A South East pub walk

As we didn't get away for the bank holiday weekend we decided to get some walking in nearer to home. We (mostly) used a route from CAMRA's South East Pub Walks. The first pub stop is in Puttenham, home of Surrey's last hop ground and which gave me a chance to see how the hops were getting on as harvest time approaches.

We started at Wanborough station which had the added bonus that the foot paths took us across fields. First we went through wheat but soon we got to a superior cereal which pleased me. Walking through a barley field on the way to a hop field as part of a pub walk has a certain beery completeness to it.

Among the fields of barley

The Fuggles were looking on fine form.

The Good Intent was as good as last time with the added bonus that I wasn't driving. We only had a pint though as we had a long way to cover.

They had quite a selection at the bar but when Landlord is on I find it hard to resist. So I didn't.

Our next stop was the Harrow in Compton.

Sadly the Tribute was warm which was not ideal. I even had the finish the lovely Lisa's pint for her. Our route then took us past some huge houses and along a river to the last scheduled stop, The Star in Godalming. They had a good selection but again the beer was a bit warm.

We got the train back to Woking for food, calling in at The Sovs. It has an enlightened attitude to taking back poor quality beer.

Not that I needed to take anything back. I had a Hawkshead Windermere Pale, a beer that seems very popular with my fellow internet beer nerds. It was a good example of the ever so fashionable pale and tastes of American hops style of beer.

After eating it was time to crawl on to The Crown.

More Tribute in here, and it was a much nicer pint than it had beer at the Harrow. Then it was time for home.

I enjoyed out first outing from the SE Pub Walks book, and unlike some of the routes in the London Pub Walks book which have about eight pubs per mile, we had to earn our beer, which is no bad thing.