Uk Barblog

Reading University Student's Union (Reading)

Reading University Student's Union

Pumping dance floor in liquid lighting from the second you enter and are faced with a  rounded bar with clubbers and sweeping disco lights. Then suddenly through a door into a misplaced corridor with no music but chatting students enjoying normal lighting. here there is a cafe with a bar off to the left and another in front. The one ahead contained a large bar and seating area with cover pool tables and plenty of standing students. Most Saturday night you are paying £5 a ticket or £3 with NUS and the queues can be enormous if you choose to get there after 10pm. The bars and club atmosphere has clearly been well invested in although the bouncers are ridiculously stupid and overly violent. Bar staff are friendly - the bar at the back just seems like a loud pub while the club pictured is at the front and resembles more of the clubby atmosphere expected on a Saturday night. The place is packed with too many pretty boys, in fact its safe to say the place feels a bit like a club in Brighton and not like a student community.

Overall its your typical snakebite drinking student dive except that with its multi million pound makeover it feels more like the ultimate student club that an SU. No doubt this is the most well done Union I have yet visited and as such it gets a pretty hot 8/10.

The Back of Beyond (Reading Town Centre)

The Back of Beyond (wetherspoons)

This large Wetherspoons provides an array of doors as a front entrance to open out onto the less-than-clean streets of reading at night but in the winter provides safe shelter and warm couches by the window with a hearty ale. The layout of the venue is set into 3 basic columns of booths on the far left, small tables in the middle and the bar to the right. Heading directly for the bar I happened upon a nasty flaw- it took 2 and a half hours to get served. Okay perhaps I am exagerating but in a busy pub of this calibre more than two barmen can be a good selling point. Ale in hand i notice entrances front and back and despite easy acces it is not rammed with students which is good.

Overall I found the place to be clean and comfortable and not overcrowded. Had the bar persons been more plentiful this wetherspoons would have been considerably better but it still slips away with a generous 5/10.

O Neil's (Reading Town Centre)

O Neil's

This pub is tucked beside all the other reading establishments in a row of brand-name bars and drunken louts scouring the streets for innocent females as prey. This particular place is at the end of that row and eager to attract the young yet only pulling the old. Its overcrowded on one floor with basic wooden furnishings, no signal on phone but gladly a good variety of drinks at the bar. The service is quite fast for how busy it is but walking away from the bar you are met with the instant faces of middle aged men and women all at knee height. The decor is floral and Irish themed, but the place is quite big extending into the back of the building where the noise levels are over exposing to the ears of its deafened punters in the mist of not-too-harsh-light rock music.

Overall its basically an average O Neill's but thats not saying much, there's all that music yet no dance-floor. It's your bog standard, well priced chain-pub watering hole - 5/10.

Yates (Reading Town Centre)

Yates

Yates is a large venue mounted upon a few small steps on entry past the rugged burly, but friendly bouncers into a hall-like room with large stairs up one side leading to an upstairs of wide birth balconies. Downstairs there are a few couches and chairs dotted about but the focus is on the main floor which seems to serve as a badly designed dance-floor in the mist of thick but slow producing dance music and bizarre foam sea mines. The toilets can be found on the lower level which feels like leaving a club and entering the maze of someones house. Its popular because the drinks remain cheap but becuase the bar serves so slowly its a long wait before you have a drink and although the shots are served in test tubes there is no-where to really relax and enjoy them- even the upstiars gets crowded quite qucikly. It seems to be in a good location but its the clientell which disappoint- rowdy, blazing eyed troublemakers who are inside to get thrown out and the student majority which swamps you at the bar means you could be standing in the middle of a liught show waiting to be served while in the "on-guard" position.

Probably the nicest nightclub/bar combo in reading town centre even so, but then it only gets a 6/10.

The Monks Retreat (Reading Town Centre)

The Monks Retreat

Apparently a monk climbing up a bit of rope makes a pub good, I think not! The centre piece for this overcrowded, under-belly of the lower class wetherspoons is host to some of the most grotty persons in the town of Reading. I can now see what the monk is scrambling away from; while in here i witnessed a crowd of football thugs roaring with noise before one reached over and snatched a fried egg from the plate of an old woman sitting on another table to him and watched in horror as he scoffed the thing before going back to his chanting. I turned to the bar to have a certain someone empty the contents of their stomach onto the bar surface, in the surrounding punters drinks and down my trousers and on my shoes.

Needless to say my proximity to the vomitee was such that I got expelled from the premises but to tell the truth it was easier getting the bouncer to haul me through the crowd than go through myself and risk losing my wallet to pickpockets. One to avoid at all costs regardless of how cheap it is: 2/10. The most horrible wetherspoons i have ever been in!

The Outlook (Reading Town Centre)

The Outlook

Most of the bars in Reading are poor meloncoly replicas of dirty chain-bars and Wetherspoons but the Outlook prides the wood among the surrounding flaccid taverns. An a very wooden pub it is, with a nice view of the river flowing literally outside the back windows. Entering the bar you see the bar to the right and the room head towards a galley and drop into a floor below with exposed pool table with Blue Biaze. The furnishings are nice leather sofas and if the river seems alluring you can sit by it if you enter via the left side of the front entrance. The lights are a bit bright for that relaxing atmosphere and the locals also seems unapproving of the drinks prices which at £2.40 a pint are expensive for the area. Its not too packed but very little atmosphere-it has the capacity to be that large cabin by the slow-flowing river in the darkest and cosiest of winter evenings but it tries to reach out for a sporty/student bar type feel and its character is somehwat lost in its ego.

If nothing else it tries hard, its clean and despite the locals complaining its expensive it remains cheap and cheerful as far as I can tell. 7/10.

The Upin Arms (Reading Town Centre)

The Upin Arms (a scream bar)

A pub-like venue from the outside and not very representitive of a chain bar either inside, the Upin Arms is a lot smaller inside than it looks form the roads passing either side of it outside. It is popular with Sports fans and students with weekly games, quizes and prizes equipped with a large projector (which shakes when applause occurs) and 3 red baized pool tables. The Bar staff are very formal and unfriendly but serve up very cheap drinks - £1.80 a pint. There is very little atmosphere in here or seating space - especially when a match is on the box and the crowd is particularly unfriendly to non-regulars. Its a good place to start the night for a few cheap shots and pints but other than that it needs a refit and from the outsdie wouldnt attract a dog looking for a place to urinate.

Overall you can see why its so popular with the students but its a bit far from the centre of town and a bit on the unfriendly side to give any comfortable reviews. In all 4/10, simply because its so cheap.

Crown on the Bridge (Caversham - Reading)

Crown on the Bridge

Yet another haven for festival goers. Attached to the side of the Caversham bridge overlooking the thams the Crown on the Bridge would be so much better if indeed you go a look at those views, unfortunately the windows give you nothing to enjoy in this prime location. This little pub is a good all-rounder for food but the toilets are unwelcoming. theres games and sport on TV but the drink prices are a little steep and it can get too busy at that time of year. It had music (i think) but it was so quiet you couldnt hear it, although it probably wasnt worth listening too. The only big upside was how nice the bar staff were.

Overall 3/10.

The Clifton Arms (Caversham - Reading)

The Clifton Arms

I tell you what-they do a great breakfast and have some seating outside for those summer hot days and mornings. Inside its very small- a traditional family pub and I think they do a lot of charity work at this one. This toilets aren't great and the drink is quite pricey although they do serve 35ml shots here. The staff are also very friendly as are the other customers.

Overall 6/10 because they do do a cracking breakfast!

Baron Cadogan (Caversham - Reading)

Baron Cadogan

Thats right i've been to reading festival too and I thank this wetherspoons for its toilets! It is a fast serving pub, with a very open layout but a very restauranty feel as opposed to pubish. It is well hidden but I encourage you to stroll that little further into Caversham to find this medium sized inn. The prices as with any wetherspoons are dramatically better than anywhere else and it is plush from the outside with hanging baskets and always dazzling in the sunlight. The bar staff are not particularly friendly however but the place never seems to get too overcrowded. A haven to all who go there, but i prefer itas a day pub that a night post.

Overall this one gets a 6/10