Wellington Arms, Bedford

Not much to add after the comprehensive review below. Easily - by a million miles - Bedford's best pub. Bass on draught was tempting but in the interests of variety, I explored the well stocked Belgian/German bottle fridge. Some rarities, some regulars and a few left over from Christmas! Lovely pub and a real bright spot.

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