-
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/14934206.Pub_calls_last_orders_-_and_reopens_under_new_management_in_same_week/
Now a Stonegate pub called “The Cherwell”, 63-67 Broad Street, Banbury OX16 5BL :-
https://www.greatukpubs.co.uk/the-cherwell-banbury
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Saw that one. At least Stonegate aren’t a “Budget Gastropub” 😉
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Indeed “Stonegate aren’t a Budget Gastropub” but they’re more like fine dining than Wetherspoons.
Six days from now I should be having one of their breakfasts in the Lost Dene.
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Yes, St Mary’s Church is rather special – so much so that I nominated as my new (to me) tourist attraction of 2017. Did you go in to see the “Arctic windows”?
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I’ve been in before. I remember your “disappointing service at the Italian restaurant” but not the St Marys visit.
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Martin,
But you’ll probably get better service at an Indian restaurant in Wolverhampton.
“Jaswinder Singh carried on cooking in a prep room at Pappu Sweet Centre & Catering despite the sudden death of one of his workers”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/3196415/Kebab-boss-prepared-food-as-worker-lay-dead-nearby.html
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Fuss fuss fuss. Nanny state.
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which italian was that?
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Yes, happy birthday! I’d kill to be 54 again!
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I hadn’t really considered how the changing trends in GBG inclusion have resulted in you having to go to a lot of micros/brewery taps consecutively. You’ve gone to so many of the old pubs that are in the guide, and very few proper pubs are coming into the guide for the first time. So you’re left with only new entrants, and these days that tends to mean a micro or a brewery tap.
But will it be even worse for Simon when he reaches the same stage?!
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A perfect explanation, Mark. Simon expressed some sympathy for Duncan and I in a recent post; he’s already experiencing this as he continues his North-West pubbing.
Mind you, the 2 Oxford entries were Proper Pubs in every sense, and I quite like some of the quirkier places like Vinyl Tap in Preston.
Newer places not much fun to write/read about.
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Maybe the bizarre theory that beer quality is proportionate to the number of beers on has given way to a new theory that beer quality is inversely proportionate to opening hours.
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A marvellous post and I reckon your boozer was a worthwhile trip…Doom bar in seventh is a scandal! Happy birthday Martin and carry on with the top work 👏👏👏
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One of these days I’ll bump into you in the same pub !
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” But not the hangovers.”
(chuckle)
“Mind the GAP”
(slow golf clap)
“Not bad for a shopping centre”
Dates back to 1977 I see.
“Donna spelt wrong, Russ”
I’ll ‘grant’ you that. 😉
“I also missed Life After Football, (BeerMat), who was in the Bell while I was in the Bailiff’s.”
Don’t you lot have a proximity app on your phones to let you know when another blogger is nearby? 😋
“I got a two roomer with less comfortable seating”
That sofa looks pretty comfy.
“these are the beers in the Exchange,”
And not a one above 5%. 😎
Cheers
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The giveaway that LAF was in town should have been the horde of groupies following hom around.
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The beer and the prices, both of which to be jealous.
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I moored in Banbury a couple of years ago and had a couple in the Reindeer. Among the better pubs on the Oxford canal, I’d say.
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Yes, I think so. Problem is you don’t get in the Beer Guide just serving two well kept beers from the local family brewery anymore.
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It is the oldest pub in town. And the Globe Room is very interesting.
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Yes, if in Banbury again I probably wouldn’t bother with any pubs other than the Reindeer.
As for the Good Beer Guide the 2019 edition is the first one ever I’ve not got.
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At the top of my close there is an ex-pub with some Hunt Edmunds ghost writing
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It used to be called the flowing well and before that the constitution
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