The Bull, Bracknell

Pub SignMan left this review about The Bull

This pub supposedly occupies one of Bracknell's oldest buildings, but aside from the sympathetic traditional exterior, you would never know this once you'd entered. The front bar is a vaguely traditional space with the servery on the back wall and plenty of seating available through a bare boarded and tile floored room. The seating is a mix of high tables and stools and some tub chairs for the most part, with sections of old partitioning wall splitting the room quite effectively. The bar has a modern counter with a fancy looking slat design and a basic bar back of no real note. To the right of the bar are steps leading down to what I assume is a modern extension, now acting as a dining room with the same boards and tiles on the floor, a cool curved wood beam ceiling and an end wall lined with shelves full of logs for the fireplace, stacked as if they were books in a library. There's an open kitchen to the right and another servery which boasts some impressive wooden support pillars. Huge windows across the entire left-hand wall allow loads of light in, in marked contrast to the dimly lit main bar, and seating is a mix of banquette booths, padded benches and standard chairs. There's also loads of outdoor seating, which was proving very popular on a muggy summer's day and music was playing quite loudly throughout the pub making the garden a bit of a refuge.
Just the two ales on the bar - Youngs Ordinary and Hogs Back TEA, both clipped twice. I tried the TEA, which was a bit soupy but still drinkable. The place was doing a pretty good trade on an early Saturday evening, with the front bar and garden both pretty much full and the rear dining space fairly busy too.
I found this a bit of a strange experience - having arrived and seen the pub's facade, I was expecting a traditional town centre boozer, but instead got a very large modern dining pub with a small front drinker's bar. Sadly, this meant that once inside, the place didn't feel all that different to the slew of modern eateries that dominate the town centre, when it could've provided a nice point of difference. It's probably your best bet, other than the grim Wetherspoons, but that says more about the town's dreadful pub stock than it does about this place.

Date of visit - 10th August 2024

On 16^th December 2024 - rating: 5
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