The Hop Leaf, Reading

Busy, welcoming pub serving the full range of Hop Back beers including Odyssey, which I hadn't heard of and regret not trying, esp now I read HB's interesting tasting notes (coffee & marmalade?). Reading is something of a concrete mess but cherry-picking the handful of pubs that are so rightly praised on this site makes a visit very worthwhile, although getting around the 4/5 best ones will certainly result in a hangover as you'd have to be very disciplined not to want several pints in each.

The Hop leaf is an L shaped Hop Back Brewery run pub with a bar that supports seven hand pumps. During my Saturday afternoon visit a couple of weeks ago one of the hand pumps was unused leaving Downton Brewery’s Ed’s American Red and four hop back beers as the ale options alongside Old Rosie as the cask cider option. I’m not a massive fan of Hop back beers so I went for the Downton which was very nice. There is a dartboard, a pinball machine and a bar billiards table where I was left ‘dormant’ by the captain’s ‘masterclass’. I should have stuck to topping up my tan on one of the three picnic tables out the front. This is a decent pub that is worthy of a revisit.

Another proper boozer,tied to the Hopback Brewery.The interior is modest in size but there was a friendly welcome and it's always good to see a pinball machine and bar billiards,together with a darts board.There were seven handpumps,one selling Old Rosie cider,the other Hopback GFB,Redsell's EKG,Summer Lightening,Crop Circle (in good nick,good value at £2.80) and a guest badged as Ed's American Rye. Definitely one of the better real ale pubs in Reading,probably one not to be missed if you enjoy the simple pleasures are drinking beer and beating your fellow crawlers at bar billiards.