The Plough, Bicester

Official site of The Plough - venue.apptiser.io

Official site of The Plough - venue.apptiser.io

The doors of the Plough open onto a wooden floored bar with tables in the windows either side of the central entrance and an L-shaped serving counter that faces the entrance and some sofas that sit adjacent to an exposed brick inglenook to the left. Flagstones runs up the right-hand side of the counter to the open plan split-level Olive Tree restaurant at the rear where all the tables are set for dining and another exposed brick inglenook resides. The restaurant was empty/closed during a recent Tuesday evening visit so I stayed in the front bar area where some gloomy background music was playing. The service was polite and I counted five hand pumps on the counter, one was unused, one was off and one was being used to support an advertisement for the upcoming Oktoberfest, which left Yale’s IPA and Olive Tree Ale, the latter being named after the restaurant so no idea what it actually is. Limited premium keg was also available alongside Wolf Pack Lager. Opens at 08:30 Friday to Sunday for breakfast. This is more than just a restaurant with a bar, but I would still probably walk past next time.

With two of my target pubs along Sheep Street closed until later in the afternoon, Jacob's Plough was my next stop, just on the edge of the town centre. A well appointed pub, it seems to focus on diners. But with four real ales on, it does not disregard the drinker. I was seated on a sofa next to the large open fireplace. I'm not sure if the pub is still run by Greene King. Morland Old Speckled Hen was the solitary beer from them. Others were St Austell Tribute & Timothy Taylor Landlord. However, I opted for the North Cotswold House of Jacob, which was well kept. I didn't/couldn't venture further than the cosy front bar. But service was decent here. So, don't ignore it on any crawl of Bicester.

Unusual looking exterior that doesn't obviously appear to be like a pub at first glance and seems to be a bitsa of old buildings and extensions that have melded over the years into what we see today. Done out really nicely inside though – there’s a bar as you enter, a small lounge section to the left and a long narrow section to the right which opens out. Painted wood panelling on the left and exposed stone to the right, as well as lots of old tin signs, dried hops above the door and a welcome skylight above the bar. There’s also a lovely paved and flora heavy side garden. Five pumps with three on: GK OSH, Golden Hen and Timothy Taylor Landlord. The Landlord was OK but marred (as they are so often when guesting in GK pubs) by having a residual GK tint, so someone didn’t flush the lines prior to it going on. Also expensive at £4.20. Overall I quite liked it here and would pop in again. If the beer was top-notch, it’d be up there with Bicester’s best.