The Gate Inn, Great Missenden

Located to the southern edge of the village of Bryants Bottom, the Gate is located in some lovely countryside in the Chilterns. We arrived to find a very busy car park. The large beer garden is to the right-hand side of the pub and was where most people had gathered. A lot were wearing England football shirts, with the England Euros game about to start. The inside of the pub was much quieter. The main bar area has three-sided bar with the handpulls off to the right-hand side and only visible after passing through a couple of archways. The choice turned out to be between a couple of Rebellion beers - IPA or Overthrow. Hopefully they weren't the same casks from the last reviewer's visit almost 3 years ago! The young barmaid didn't seem to be the most competent. With most customers in the garden and few seeming to come inside, there may well have been an outdoor bar. Perhaps she had been allocated the quieter indoor bar for a reason?! Off to the left, there was a small room where people were eating, but it seemed to be the garden where all of the action was at. As we left, we spotted a large group gathered around a screen. There appeared to be a few areas with shelter and there was also a large children's play area. In hindsight, we should have chosen to drink outside.

The Gate Inn is a traditional family run country pub situated in the pleasant countryside village of Bryants Bottom located in the middle of nowhere in the Buckinghamshire Chiltern Hills somewhere halfway between Great Missendon and Princes Risborough . It is a former wheel-wrights cottage dating from 1864 and looks good externally with the whitewashed façade festooned with hanging baskets. There is bench seating to the front of the pub and then a large garden space to the back which includes a large secure children’s play area that would put most local councils to shame. Internally it is still two bars. The public bar is wooden floored with a large open stone fireplace and the lounge bar is mainly set to table seating for diners. There is also a separate function room available for hire. It’s a free house and has four ale hand pumps on the go. Two of these have the regular ales of London Pride and Doombar and then according to the Landlord the other two have regular guests from local breweries such as Vale and Rebellion. Unfortunately for my visit the two additional were GK IPA Reserve and McMullens Country bitter, so I timed that completely wrong then !, although the IPA Reserve does give proof that GK can brew a decent beer if they put their mind to it. There was a decent looking food menu but cannot comment on this as it was not tried.