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Picking your pint Gareth Langley Corpus Christi Chemistry
M
ost Freshers’ Week nights see some secondor third year trying to sell you tickets to some dark barn with music so loud you can still hear it next morning and with drinks that are either freezing cold or fluorescent. They may even come in a bucket, perhaps the grimmest container for anything you’re planning to consume. You are doing yourself a major disservice by spending all your evenings going to such establishments, especially when Oxford has a marvellous selection of pubs that cater for almost every taste… We’ll start with the cheapest bars in town. The Three Goats Heads next to the Oxford Union on St Michaels St is run by the Sam Smith’s brewery and hence, like all of their pubs across the country, the cheapest pint comes in at around £2.40. The small and quirky two-level pub is popular amongst students but the beer is all from pressurised kegs and the other offerings tend to be a bit more expensive. Round the corner, on George St you can find The Four Candles, the largest Wetherspoons in town (the other is towards the castle) which, like all other Spoons is soulless, classless, cheap and therefore a prime pre-lashing location. Just up the road on George St you have the not-so-cheap The Grapes, which has recently been taken over by Bath Ales and has a good selection of beers and lagers, including some interesting Belgian and German offerings, as well as being a rare outlet for properly dark beer. The location (opposite the New Theatre) means that the nice atmosphere and quality offerings don’t come cheap. Around the corner, next to Gloucester Green, you find two pubs which almost certainly don’t share the same clientèle. The Gloucester Arms is best described as a rocker’s pub with loud music, dark walls and heavy metal karaoke on a Monday. Almost directly opposite is the Far From the Madding Crowd, named as such
FOOD AND DRINK
since it is often viewed as a quiet retreat from the boisterous bars of George St. Popular with locals and reputed to be full of thesps, you will regularly find real ciders and perrys available. Not a cheap place to drink, but the quality, very much like The Grapes, makes it well worth a visit (or two). Head up St Giles past St John’s to find The Lamb and Flag - a pub that oozes quality - with three distinct sections, Old Peculiar and ‘Lamb and Flag Ale’, officially known as Palmers Dorset Gold. Near the science park and Classics Faculty, it provides a nice venue for an end-of-week pint or two. Opposite is The Eagle and Child, which like the Lamb and Flag, is owned by St John’s, but unlike the Lamb and Flag, is sublet to the pubco Nicholson’s. Like the other Nicholson’s pubs in town it’s a tad disappointing and the literary links to Tolkien mean you are likely to be sat next to tourists as well as paying more than £3.25 for a pint. Head back towards the middle of town and you’ll find three of the most famous pubs in Oxford. All are very popular with tourists and hence the food and drink prices are inflated (well in excess of £3 per pint, more like £3.30+). The White Horse, which can be found in the middle of Blackwells bookshop is very small and almost always busy so it’s not a great place to go with a large group of mates or a sports team, unless you’re the sort of person who finds the Central line at 6pm a pleasant place to be. The large pink building on the corner is The Kings Arms, a rather pleasant Youngs pub where you can get a good pint of Winter Warmer, provided that you’re there when it’s quiet. Unfortunately, it generally isn’t. Avoid on Sunday evenings unless you want to spend it with sozzled members of a certain controversial, non-affiliated, right-wing political organisation. The equally large Turf Tavern has most of its seating outdoors, albeit under cover, and has the most hand pumps of any pub in town as well as a number of dubious claims to fame: Morse, Clinton, cock fighting and quizzes to name a few. The pub relies on a reputation that it somewhat fails to live up to. The Turf isn’t a bad place to go, but like the building
itself, it’s only 18th century. Scratch beneath the surface and you’ll realise that the place needs a little bit of a lift to realise its full potential. If you want a truly old pub, then head to The Bear just off Oriel Square, a Fuller’s pub with low beams, a bizarre number of ties on the wall and a good pint of ESB (though again at tourist prices). Expensive is also the name of the game at The Head of the River, where you’ll pay dearly for the location on the banks of the Isis and the chance to sit outside next to lots more tourists. One thing that links all of the pubs highlighted so far is that, with the exception of the Wetherspoons, none of them has a TV, so where do you go when there’s a major event on the box? In the middle of town, there is the Eurobar on George Street as well as the The Duke’s Cut on Park End Street which both have Sky Sports and show major football fixtures. Eurobar is effectively a large sports bar, whilst The Duke’s Cut is more of a classic pub. If you want to watch a sport that isn’t football, then your best bet is The Royal Blenheim on St Ebbes St (opposite Camera) thanks to the policy of the slightly eccentric Welsh landlord. Always very busy on international rugby match days, the pub has a strong mixture of local and student regulars. There’s a wide selection of vegetarian and vegan food to go with the pretty good pub food, which with the well kept beer (the pub is the brewery tap for the White Horse brewery) and wide range of spirits, particularly single malts, makes the Blenheim one of the best pubs in town. Finally, don’t forget that there are plenty of places outside the city centre that are well worth visting: The Angel and Greyhound, The Isis Farmhouse and The Mason’s Arms to name a few. Oxford CAMRA have produced a pub guide to Oxford and the surrounding area, so if you want to find out more about these places and more, then it can be found for £5.99 in a number of pubs across town and online, or you can just take a walk and find out for yourself… N.B. All prices are approximate and correct at time of writing. Prices are for a pint of real ale or equivalent.