The Lamb, Newport Pagnell

Called in while visiting Buckinghamshre's 2019 Good Beer Guide pubs in the Milton Keynes area. Friendly community pub serving a couple of very good Tring beers, especially the 7.2% Death or Glory which they proudly say is the house beer available 365 days a year.

An intriguing pub serving the local village which, as Blackthorn mentions below, has resisted the urge to go Gastro and is first and foremost a drinkers pub (though food is offered, of course). Our visit found four ales (Brock Bitter, Tring Death or Glory, Frog Brewery Bitter and Oakham JHB). An unusual mix and I’d never had three of the available beers. Quality was fairly good across the board and staff were friendly. A collection of punters and their dogs were in attendance and there was a genuinely friendly atmosphere. The pub retains a traditional two-room layout, most people were in the right hand bar although I thought the left hand room was rather more characterful. The interior décor in the right-hand bar is a bit dated and in places feels like an uncompleted DIY project from the mid 80’s, right down to the hospital blue walls. There was also a distinct smell of damp. Plenty of stuff to keep punters occupied, including darts, table-top pub skittles, board games, real fire, projector for sports and a collection of clocks. Worth dropping by.

A traditional village local that has resisted the temptation to go down the gastro-pub route, but nonetheless offers a decent selection of pub grub dishes alongside an unusual range of beers. A few locals (and dog) were stood at the bar, and the staff all seemed pleasant and polite. It’s divided in to two halves with a lounge bar to the left and a public bar to the right. Unusually the public bar is carpeted, while the lounge has some type of lino on the floor. Although I generally opt for the lounge, especially if I’m eating, on this occasion I went for the bar as the lounge looked to be a little lacking in character, perhaps as there was on-one else in there. The walls have pale blue wood cladding on the lower part of the walls, with cream plasterwork above. The bar itself is further divided in to a couple of sections with a low partition separating the two, and there is a further snug at the rear. The front half is mostly open space no doubt on account of the darts board. Besides this there was a small TV up in the corner, and I also spied a projector which is presumably pressed in to use for major sporting events. The rear half is slightly cosier with a brick fire-place that had a real fire blazing away along with piles of books and board games. The menu initially looked to be very much of the snack variety with options such as a burger, beans on toast, fish finger butty (!) and a selection of jacket potatoes priced at around the £4 - £5 mark. I then spotted a chalkboard above the fire place, and this listed a decent enough selection of “pub grub” dishes such as Ham Egg & Chips, Bangers & Mash, Beef Stew, etc, priced between about £8 and £10. My Pie of the Day (Chicken & Bacon) was not as tasty as some and the pastry was a little soggy, but it was still decent enough and was a very generous portion covering the whole plate and came with two side dishes of chips and vegetables, which consisted of cauliflower, broccoli, sprouts and carrot. All in all, I felt this was very good value at £8.00. Beers on tap were Brock Bitter and Death or Glory from Tring, Oakham’s Preacher and Yorkshire Terrier. Ciders were also well represented with Aspall’s Suffolk, Old Rosie and Stowford Press.