The Railway Inn, Botley, 28th January 2016

We've gone past this pub (near Botley Station) often enough, but years ago Trev checked it out and reported that it wasn't our sort of place, so we never bothered with it. But having heard of a recent change of ownership Stephen and Lord North paid them a visit and decided that we needed to check it out.  

January is a time when many Pie Club members head for warmer climes, or colder climes in some cases, so a reduced number of us (7) gathered by the bus stop in Bishops Waltham Square and amused ourselves by studying the bus timetable and trying to work out if it was the X9 or the X10 that we needed to catch. We couldn't work it out so we got on the X9 when it arrived, and managed to arrive at our destination without too much trouble.

The first thing we noticed as we walked in was the selection of beers available:

The Old Speckled Hen was a bit too strong for most of us, and the Dark Side was a Stout (not to everyone's taste) so must of us stuck with the Railway Inn's Ale (3.9%, brewed by Greene King) and found it to be very acceptable. Tall Paul had Guinness as usual, and reported that that was also very acceptable. 

Pie of the Day was Steak & Mushroom, served with chips or mash, and mixed vegetables (cabbage and frozen peas), with gravy pre-applied (not the way we like it).

The pie was very good, though not exceptional. It was packed with tender,  well cooked steak, and the pastry was to our liking, though with a bit of a soggy bottom. The chips were home-made and nicely cooked, as were the vegetables. The gravy was very tasty, and the very nice waitress gave us some extra gravy in jugs, just the way we like it.

Service was good, and the very nice waitress brought us drinks at the table, which we always appreciate. Nobody (not even Stephen) had any pudding, so the meal must have been very satisfying. This is a nice clean comfortable pub. There was a wood-burning stove blazing away near the entrance, which gave a good cozy feel to the place. It's a big pub, with several seating areas inside, including one with a pool table and a large-screen TV, and we imagine that it can get a bit loud, crowded and noisy in the evenings, but it was fine for us on a mid-week lunchtime. There was loud background music on when we arrived, but they turned it off when we asked, so that's alright.

The beer was £3.60/pint, and the pies were £11 each, so value for money was not bad at all.

Scores for The Railway Inn (Max 5 in each category - total 25 overall)

Pastry - 4.17

Filling -  4.21

Beer   -  4.43

Ambience - 4.30

Value  - 4.54

 

Overall  - 21.65

Now this is a very respectable score, and puts the Railway Inn in 1st place among the pubs that we've visited so far this year, which is only to be expected as this is the first pub we've visited this year.

The Brewery Bar, Botley, 24th April 2014

On a fine spring day in April a large gathering of excited gentlemen (Nick, Trev, Paul E, Paul T, Si, Joe, Doug, Stephen) assembled outside The Crown in time to board the No. 8 bus to Botley, heading for The Brewery Bar in Botley. This time we had no trouble finding our way to the pub as we had fond memories of our previous visit there in 2012.  As has become customary on the No. 8 bus, we invited the driver to come and join us, but he declined our invitation as he had some concerns about leaving a bus full of passengers parked in the middle of Botley for a few hours.

As always we were given a warm welcome by the landlord, and presented with a difficult choice of ales: There was Silver King Ale 4.3% from the Ossett Brewery in Yorkshire, Abbott Ale 5% from the Greene King brewery in Bury St Edmunds, and Bath Ales' Gem 4.1%.

The Gem was an amber ale and seemed a little too sweet for some of us. The Silver King is a lager-style golden ale which found more general approval among us, except for Tall Paul who, of course, stuck to his preferred Guinness (and reported that it wasn't quite up to scratch).

The Brewery Bar is a funny sort of place.  On the face of it, it has so many things about it that we disapprove of (Sports TV on continuously with the sound turned down, fruit machines,  pool table, etc) that we would normally avoid such a place, but they always seem to serve an interesting range of beers from around the country, and their pies are among the best available anywhere. Today's pie was a Steak & Guinness Pie, served up as 2 pies, to be shared between 8 hungry gentlemen.

The pies came with a bowl of assorted vegetables (carrots, broccolli, caulifower) which had been freshly cooked to perfection (au point, as someone said).

And we had lashings of chips, which were also freshly cooked and done to perfection.

The gravy was served separately, in jugs, just the way it should be, and the end result was a lovely plateful.

The pie was as near perfect as could be: tasty short crust pastry enclosing tender pieces of lean steak in a rich gravy, with a few whole mushrooms, and a definite hint of Guinness. Most us us didn't have any room for a pudding, but a few of us managed to try some, and found that they were very good:

Once again we found that the ambience of the pub was good.  It's clean, tidy, and the service was excellent. Our final bill for the food and 4 rounds of drinks came to £28 each, including service, which we thought very good value for money (The pies were £8.95 each, puddings £4.75 each, ale £3.50/pint).

Scores for The Brewery Bar, Botley (Max 5 in each category - total 25 overall)

Pastry - 4.69

Filling -  4.54

Beer   -  3.91

Ambience - 3.85

Value  - 4.54

Overall  - 21.54

This was another excellent afternoon - a nice traditional pub with attentive staff, good beer, and another exceptional pie.   For The Brewery Bar this score represents a significant improvement over their 2012 score (which was 20.5, and still not a bad score), and puts them straight into first place in our rankings of pubs visited so far this year, and is actually the 3rd highest score achieved by any pub that we have ever visited (beaten only by The Wheatsheaf and The Brickmakers in 2012). So, well done to the Brewery Bar!

On our return to Bishops Waltham we adjourned to The Barleycorn to take advantage of their happy hour, which seems to last all afternoon.

The Brewery Bar, Botley, 28th June 2012

On a hot, sunny and humid day in June a large gathering of excited gentlemen (Nick, Trev, Paul E, Paul T, Si, and, after a long absence, Doug) assembled outside The Crown in time to board the No. 8 bus to Botley, heading for The Brewery Bar. Having successfully managed to get off the bus at the right stop (with some help from the driver) our unfailing instincts led us to the pub without any further difficulties.

On entering the pub we were given a warm welcome by the landlord and staff.

Our initial impression of the pub was somewhat off-putting as we noticed the TVs, background music, fruit machines, dogs, pool table - all things which are normally anathema to discerning gentlemen such as us. And we were disappointed that there is no actual brewery in the pub, although we were told that there used to be.  And we also immediately noticed the fine and unusual selection of ales on offer.

We all had our eye on the Green Jack Orange Wheat Beer 4.8%, but at 4.8%* we felt it was a bit strong to start with. Most of us opted for a pint of Timothy Taylor Landlord 4.3% @ £3.70/pint, although as usual  Paul E preferred lager, and Paul T preferred Guinness). 

We sat in the garden and started discussing important issues of the day while our pie was prepared. As we were halfway through our 2nd pints the landlord came to tell us that our pie was ready to be served, so we went in and waited with baited breath. On the table next to us were about 14 women who had obviously had a good lunch - their chatter was so noisy that we could scarcely hear ourselves think - but never mind that, the pie when it arrived was fabulous. The landlord and chef were understandably proud.

It was a splendid Chicken, Ham and Leek Pie, which had been prepared especially for us.** 

It came with plenty of beautifully prepared home-made chips, made from new potatoes,

a fine selection of nicely-cooked fresh vegetables,

and beef gravy served just the way it should be, in a separate jug.

The portions were very generous. In the judging that followed some gentlemen thought that the filling was so good that it was perfect, and awarded it 5 out of 5. But some other gentlemen are harder to please. After the meal we were all so stuffed that nobody fancied any pudding, even though there was a fine range of reasonably-priced puddings available.

Instead of having a pudding, we sampled the Green Jack Orange Wheat Beer 4.8%. Being a wheat beer it has rather an unusual first taste, but it grows on you, and we all agreed that was a fine beer. Our only criticism of the beers we had was that they were served slightly too chilled. Notwithstanding our initial impressions, the ambience of the pub was good. The distractions noted above were not too distracting when we were there, although it's possible that the pub might be crowded, boisterous and noisy in the evenings. It's clean, tidy, and the service was excellent. Our final bill for the food and 4 rounds of drinks came to £25 each, including service, which we thought very good value for money.

Scores for The Brewery Bar, Botley (Max 5 in each category - total 25 overall)

Pastry - 4.08

Filling -  4.5

Beer   -  4.25

Ambience - 3.42

Value  - 4.25

Overall  - 20.5

This was another excellent afternoon - a nice traditional pub with attentive staff, good beer, and another exceptional pie.  Perhaps it is unfortunate that this visit came so soon after our visit to The Wheatsheaf and the exceptionally good pie that we had there. The Wheatsheaf has raised the standard to such a high level that it will be very difficult for any other pub to beat it. Sadly for The Brewery Bar, despite such a good effort, they will have to be content with coming 2nd this year (so far).

On our return to Bishops Waltham we adjourned to The Crown, and it was there that we noticed Paul E's dress sense. Should we agree a dress code for future outings?

* According to the brewer's web site, the Green Jack Orange Wheat Beer 4.8% is only 4.2%.


** There is some dispute among Pie Club members as to whether or not it is a good thing to tell the pub in advance that we are going to pay them a visit. If pre-warned then (as in this case, and at The Wheatsheaf) they can make a special effort to impress us with a made-to-order pie. We like this because we get to enjoy a very good pie. But if we turn up unannounced then our experience will be more typical and a truer reflection of the pub. Whatever we do, we should be consistent so as to be fair to all the pubs. Pieman senses a schism developing.

The Bugle Inn, Botley, 29th March 2012

The plan was for the Pie Club members to meet up at the bus stop in Bishops Waltham square at 12.00 noon. Unfortunately Joe, Si, and new member Steve (welcome) arrived early, happened to notice that the Crown Inn was open, and right next door to the bus stop. This pub has only very recently re-opened after a very expensive refit, so they decided to check it out and have a quick one in The Crown while waiting for the others to catch up. 

Unfortunately, they don't serve pies there. Otherwise we would have had this Pie Club meeting in The Crown.


Nevertheless, a well refreshed Joe, Si & Steve still managed to get to the bus stop by noon to meet up with Trev and Nick, just as they were boarding the No. 8 bus to Botley. This bus goes all around the place, seemingly visiting every little hamlet for miles around, but eventually we arrived in Botley, and headed straight for The Bugle Inn.

We were welcomed by the landlord, and noticed immediately that there was a fine selection of ales available: the excellent Bowman's Wallops Wood 4%, the always popular Sharp's Doombar 4% , and (maybe a bit strong for lunch time) Gale's HSB 4.8%.   


We settled down for our first pint, some having Wallops Wood, and others having Doombar, and surveyed our surroundings. The landlord had taken us to a table in the dining area of the pub, where there were no other customers, so we had the place to ourselves, although there were several drinkers in the other bar that we could hear.  There was no garden to sit in. We had our second pint then decided it was time to order some food. As there was only one pie on the menu it didn't take us long to decide what to order. 2 of us opted to have chips instead of new potatoes. We didn't have to wait long for the food.

  The pies had the correct short-crust pastry, a Steak & Mushroom filling, pre-applied gravy, and a selection of freshly-cooked vegetables: Cauliflower, carrots, and red cabbage.  Some of us (perhaps those who were hungriest) thought they were OK - nothing special but OK - but others were quite put off by the smell, and one of our members was actually unable to finish eating his pie*.

We'd also noticed some strange smells coming from the loos (or were they coming from the kitchens?). To be fair, this pub has a Lebanese chef, and a full menu of Lebanese food available (but no Lebanese pies, which might have been interesting). Maybe that accounted for some of the strange smells.


There was a tempting selection of puddings available, but by now we'd had enough, so we decided to skip the puddings:

As we left the pub, someone suggested walking just around the corner to The Brewery Bar to see if we could get some puddings there. This is not a bad looking pub, with a good food menu (including some pies) and a fine selection of ales:

It was a lovely sunny day so we sat outside in the garden and had a pint while we considered the pudding menu.  In the end we didn't bother with the puddings, and after a couple of pints we caught the bus back to Bishops Waltham.  We quite liked the look of the Brewery Bar, and decided that it was probably worth a proper Pie Club assessment later in the year.


As we got off the bus in Bishops Waltham, someone happened to notice that the Crown Inn was open, and right next door to the bus stop. This pub has only very recently re-opened after a very expensive refit, so we decided to check it out and have a quick one in garden at the front, in the sun.  As we were sitting there enjoying our pints, we got chatting with a young couple sitting at the next table who turned out to be JK and Lucy, presenters of Heart South Coast Breakfast Show.

Lucy got quite friendly with one of the Pie Club members, but Pieman feels honour-bound to reveal no more, and certainly won't publish any photos! The Pie Club got a mention on their show the next morning.

Scores for The Bugle, Botley (max. 5 in each category, 25 overall):

• Pastry 3.3
• Filling 3.6
• Beer 3.6
• Ambience 2.7
• Value 3.4
• Overall 16.6

* On checking the Pie Club constitution, Pieman was surprised to see that there is nothing in the rules about penalties for leaving a pie half uneaten. Pieman would have thought that the offending member would at least have to buy a round.