Wellington Arms, Bedford

Tucked away down the back streets just outside the town centre, this is a cracking alehouse, run by the ever reliable Banks & Taylor Brewery. The pub has a fairly simple L-shaped interior, and the servery follows the same shape, running down the back wall before turning 90 degrees to run to the rear down the left side of the pub. The shallow but wide front area has some high stools along a window ledge, followed by a series of tables and chairs all the way to the far right of the room, under the frosted front windows. At the far end of the room, past the end of the bar, there is a beer friend stocked with a load of bottle and can options that looked like they might be available for takeout, as well as to drink in the pub. The bar has an attractive dark wood bar back and a tidy timber fronted counter, with the handpulls each topped with a small knitted Six Nations flag ‘hat’. A witch’s broom hangs above the bar counter and a load of pewter tankards are similarly suspended from the canopy. The left-hand side of the pub runs a little further to the rear and is split in two thanks to a couple of sections of partitioning wall, which hide the bar from the seating area behind. This seating area is a very nice space with various sized tables served by a mix of chairs, including two made from old casks. The walls are half panelled with lincrusta upper sections and fireplaces on the front and rear walls, both boarded up. The whole area has been liberally decorated with brewery mirrors, beer adverts, high shelves containing an extensive beer bottle collection and with pint pots and tankards hung from them, countless pump clips including a few vintage ones, CAMRA certificates, a bookcase full of old Good Beer Guides, some fine earthenware, and old Watney’s Red Barrel keg font, horse brasses and an upright piano. The latter is stood on the back wall, next to a door for the beer garden, which I opted not to explore in the cold and rain of a miserable February afternoon. A fine cask ale range is available, with options on this visit comprising Adnams Ghost Ship, Banks & Taylor Shefford Bitter and Shefford DG, Tribune Roman Way, Listers Limehouse Porter and one other that I couldn’t read, whilst two real ciders rounded out a handsome row of fully occupied handpulls. A very friendly barmaid pulled me a good drop of the Limehouse Porter and I enjoyed supping this whilst eavesdropping on the conversation of the two other customers, who were both real characters and highly amusing. This is another excellent B&T pub that stood head and shoulders above the other pubs I checked out around Bedford. It’s got some great beer, friendly service, amusing punters and a great, characterful interior and in all honesty, I could’ve quite happily stopped my crawl here and spent the rest of my day working through their ale range. If you only do one pub in Bedford, make sure it’s this one.

Lovely traditional beer pub, lots of pump clips, wood, mirrors ale brewery signage. Great beer

This is a street corner local that has become a destination pub for lovers of real ale,and just in case you are in any doubt there is an external sign saying " No Fosters,No Stella,No Carling,No Crap".All 14 handpumps were dispensing on my Thursday lunchtime trip offering 12 ales and two ciders.There are few house B&T brews,my Black Dragon Mild (£3) was in great nick ,together with a wide a choice of microbrewery output too extensive for me to record here.Suffice to say ,this place is like a permanent beer festival. The internal decor is simple and open plan with bare boarded floors,traditional tables and chairs and an L shaped bar.A vast collection of pump clips ,breweriana,and CAMRA awards cover the walls.Two stand alone fridges offer more beer delicacies.The trip to the gents includes walking over the trap door to the cellar with a wide enough gap to make you wonder just how strong the locking mechanism might be. This is an old school boozer with no muzak,so the choice language between the barman and customers might deter the WI from having their Christmas bash in here,and anyway there's no food on offer,but I liked the simple pleasure of drinking in a great ale house.I wouldn't pass through Bedford without paying a visit here,and probably staying quite a while.