Not already a member?
Join our community and
- Rate & review pubs
- Upload pictures
- Add events
JOIN for free NOW
Chat about:
Beer of the Week (w/e 27th April 2025) with Thuck Phat
on the Pub Forum
Detail Pages
The Old Vine, Winchester
Winchester
SO23 9HA
Reviews (Current Rating Average: 6½ of 10) see review guidelines
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Old Boots left this review about The Old Vine
Transformed from a student haunt into a self confessed gastropub with matching customers, emaciated blonde women with sunglasses in their hair, air kissing on meeting their friends, grey middle aged blokes but with a sprinkling of younger customers too. Tasteful white walls, art work, obligatory candle powered tables, old beamed ceiling that I don't remember from its previous life and a bare board floor which I do although it's a lot cleaner now. Four handpumps with mainly local ales; Ringwood, Hogsback TEA, Bowmans Swiftone and Yorkshire's Timothy Taylor Landlord. Upper end of the lager range, Hoegaarden, Leffe plus San Miguel, Amstel, Guinness and Thatchers Gold. Obviously there's an extensive wine list, you may purchase a glass of Tattinger for £6.25. I chose the Hogsback, at a price not communicated to me by the supercilious barman, it was mediocre but to be fair it often is, the bottled version is normally better. A very different place now to its student days but not unwelcoming to casual drinkers, the area to the right on entering is used for this with barflys and vertical drinking, to the left is purely dining. I did eat here and the food was very good.
On 21st March 2010
- no rating submitted
[User has posted 3599 recommendations about 3279 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Blackthorn _ left this review about The Old Vine
We found the "bar half" of this pub to be very lively, almost to the point of being nosiy. It was very popular, no chance of getting a table, and the majority of the punters appeared to be just there for a drink. Certainly that was the case by the end of the evening, we were there until gone 11:00 and they certainly weren't having their pre-dinner drinks at that time.
The dining half of the pub is just that, it's very much a restaurant and not somewhere to go for a pint. The staff were very pleasant and friendly, it's conveniently situated right opposite the cathedral green, and there's an enormous window at the front of the bar to take full advantage of the outlook. There's a selection of board games at the back of the bar, plenty of wood beams and unusually even the outside seating area and courtyard is non-smoking. Obviously this may be a good thing or not depending on your point of view. I'm not going to get in to that argument.
Beers were Flower Pots, TT Landlord, Ringwood Best and Bowman's Swift One. Cider was Thatcher's Gold.
On 6th February 2010
- rating: 7
[User has posted 2060 recommendations about 1962 pubs]