The Royal Oak, Marlborough

Official site of The Royal Oak - www.greeneking.co.uk

Official site of The Royal Oak - www.greeneking.co.uk

Unusual for me to not even stay for one in a pub, but I was so underwhelmed with the GK beer range here, I soon hot-tailed it to the Castle and Ball next door. Large, open plan modern style pub with lack of interest.

This was my first visit to Marlborough for almost 9 years. I'd visited a few pubs in the town, without ever finding anything to write home about. Since my last visit, the Royal Oak has been and gone from the Good Beer Guide. On this experience, it won't be returning for some while. Benefitting from its central location on the High Street, the Royal Oak caters for both drinkers and diners and it seems that it can get very busy. For some reason unknown to me (although probably location alone), it was the busiest pub I ventured into all day. There are sections either side of the bar, with both gradually sloping upwards and an outdoor patio to the rear also sloping upwards. There are wooden floors, multiple TVs (showing horse racing on my visit) and numerous games machines. It was fairly noisy with inane music competing with the horse racing commentary and a general hubbub of conversation. The interior is bright but fairly characterless, with various pointless slogans on the painted white beams. Children are welcome. At the bar, there were 5 handpulls. All were clipped with either beers or promotions. None were actually on with those silly labels stating various excuses as to why they are not on, such as "nearly ready" or "coming soon". Even if they had been on, it looked like only Greene King beers are stocked nowadays. Things have clearly gone massively downhill since the last review on here. Instead, the keg selection was Staropramen, Asahi Dry, Estralla Galicia, Peroni, Moretti, Amstel, Madri, Greene King Hazy Day & Level Head, Guinness & Thatcher's Gold. I opted for a soft drink and nearly collapsed in shock when I was charged £4.10 for a small measure! Quite a few people were eating, especially in the left-hand section. There were corporate-style menus on each tables and there was also a specials board. The Royal Oak embodied pretty much everything I dislike in a pub, apart from a lively atmosphere. Somehow they still draw in plenty of custom. I suspect that their location means that they don't have to try hard. It'll probably be the 2030s before I set foot in Marlborough again. I hope to find something better then.

Another GK outlet, three of their ales plus a welcome sighting of Butcombe Bitter which was in rather good form; confusion abounded with the softies, barmaid whisked them off for ice (which was just being made) despite protestations to the contrary. They then took ten minutes to arrive by which time I’d finished mine. She also tried to do me a pint despite being asked for a half. Despite this, Desmond declared the resultant lemonade the best of the day (what this boy doesn’t know about pub lemonade is not worth knowing). Two levels inside, opened-out quite a bit with one of those odd island bar areas that has no upper encasing level. Slightly bonkers corporate chintz within, including diamanté lizard wallpaper. Awful piped muzak grated. Rear patio was quite tidy, leading up to a grass area. A very mixed bag but the drinks were of a good enough quality which somewhat salvaged things.