The Retreat, Reading

Yep its all aready been said. Great pub,friendly staff,excellent ale(though odd pricing policy),lived in,GO THERE.

If the phrase hidden gem had been penned for a pub it would have been penned for this one. You have the feeling of having entered some eccentric Aunt's parlour as you step through the door. The whole place has a delightfully disorganised feel to it. Eggs were on sale at one end of the bar and a pot for recycling batteries sat at the other. It's clearly a ‘green' bar and a campaigning one judging by the posters decrying beer duty and lambasting Alistair Darling. Among the clutter of the back bar there's an old piano, that we didn't try out, and a £1 a game pool table, which we did. There's a good jukebox with a lot of old jazz numbers as if to accentuate the step back in time. To round all of this off the beer selection is very good with 6 hand pumps. I had a couple of good Lodden Ferrymaster's whilst my mates raved over the Old Hooky. They also have an impressive range of bottled beers including Chimay, Rochefort and an interesting smoked German beer that I was tempted to try. Unfortunately, unlike time in The Retreat, we had to move on.

Small 2 bar back street pub, smallish pleasant front bar serving well kept local micro brewery beers, mostly from Andwell and Loddon, plus Ringwood. Good range of German and Belgian bottles, plus draught and bottled ciders. The back lounge is a bit scruffy and somewhat odd, there is a decent juke box, pool table and lots of board games etc. piled up on top of the piano. The customers are a mixed bunch and there is a sort of sub hippy atmosphere in the back bar.