The Fox, Bury St. Edmunds

A tradtional East Anglian Georgian colour-washed pub under a pantile roof. A refurbishment led to a light and airy atmosphere,with access to a spacious garden to the rear.On our midweek,mid afternoon visit, the pub was comfortably busy, and we were pleased to find that the kitchen was open. On the bar,I noted beers from 6 breweries from East Anglia and beyond, together with a large selection of real cider.I enjoyed Victoria Bitter from Earl Soham Brewery, and a session pale from Thornbridge Hall: both of which were in fine condition.A friendly welcome,good food and excellent beer and dog friendly.

Official site of The Fox - www.thepakenhamfox.co.uk

Official site of The Fox - www.thepakenhamfox.co.uk

Pub in the village of Pakenham, located to the east of Bury St Edmunds. With an advertised 8pm closing time on a Sunday, we were expecting to find a quiet pub. But despite it being around 7:30 when we arrived, it was still reasonably busy with a number of locals in the bar area and some families presumably having dined earlier in a separate area at the far end of the pub. The range of real ales was quite impressive for a small village pub. Mighty Oak Kings is the regular beer. They also had 3 real ales from Artefact - Dark Mild, Ixworth Blonde & Amber Haze IPA, in addition to Earl Soham Victoria Bitter. A further handpull had a Burnard's cider pumpclip with a handwritten name - Thirsty As Fox. I assume this is produced specially for the pub. When showing an interest in the cider, the barman also mentioned that they had Thistly Cross Whisky Cask cider available, despite there being absolutely no promotion of this whatsoever. A beer garden at the rear looked particularly inviting, in spite of the cold weather and generally gloomy conditions. Certainly a decent village pub, this one.

Up and running! Open evenings only, apart from the weekends. Lovely bar and gardens. Beer tip-top. Woodfordes wherry was splendid. Opening night a huge success, everybody was so happy to see it open again, but I couldn't see all the beers on offer. Will be paying another visit soon.

Work well under way. The Fox is planning to be open for business in early August. Will post again with a firm date. Looks as though it is going to be good.

Work is now under way to hopefully re-open this pub.

The pub has been bought by a property developer who says he plans to build housing on part of the site and use the money raised to renovate and reopen it. It closed in late 2011 and nothing is happening according to Bury Free Press and Suffolk CAMRA.