The Ram Hotel, Brandon

After a day of touring around Suffolk's village pubs, we planned to finish our crawl at this small town pub in West Suffolk. It was a completely different kind of pub to every one that had gone before in most ways, being loud and boisterous. I was also expecting a bit more on the cask ale front. There were a number of bar hoggers, but I believe that there were 5 handpulls. 2 were clipped with Abbot, with the other 3 having turned clips. The landlord was pulling through a Greene King seasonal beer. Ciders were Weston's Vintage and the 3 Thatcher's fruity ones. Music was a bit too loud for our liking. There was also a TV showing a Louis Theroux programme with nobody seemingly watching. What I did like about this pub was that the landlord was very welcoming. He invited us to take a seat in a quieter separate room off to the left if it was all a bit too loud for us. We declined this offer, preferring to sample the full atmosphere! He also took the trouble to come over to us and chat. He explained that most of his cask ale market is on a Saturday. Sunday drinkers weren't really into their real ales, apart from the Abbot, which explained the apparent poor selection for a pub that appears in the 2025 Good Beer Guide. I could quite easily have scored this the lowest of the day, but it is welcoming gaffers like this one that can make or break a pub. Swearing and swaying (as in the review below) is still very much the order of the day in this pub. But as long as this sort of behavior doesn't end up with brawls and any other kind of trouble, I regard it as acceptable in a pub. The landlord seemed to have all of this under control and was able to welcome some much more sober customers (ourselves) in a really friendly and approachable manner. As such, I thought this was an enjoyable place to end our crawl for the day.

Warm friendly atmosphere. Good home made food. Recent refurbishment.