Pubs Galore - the UK pub guide

A large roadside former 17th Century coaching inn on the tourist route into Exmoor. It’s a lively local as well as a tourist hotel. There’s a busy car park at the side, some outside seating at the front and a rather unimpressive garden. The barman wasn’t the most welcoming, and the locals weren’t that friendly either, one of them moaning about our dogs for no apparent reason. The single large bar and dining room is irregular in shape with room to stand at the bar and plenty of seating, though much of it was reserved when we visited. The food wasn’t that cheap but it did look plentiful; we decided not to eat though. Two ales on, Exmoor Gold and Ale, both in decent condition. Also available were Thatcher’s Gold and Haze, Guinness, Carlsberg, Moretti and Estrella. There are 2 pubs in Exford, so next time I’ll try the other one.

After a day of touring around Suffolk's village pubs, we planned to finish our crawl at this small town pub in West Suffolk. It was a completely different kind of pub to every one that had gone before in most ways, being loud and boisterous.

I was also expecting a bit more on the cask ale front. There were a number of bar hoggers, but I believe that there were 5 handpulls. 2 were clipped with Abbot, with the other 3 having turned clips. The landlord was pulling through a Greene King seasonal beer. Ciders were Weston's Vintage and the 3 Thatcher's fruity ones.

Music was a bit too loud for our liking. There was also a TV showing a Louis Theroux programme with nobody seemingly watching.

What I did like about this pub was that the landlord was very welcoming. He invited us to take a seat in a quieter separate room off to the left if it was all a bit too loud for us. We declined this offer, preferring to sample the full atmosphere! He also took the trouble to come over to us and chat. He explained that most of his cask ale market is on a Saturday. Sunday drinkers weren't really into their real ales, apart from the Abbot, which explained the apparent poor selection for a pub that appears in the 2025 Good Beer Guide.

I could quite easily have scored this the lowest of the day, but it is welcoming gaffers like this one that can make or break a pub. Swearing and swaying (as in the review below) is still very much the order of the day in this pub. But as long as this sort of behavior doesn't end up with brawls and any other kind of trouble, I regard it as acceptable in a pub. The landlord seemed to have all of this under control and was able to welcome some much more sober customers (ourselves) in a really friendly and approachable manner. As such, I thought this was an enjoyable place to end our crawl for the day.

I agree with Stronger's review below mentioning the friendly governor. He certainly knows how to look after his beer and makes his own award winning cider, which is called Hurst View, I thought it was superb. We parked ourselves on the red reclaimed bus seats along the right hand side wall and got some education from the large world atlas on the opposite wall. Three pumps Salopian Hop Twister, Wye Valley HPA and Hobsons Twisted Spire.
We also took advantage of the nice weather and took our drinks out to the front seating area.

Not realising that this was the Harvey’s brewery tap, I initially thought it may have been named after John Harvey-Jones, but no.
This is a fairly modern conversion and I can’t really add anything more, but agree with Will that the beers here are really no different from those served at Lewes’s other Harvey’s cosa nostra.
I went for the Armada Ale £2.85 a half and very nice.
Worth a visit as part of a crawl, but I couldn’t take a prolonged stay.

Unusually for a remote pub, this is open 7 days a week and get this, opening from 8:30am till 11pm.

Set along a row of terraced houses, this is immaculately decorated insider and outside. Extended into the next properties, the interior consists of a small bar and then a long room setup for dining. There is a small patio outside, where you can hear the sea if not see it due to the high wall sea defences.

Reason for a higher than usual score for a gastro is botb the opening times and quality of one of the three casks I tried. Never has an Otter Ale been in better condition.