The Moon under Water (JD Wetherspoon), Milton Keynes

Called in on our Buckinghamshire tour around Milton Keynes of pubs appearing in the 2019 Good Beer Guide. There was a decent choice of a few ales over their usual range and we enjoyed the Leighton Buzzard Captain Cook and the locale Hornes Greensand Golden Ale.

One of a long row of food / drink outlets along the western side of the Xscape entertainment complex, this initially appears on the small side for a modern-ish 'spoons (unless you enter via the internal doors, in which case you pass through the larger side area. Irregularly shaped bar supplemented by a fair amount of patio seating outside. Mixed selection from 12 of 15 handpumps, with a couple from Vale (including the Red Kite, £2.25) plus beers from Hornes and Ampthill amongst the more mainstream offerings.

Housed in a modern building below the vast Ski Slope,the interior is curved through 90 degrees which gives it an unusual edge with a raised area with four wall reliefs housing a bit of modern art.However the rest of the furniture was standard 'spoons issue while the part of the floor in wood is now very well worn.There are 3 banks of 5 handpumps on the curved bar near the front entrance but the far rank just had festival ales "coming soon",in other words a cheap advert.On the other 10 Doom Bar,Ruddles Best and Concrete Cow Cock & Bull(a decent Locale) appeared the regular ales while there were 5 festval ales and 2 pumps unclipped. It could have been worse,and realistically this is the only option in the immediate area ,so it was quite popular on my lunchtime visit.Inspiring it is not,just a bog standard 'spoons.

I thought that Spoons had stopped using this name for their outlets by the new millennium (this one opened in August 2000) but apparently not so. This one is set at the base of a ludicrous structure called the Xscape centre that looks like a giant aircraft hanger and houses of all things a skiing slope. I would guess that as this is part of a leisure complex Wetherspoons lease it from the owners so it is only purpose built in that they were given an area with x, y and z dimensions then built this outlet into it. It's a long narrow room and as you would expect from Milton Keynes wholly uninspiring. There were 3 sets of five pumps but there was lots of doubling up, a few unused, cider, the regular boring stuff and mainstream Bateman's XXXB & Deuchar's IPA. This left two credible choices the locale Phipps Midsummer Meadow or the American Terrapin brew. I went for the Midsummer Meadow (£2.20) which was pleasant enough. This was for me the least attractive of the four MK Spoons.