The Metropolitan Tavern, Uxbridge

Facebook page of The Metropolitan Tavern - www.facebook.com

Official site of The Metropolitan Tavern - www.craftunionpubs.com

Facebook page of The Metropolitan Tavern - www.facebook.com

Official site of The Metropolitan Tavern - www.craftunionpubs.com

Standard town centre pub over the road from the Queens head. Doom Bar and Youngs Bitter (which wasn't ready). Had a Doom bar which was OK. Nothing special really. Camra discount on the plus side!

Definitely looks good from outside and looks to be two pubs rather than one.Bland corporate inside.Two cask beers on Doombar and Adnams-Broadside. Lucky me.

They had on a couple of White Park Brewery ales – White Gold, and Moonshine (£3.20 a pint), plus the ever present Sharp’s Doom Bar. This is a Stonegate pub so there were the usual glossy illustrated menus on the tables, including the standard sort of pub grub meal deals (Wed – grill/drink for £7.95, burger/drink for £6.45). These deals are OK if you are happy with the drinks you can have with the food, but they are only very rarely anything that I would choose to drink. This pub looks good from the outside, but it’s pretty ordinary inside. It has the basic dark varnished wood tables so loved by the big pubcos, with standard chairs, fruit machines in abundance and little in the way of décor – just some large and incomprehensible old black and photographs. The TVs were on showing the racing, and the clientele seemed to be ageing locals using industrial language in bemoaning the miserable performance of their chosen nags. The Moonshine I had didn’t seem to be in particularly good condition (unless the slightly sour taste is intentional – you never know these days). I can’t see any reason to return.

Curious place, comprising two completely different buildings in an unlikely combination that it is difficult to imagine integrated when viewed from the street. The larger, newer part contains the bar and the bulk of the floor space. The much older, half-timbered, structure has a low ceiling and just two small seating areas. Covered passageway between the two with a couple of tiny tables. Semi-modern furniture and decor. Plenty of food and drink offers from the standard Stonegate range. Three handpumps, dispensing Doom Bar, Pride and Marstons EPA Celebration Ale (keenly priced at £1.99).

This place was buzzing last Saturday afternoon as most of the clientele watched one of the plasma screens at either end of the L shaped bar as Chelsea progressed into the FA Cup final. This game was on terrestrial TV and I do not recall seeing any advertisements for Sky Sports. There is a room to the right hand side of the bar that is set up in a rat run sort of way so as to give some more intimate seating than is found in the bar area. Most of the people in this area were eating the very reasonably priced food which looked pretty good in a cheap pub grub way. Greene King IPA, EPA, Marstons and Bombardier were the ale options on hand pump and there was a standard draught selection along with Staropramen. I had a very nice pint of Guinness that was served by a friendly barmaid. I got comfortable very quickly in here and I would pop in again if passing or maybe on a Tuesday evening when the weekly quiz is on.