The Calleva Arms, Reading

Pub SignMan left this review about The Calleva Arms

This is a good sized Fullers pub, with a classic rural location opposite the village green and hall. The pub has a strange, shallow but wide interior set across a number of different levels. You enter through the main door directly to the bar area, which is bare boarded and has the servery positioned opposite the front door. The bar has a tongue and groove panelled counter painted in a fancy colour scheme with a recessed modern bar back and a basic gantry to one side with a few pint pots hung from it. Nice banquettes fill the front window bays, with high tables and stools in support and another banquette to one side of the bar. The right-hand side of the pub is set up as a dining area, and is semi-screened by a shelving unit and furnished with lots of tables and chairs, a few old rugs, shelves full of random bits plus lots of old photos on the walls and mini blackboards listing food options above a small brick fireplace. To the left of the servery is the 'Village Bar', which has its own entrance and can be reached down a few steps from the bar. It's a quarry stone floored space, that offers pew and chair seating under dark beams lined with fairy lights and I spotted a dartboard in one corner.
A reasonable selection of Fullers ales were available - London Pride, HSB, Gales Seafarers and Dark Star Hophead - with the latter in pretty good condition. The barmaid was a little cool with her welcome, but the place felt pleasant enough and had a family feel, with a few groups clearly here for lunch.
I thought this was a decent village pub, benefiting from a good location and offering a few different seating areas to cater for different customer groups. The beer range is nothing you haven't seen in countless Fullers pubs elsewhere, but they seem to keep it well and I was happy to rest with a pint after walking out here from the Plough.

Date of visit - 17th February 2024

On 30^th June 2024 - rating: 7
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