The Victoria, Dunstable

The Victoria is a bijou locals' boozer close to the centre of Dunstable. Its size and the number of customers made it packed for my Sunday afternoon visit. Most were watching a Premier League match. Beyond a corridor containing the toilets is an outdoor area with a TV also showing the football. With no tables in the bar, I moved outside. There is also a function room adjacent to this area. The door was open and I had a quick peak inside. It was seemingly intended as an overspill area, but there were no takers. Tring Victoria Bitter is the house beer here. Guests were Fuller's London Pride & Leighton Buzzard Vimy Bomber, which I'd just tried in my previous pub, the Pheasant. So, I went for the house beer. The landlord was friendly and the locals seemed in high spirits. Another decent Dunstable boozer.

This is a small, but seemingly popular town centre pub with a compact main bar to the front and a function room at the rear. Entering to the main bar, you find yourself in a small, L-shaped room with the servery occupying the rear left quadrant. A few high tables and stools stand underneath the front windows, which have venetian blinds and frosted upper panes. A single table with chairs stands over to the far left, in front of what looked like a possible blocked off fireplace and there was an England flag here obscuring what seemed to be a dartboard, although without actually getting up and pulling it aside, I couldn’t be fully sure of this. Two more tables with chairs and low stools are arranged over to the right, in front of a nice, raised, brick fireplace with a plain mirror above. Beyond this, a single padded bench booth was packed full of locals who seemed to be seeing how small a space it was possible to exercise the ‘Rule of 6’ in. The servery has an attractive herringbone brickwork counter front, although it has undoubtedly seen better days, whilst the plain, wooden bar back had been liberally festooned with numerous England flags and bunting in readiness for England’s clash with Scotland in Euro 2020 the following evening. On the rear wall, I noticed a juke box and there were a few screens around the room showing other Euro 2020 fixtures, with the sound just about audible under the general hubbub of a reasonable midweek evening turnout and the irritating clacking of an old ceiling fan above. A passage next to the bar leads out to the function room and beer garden, neither of which I managed to explore. The pub is known for stocking a few interesting guest ales as well as a house beer, Victoria Ale by Tring Brewery, and has made it into recent editions of the Good Beer Guide as a result. The guests on this visit were Fullers London Pride and Leighton Buzzard Best Buzzard, the latter of which was served up in quick time by a very brusque barmaid who eyed me with suspicion throughout the course of my stay. The beer was nothing to write home about but was at least in good condition. At the time of my visit, the pub was only accepting cash payments. I quite liked the old-school feel of this place, from the grumpy but efficient bar staff to the entertaining locals and the well-kept beer. The place has a proper local’s pub feel to it and whilst the live sport and juke box rule out the possibility of a quiet pint, the prospect of an interesting guest or two on the bar means it still merits inclusion on any crawl around town.

This is a small terraced pub with lots of external posters advertising various footbore matches. Happily on a Thursday lunchtime there was nothing being shown. Inside it's a small single room with a dart board immediately to the left then the bar. This had four hand pumps with a house beer called Victoria Ale by Tring Brewery, Reedley Hollows Old Laund, Adnam's Broadside and Black Paw Dark Seam. I went for the Dark Seam (£3.20) which was a superb porter style of beer. The current owners are selling up and retiring after 19 years so it is hoped that they can find the right buyer for this nice little pub. It's GBG 2015 listed.