Wednesday 11 October 2017

The Thomas Lord West Meon, 28th September 2017


This was our first ever visit to this popular country pub so we left Bishops Waltham in our taxi full of anticipation.
The Thomas Lord is now part of the Upham Brewerys' estate of pubs so we were looking forward to sampling a range of their beers and of course the pie!


On arrival we were faced with a choice of four beers, three from Upham and one guest beer:
Punter - 4%, Stakes - 4.8%, Autumn Leaves - 4.3% and the guest beer, Pennine Amber Necter - 3.8%.


So we got stuck into sampling the beers, which were all in fine condition, while we waited for pie time, which was a steak and mushroom pie.
When the pies arrived they looked very tempting, all served in traditional individual enamel pie dishes. They were accompanied by a small blob of mashed potato and a good selection of vegetables. When tucking into the pie we were a little disappointed to discover that the only pastry was the top, no sides or bottom. There are advantages to this type of pie as you get more filling than pastry and no soggy bottoms - and much more healthy than the traditional pie. However, as a club that is serious about its pies we do prefer the full monty. However, it must be said that the pastry topping was very good and the filling was plentiful and succulent with lots of gravy - we did not get to use the additional jugs of gravy (which we like).

Only two of the group were tempted by the desserts, of which there was a very good choice.


So the rest of us finished our beers until the taxi arrived to take us back to Bishops Waltham.

Scores (max of 5 in each category, 25 overall):
  • Pastry        3.43
  • Filling       4.47 
  • Beer          4.18
  • Ambience 4.0
  • Value        3.25
  • Total       19.33
This puts the Thomas Lord in 7th place out of the 8 pubs visited so far in 2017. Although the contents of the pie were good the lower pastry score reflects that it was not a traditional pie. There were many other diners in the pub, very busy for a mid-week lunchtime, who all seemed to be enjoying the wide choice of food available from the menu.

No comments:

Post a Comment