Great Gloucestershire Pubs: The Royal Hop Pole, Tewkesbury
Think of a "real ale pub" and what comes into your mind? Probably somewhere small, independently run, with great beer of course.
The Royal Hop Pole in Tewkesbury certainly ticks one of those boxes. The beer's really good.
But that's where the stereotype ends. Because it's also enormous. And it's owned by J D Wetherspoons, a chain with more than 800 outlets across Britain - a giant of the national pub industry.
Now while there's no arguing with the quality of the beer in these types of pubs or the bargain prices, I've always felt they've lacked atmosphere. I've also found the food average, to say the least.
Business Cards From Only £10.95 Delivered www.myprint-247.co.uk
View detailsOur heavyweight cards have FREE UV silk coating, FREE next day delivery & VAT included. Choose from 1000's of pre-designed templates or upload your own artwork. Orders dispatched within 24hrs.
Terms: Visit our site for more products: Business Cards, Compliment Slips, Letterheads, Leaflets, Postcards, Posters & much more. All items are free next day delivery. www.myprint-247.co.uk
Contact: 01858 468192
Valid until: Sunday, June 30 2013
The Royal Hop Pole's no exception. Despite the fact that the building, in the heart of historic Tewkesbury, is old, with wooden beams all over the place, it just doesn't feel like an old pub.
Maybe that's because it isn't - six years ago it was a hotel and it's only after a £4.2 million investment from Wetherspoons (no, you didn't mis-read that figure), that the pub exists as it does today.
So it feels a bit sterile, lacking in any real character. Even the river bank beer garden feels featureless and is bordered by a dull wooden fence.
And despite the presence of a specials board alongside the standard Wetherspoons pub menu, you have to question the cooking methods of anywhere that can serve up a beef madras just five minutes after it was ordered. Even the mango chutney came in a foil, covered plastic tub.
But that's not necessarily what Camra award-winners are about - the most important thing is the beer, after all.
And this is where the Royal Hop Pole does excel. Landlord Stuart Coxshall is keen to support proper brewers, even though he admits that the size of the pub and the resulting buying power is a big reason behind the competitive prices.
Still there is a Battle of the Brewers held for a week every three months, with the beer which sells most being featured permanently on the Royal Hop Pole bar for the following three months.
Indeed there are some fine tipples on sale at the Royal Hop Pole, probably for unbeatable prices. It just feels like the rest of the competition for the award of best real ale pub in Tewkesbury is getting squashed out of even having a look-in.
I'd rather support somewhere smaller and less corporate - I'd even pay extra for it. It's just a shame that, if Camra are right and this is the best real ale pub in Tewkesbury, that there isn't anywhere more worth of the title.
Comments
by interociter
Sunday, May 13 2012, 4:23PM
“The point of real ales in our group is variety as well as cost.
Obviously presentation and quality are essential ingredients.
We are fed up with other pubs serving almost identical ales with almost no diversity and charging silly prices. £3 or more for a bland or weak brew is not worth going out for.
What is the point of selling three or more real ales with similar styles and characteristics as many pubs do? That is not a choice!
The manager at Wetherspoons is always ready to listen to his customers, he does not mind criticism and conversely appreciates praise where needed. The important fact I reiterate "He listens!".
As CAMRA mammbers we do indeed get discounts and with our vouchers superb ales like for example the 'Battledown 4 Kings' can be had for under £2! A yummy bargain indeed.
We are all refugees from other pubs, and the reason for our migration was poorly kept and presented beers, rip off prices, every time a new manager took over the price of a pint went up 10p for example, and lack of choice.
All my colleagues myself included have been real ale scholars since the late 1960s, and if Wetherspoons offers the need where others cannot be bothered to fulfil that obviously our hard earned cash will gravitate in that direction.
Most of us have been regulars in all the pubs in Tewkesbury at one time or anotherand the Hop Pole has become our beer oasis much as it was in the 1970s.
It is a free market open to the free play of market forces, if other beer cogniscenti think that they can find better value and solace elsewhere then so be it.
The condeming article attacking Wetherspoons reads as if it was written by a disgruntled competitor or one of his family.
I'd like the contributor to name just one restaurant which does not have a microwave oven... also please look up articles regarding Gordon Ramsey and his boil in the bag meals in his restaurants.
If I want a great meal then there is a 1st class two Michelin star restaurant in nearby Cheltenham. The fact that at least weekends when I visit my favourite drinking emporium it is bursting at the seams with customers most of whom early in the day are eating.
Why is it only in Britain that we condemn success?”
by galopede
Sunday, May 13 2012, 4:16PM
“What's with all the daft hyperlinks appeearing in TIG reports these days? What a river bank beer garden got to do with Lloyds TSB.
The pub's Competitive Prices ar because of Hewlett Packard?
Weird!”
by OldGrumbler
Sunday, May 13 2012, 2:41PM
“Bad pubs don't survive these days so Wetherspoons must be doing something right.”
by JeremyBadger
Sunday, May 13 2012, 11:52AM
“1. Mr Coxhall is a MANAGER not a Landlord
2. Whetherspoons do no favours for brewers, they rob them blind.
3. CAMRA are in the pocket of Wetherspoons because of all the perks they get.
4. Great Beer????..............served badly by incompetant staff.
5. Good Food.....microwaved to death by indifferent kitchen helpers.
6. Best pub in Tewkesbury?.......NO WAY!
Ex CAMRA Member”
by oldcriminal
Sunday, May 13 2012, 5:16AM
“they mush have lots of microwaves in the hop poles kitchens”
by oldcriminal
Sunday, May 13 2012, 5:14AM
“Theoc house the nottingham arm are a lot better and they are real pubs”