Alfies, Winchester

Incongruous mixture of an old building unsympathetically furnished with those very fashionable light wood tables and chairs of various heights. A side alcove is furnished as a leather pervert's front room with low leather sofas in black and some even lower tables, some messy artwork adorns the walls. Wide eyed and confused staff, the only customers were a sparce group of youngsters in the garden, myself and a middle aged canoodling couple. You are now thinking the beer can only be a dreary range of kegs and perhaps a badly kept guest ale on a solitary hand pump; well almost right: the choice of Deuchars or London Pride might have disappointed but the Pride was very, very good. The moral being don't judge a book by its cover or a beer by its pump clip. This is very probably a good venue for the under 25s at the weekend but then I'm just going by its looks being as I'm over 50.

Alfies This was the former ‘Old Coach House’, which was a very run down pub. I believe this pub has been renovated and refurbished in the last year (may be 2 years). Some would question that it has been redecorated, very scruffy chic I suppose! None the less we were met by a very friendly bar man, with other staff who were very attentive to the few customers they had on a cold Thursday lunchtime. An interesting mix of chairs, sofas and high tables. They had 4 hand pumps on the bar but were only serving London Pride and Deuchers IPA. However what I would really recommend is their lunchtime menu, everything between £4.00- £7.00, and huge portions, it’s a wander they are making a profit on it! I enjoyed a very home made locally produced lamb and mint burger, with some great chips, and the ploughman’s had huge portions of cheese! Specials of the day included home made pumpkin soup. I can see this pub being popular with the local students, but for a quiet lunchtime drink with two roaring fires it was an ideal stop. 15th October 2009