A short while ago Si visited the The Queen Inn in St Cross, near Winchester. He had an
excellent lunch there, found that there was a choice of 7 ales, and they still had a "buy
9 pints get 1 free" offer on ales. On this basis he suggested to Pieman that this would be a good venue for our next outing. We last visited this place on 31st January 2013, when it scored 20.825, and at that time we agreed that it would be worth visiting again
after they had completed their improvements, and installed their micro-brewery,
which they have done. Si asked them to bake a pie specially for us and gave the
chef a copy of our report of our last visit, and asked him if he could try to do
better this time, and he seemed to be quite ready to have a go.
After due consideration, Pieman gave his approval and authorised 6 of us to go for an official visit, so off we went on the 69 bus to Winchester on a hot summer's day, hoping for a great pie. The Queen Inn is a nice looking pub right by the Winchester College cricket ground (but unfortunately lacking a view over the cricket pitch - if we could have sat outside drinking our beer, eating our pie and watching the cricket it would have been perfect, but some things are not to be).
We walked inside and were immediately impressed by the wide range of ales available.
We noticed that the micro-brewery was installed, so naturally we were keen to sample some of the home brew, but there wasn't any available as the landlord (Clive) was too busy to make any beer (apparently he has just taken over another pub). "Never mind", we thought, "there are still seven other ales available so we'll try some of those".
Our next choice was Bowman Ales Eldorado, a perfect ale for such a hot summer's day. But this had reached the end of the barrel and was off. Likewise the Titanic Ale was off. Eventually we settled on Castle Rock Harvest Pale Ale 3.8%, which we found very acceptable. In fact all the beers we tried here were in very good condition, but it's a shame that our first 2 choices were off. Of course Tall Paul wanted Guinness, but was disapppointed to discover that they don't sell Guinness - they sell Belhaven Black Scottish Stout instead, which Tall Paul quite liked.
The Pie was a Chicken & Leek Pie, served with freshly-cooked mixed seasonal vegetables (peas, french beans, cabbage) and a choice of mashed potatoes or skinny chips. The pie had been made to order for us, and was (by request) a single large pie, for us to share between us, rather than a set of individual pies. Unfortunately when the chef tried to divide it up for serving, it exploded, so our initial impression was not as good as it might have been. It would have been better if we had been presented with the whole pie, and left to divide it up ourselves, or if we had requested individual pies.
But never mind, the pie was excellent, and there was a lot of it! The pastry was very nicely done short-crust pastry. Because of the way that the pie was divided up, some people got more pastry than others. The filling was very tasty, of a thick consistency but not too dry, and full of chunks of tender chicken. The vegetables were nicely cooked, and everyone ate their potatoes up. As on our previous visit, we found the pie so filling that nobody had any room for pudding.
On a hot summer's day we really appreciated the extensive seating available in the garden, with lots of shade, and we noticed a nice touch: a fridge stocked with chilled water for people to help themselves to. On the other hand there was no table service for drinks - we had to go to the bar for each round. All the pub facilities were clean and tidy, so no complaints there. Prices were much as before. The pies were £10.50 each, and the ales averaged around £3.50/pint, so everything was quite reasonable.
As before, someone suggested that a short walk to The Wykeham Arms, just down the road, might help the pie settle in our stomachs and make room for a few more pints, so off we went. And after that we moved on to a few more places.
Scores (max. 5 in each category, 25 overall):
- Pastry 4.15
- Filling 4.48
- Beer 3.85
- Ambience 3.86
- Value 4.24
- Overall 20.58
Sadly the overall score shows a decline from the January 2013 score (down from 20.825 to 20.58) but still, congratulations to the landlord, Clive, and his team, for providing us with another excellent meal. It's a shame we weren't able to try your home brew, but surely we'll be back another time to try it. And congratulations to the chef, whose pie actually scored better than the one we had before (up from 8.2 to 8.63). We really appreciate the effort you made.
For our first outing of 2013 Nick suggested a visit to The Queen Inn, in St Cross, Winchester. This would be our first outing to Winchester. Unfortunately, due to travel and other commitments, only a few gentlemen were able to join Nick on this venture, so only Doug, Si, and Paul E were able to meet up with Nick in the square at Bishops Waltham on a cold but sunny winter day to catch the 69 bus to Winchester. We had to rely on Nick to tell us when to get off the bus, as nobody else had any idea, but we managed okay, despite an unseemly squabble about who should press the bell to tell the bus driver when to stop. After a short walk we soon arrived at our destination:
This is a fine looking pub near Winchester College, and directly opposite the college cricket ground (although sadly a fence obscures the view, otherwise we'd be able to sit watching cricket while eating our pie and quaffing our ale, and it doesn't get any better than that). We were given a warm welcome by the bar staff and immediately confronted by a difficult choice of which ale to drink. This being a Greene King pub there were Greene King IPA 3.6% @ £3.40/pint, and Abbott Ale 5.0% @ £3.90/pint to choose from, and also a couple of guest ales: Elgoods EP (Pageant Ale) 4.3% @ £3.70/pint, and York Brewery Yorkshire Terrier 4.2% @ £3.70/pint. Most of us chose to start with the weakest ale, with the clear intention of working up to the strongest. The IPA and the Yorkshire Terrier were both served well, at the right temperature, and very good.
As we were supping our first pint our attention was drawn to the extensive selection of whiskies on offer (at very reasonable prices) and some of us made a mental note to sample some of them later:
There was only one pie available on the menu, a deep-filled chicken & leek pie served with freshly-cooked seasonal vegetables and either mashed potatoes or chips, all for £9.50. So after not a lot of thought, we all ordered deep-filled chicken & leek pie served with freshly-cooked seasonal vegetables and either mashed potatoes or chips. When it arrived it looked fabulous:
The vegetables were perfectly cooked. The mashed potatoes and chips were very good. The gravy was pre-applied (no separate jug, so at least 0.1 point deducted) and a bit thin and watery, but still good enough. The pie was massive, at least 8cm deep, and packed solid with big chunks of well-cooked chicken and thick creamy sauce, and some greenish bits which we assumed were leek, but we couldn't really taste them. The pastry was thick and generous. Instead of our preferred short-crust pastry we determined that the pastry was actually Hot Water Crust Pastry, as used traditionally for pork pies, game pies, and other hand-raised savoury pies. Strictly speaking, this is the correct type of pastry to use for this type of pie (see cookipedia), and we liked it, although we found that the pastry (and the near-solid pie filling) were very filling. In fact, we felt so stuffed after eating the pie that we could only manage 2 puddings between us:
We felt obliged to try the Bread Pudding with Custard, and it was lovely, but we felt so stuffed that we couldn't really appreciate it. At this point we realised that we'd overdone it, and despite only having had 3 pints of ale, we decided it was time to leave. As we were settling up we noticed that there are plans afoot to improve the pub:
We felt that the pub was fine as it was, although a little more room to stand at the bar would be appreciated, and obviously the addition of a new mini-brewery will be of great interest to us, so it's quite likely that we will want to make another visit to this pub some time soon. There's also a good reason for coming later in the afternoon:
Someone suggested that a short walk to The Wykeham Arms, just down the road, might help the pie settle in our stomachs and make room for a few more pints, so off we went. When we got there we tried a pint of the always excellent Flowerpots Perridge Pale 3.6%, but even this didn't do the trick so we gave up and went home. Interestingly, we noted that a shot of Talisker Whisky is £5.25 in The Wykeham Arms, but only £3.20 in The Queen Inn (same size shot - we checked).
For the first time ever the gentlemen were defeated by a pie!
Scores (max. 5 in each category, 25 overall):
- Pastry 3.825
- Filling 4.375
- Beer 3.625
- Ambience 4.5
- Value 4.5
- Overall 20.825
Congratulations to the landlord, Clive. I'm sure we will want to make a return visit to this pub after the renovations have been completed and when the new brewery is in full production. You got the better of us this time, but next time we'll come prepared, and we'll be sure to want to take full advantage of your "buy 10 get one free" deal!
