BRAPA in .... OXON SHINES AS BERKS NEEDS TO CLEAN ITS LINES

Saturday 26th July 2025

Ivor Panda had his Mummy BRAPA homemade cherry scone and Arctic coffee (WHEN WILL THEY SPONSOR ME?) , I was down to the final page of my 2024/25 BRAPA notepad, and Daddy 'Bernard' BRAPA was here for our penultimate summer Saturday before the dawning of the new football season.

Oxfordshire was supposedly going to be a big county for me in the 2025 Good Beer Guide campaign, but aside from a brilliant week last November ticking Oxford and its environs in those awful Tim Walter days, and a bit of recent east Cotswolding courtesy of Paul G., I'd stagnated on Oxon. Today brought a fresh injection (in an 'air in the blood stream' kinda way), straddling the Berks border close to Reading and Caversham.

A bus from the front of Reading's terrifying looking early morning boozer, Monk's Retreat, we hop aboard a 28a Aqua bus. More fluke than great planning, 28a's are rarer than the 28 species, but chug right up to Dunsden Green where tick one was hiding down a county lane.

Under the sign of the Dragonfly, your classic brewery tap of limited decent seating options, more decking than Hull Road B&Q, and a vaguely pleasant welcome which could've been so much friendly, I think we'll grade Loddon Tap Yard, Dunsden (3260 / 5747) as 'functional' and 'worth a visit if you're in the area' (you won't be). The APA was a dream beer for Daddy B, full on grapefruit, and as the d ay progressed, we'd learn not to take beer quality for granted. Two lads from our bus had somehow beaten us here, got served, and were sat down supping & playing cards before we'd even arrived, sly grin in my direction, utter BRAPA shithousery. I'm fuming. But I sort of respect the chutzpah.

How did they do it?

'What a shame we can't cut through without turning back onto the road' says Daddy B. It was a throw away comment referring to our next intended tick at Playhatch. I zoom into Google Maps to the nth degree and sure enough, a path through the fields appears! MUST get the OS App. We were having some good travel luck early on .... but much like the beer quality, it wouldn't last.

The early humidity gives way to a thunderstorm and downpour as soon as we set off walking, of course it bloody does!

But the path holds out, and if we'd been more optimistic, we could've clung to the edge of the field for longer without two minutes of nearly getting ourselves killed on the horrid road where our pub is unhelpfully situated .....

It is eerily quiet, the pub doesn't have a front door to speak of, so we ascend a metal staircase overlooking a garden full of marquees hosting a music festival later featuring Ghostly Bowie and the like. Welcome to Flowing Spring, Playhatch (3261 / 5748), deserted inside too. A mute Eastern European lass blinks at us but offers no help, whilst a chatty man (not Alan Carr) who is almost certainly the archetypal 'long suffering' landlord changes the barrel on the Vale guest and I can finally glance around, explore and appreciate that we're in my favourite pub today. Not a bad place to get stranded, which we soon were, because Uber's aren't forthcoming. That shocks me because we're close to Caversham which borders Reading which I'd have thought would be Uber heavy. Perhaps the summer rainstorm was impacting? Finally, I get through to a local company but even then, I have to crane my neck over a balcony to get signal, and he says with a crackle that he'll be 40 minutes minimum. Time for a second pint, which this time we enjoy outside near some loud southern 'ladz' because the weather is brightening up. I'm really not sure how you'd get out of here on foot without trekking back to Dunsden across fields. Deceptively isolating, I guess that's part of the charm.

Back into Berkshire we are dropped, for pub three. And in our whole kerfuffle of needing to remember to pay a taxi driver up front on exiting the car (yes, I've really become an Ubeee) I forget to snap an outdoor photo, not that this pub deserved one ......

I've been to some stinkin' GBG pubs this year but Black Horse, Emmer Green (3262 / 5749) slides into the top five with ease. It is hard to believe that the White Horse just over the road is any less GBG worthy. But I wasn't brave enough to test that theory, and besides we'd lingered in Playhatch too long. We enter to a dreary grey open sports bar to the right, our first mistake. The second is ordering the cask. One on, Courage Directors. A beer which really needs to be in its absolute prime to be decent, as I found in Llanmaes, South Glamorgan earlier this year. But this was dross. The pickled egg juice would've been more appetising. I can stomach my pint just, but Dad is seriously struggling, and goes up to play darts (quite badly, against himself) to distract himself. He loses. The landlady had given us a surprised look when we'd asked for the ale, like 'we've not pulled one of these since 1975, or changed the barrel or cleaned the lines since then'. I spy an empty and much comfier lounge to the right, so we briefly retire through there, until Dad mutters "Where's a RetiredMartin style plant pot when you want one?" Well actually Dad, outside, I can see two through the window. So we wander outside as if we're off for a ciggie, and I'm wonder how Dad's going to do it. In stages? Surreptitiously? No chance! He marches over and sloshes the whole thing in, bold as brass! #PubMan I smile. It feels weird. My first smile since we were in the Flowing Spring.

9/10 carpet deserves credit

One of these plants is probably now dead

A bus takes us down to Caversham for pub four, incidentally the first time I'd been sober in Caversham despite this being my fourth BRAPA tick here in history (Fox & Hounds and two average things), which is some kinda joint Stalybridgian record I partly blame Quinno for which suggests I don't have a mind of my own ....... but that boy could drink me under the table, twice!

In decent BRAPA circumstances, this clubby little Brakspear dosser would've been considered 'below par', but after that last shithole, Clifton Arms, Caversham (3263 / 5750) had a slouching slumbering lived-in soothing quality. Reassuringly old-skool permeates every pore. The carpet is a fascinating 7.75. 'Gravity' or 'Bitter' are the choices, though one and the same, I'm reliably informed, so Hobson's choice, but not as good as actual Hobson's, sadly. The third pub in 2025 after rural Essex and rural Bucks to pull this stunt on me. Twice I've chosen Bitter, once Gravity! Dad's on the OJ having lost all cask confidence, but at least he's enjoying watching a bit of the Test Match. 'Ingerrrrllland', I'm convinced he's going to scream if he goes up for a Cruzcampo which I'm thinking is likely. The loos have no soap. It was no surprise. So I reach for my emergency vintage Carex handgel which I bought in March 2020 for my Lanzarote Covid classic.

We were edging closer to our Reading starting point, and from here you can hop on a train out west and find yourself back in Oxfordshire. Pangbourne, to be precise, Dad is well impressed by the leafy riverside beauty surroundings ....

He might not look it, but trust me. Greyhound, Whitchurch-on-Thames (3264 / 5751) made a good impression on us both .... it really was a day where Oxon outshone Berks. I'd been expecting this to be a helluva lot more gastro, but it was 'front roomy' enough to be homely. Those green armchairs were to die for, I'd be nicking one if I had bigger arms and muscles and York was walkable, or perhaps canalable? Friendliest staffer of the day Cilla asks our names and where we're from and gets me on the local bitter and Dad on the tropical Tiny Rebel due to his trendier tastebuds. Higher quality beer than most we'd had today, then a tall Dutch couple wearing orange from head to foot wander in and compliment the armchairs in a very Irish / Ivorian way.

The dawning realisation that he's going to enjoy this pub experience

The plan from here had been Pangbourne - Tilehurst AKA Vilehurst, thanks Quinno) for today's final tick.

After approx ten years of being free of GBG pubs, one of the drabbest towns I've ever visited stuck two in together. One I'd ticked back in 2015/16 alongside two others when Berkshire was the apple of my eye for county completion, but this other one was brand new.

However, I notice it is a long old walk and what with Playhatch delays earlier, I tell Dad I'm not sure we'll have time to get it done. "Gah, I thought you'd have planned things better than this" he says. Getting so bolshie isn't he, I'll be glad when the football season starts at this rate!

But never fear, BRAPA always has a back up plan and Maidenhead is always the back up as I'd never priortise it, though I guess it is prettier than Vilehurst if I'm not being too controversial.

I'd been to their Windsor vehicle, so I kinda knew what to expect from A Hoppy Place Maidenhead, Maidenhead (3265 / 5752) though this is less cluttered and dinosaur orientated, and less interesting. Jolly beardo serves us and whilst my New Zealand ale I also had in Fernwood, Notts is 'fine' (it was better up there) , Dad gets a half of this coconut chocolate dream from dirty L**ds and by gum, it would've been beer of the day had I selected it. Some cool dude on my Untwappd says I should check it in as a 'taster', but that's all sorts of wrong in my book. Nowt else happened here hence why I'm becoming a beer bore rather than a pub bore, but look, if I lived in the 'Head (gawd forbid), I'd pop in here with my mates on 'dice night' every so often in a Pivni, Brew York, Valhalla kinda way. 72.55% of the GBG completed here, that's the stat.

Despite today's occasional pain points, as we train it back to Paddington, we're in agreement that it has been a far more enjoyable / less pressurised overall experience than East Sussex the previous week.

Berkshire is a decent pub county on the whole .... in my early days it was a notable step above both Beds and Bucks, my other 'early days' counties down south. Would I also rank it above Cambs? Hmmm, I'd need to think about it.

Bad news as we hit King's Cross. All trains going north are fouled up, chaos on the concourse. "Oh well, at least that means I don't have to rush my ESB!" I shout to Dad over the clamour, but it was a double whammy of gloom because Parcel Yard is shut for a refurb, deep clean and general zhush up.

The saddest sight today

A sausage roll & bottle of Oasis was some consolation, then the trains sort themselves out and despite a painful lee trundle home, we made it! York Tap? I was up for it between Peterborough and Donny, but by the time we hit York, the idea had lost its appeal. Oh well, good news for my liver.

Join me next time (Wed? Thu?), where it was time to get that Rosliston monkey off my back and complete Derbyshire like a boss.

Keep it pub, Si