Ridgeway – Day 0 (The Hop Inn)

Pub number three was the Hop Inn, which Bev told us was a former sex shop. We didn’t feel it appropriate to ask too many questions. Not through lack of wanting to ask questions of Bev, but because we didn’t really want to know the answers. The Bev Enigma is something that needs to unfold slowly.

This is the first pub that all met up at, so Maggie, Bev, Steve M, Steve, Dave and Susanna were all here, marking the official start of the Ridgeway adventure.

I was delighted with the choices here, some interesting beers and numerous ones that I hadn’t seen before. The liquorice stout sounded positively luxurious, but there was no way that I couldn’t order the peanut butter & banana porter. Despite the ABV, it was very drinkable and there was a lingering and pleasant after-taste of the banana, although I couldn’t get the taste of the peanut butter at all. But, I’d order it again.

We were delighted to see that there was a pizza menu, and we planned to just stay here all night. I noticed that the chicaritzo pizza looked particularly tempting, which would have gone beautifully with a pint of stout. Then, horror of horrors, they announced that they had just three pizza bases left. I worked out that as there was seven of us, that would mean that after I had a pizza to myself the others would have just one pizza between three people. This clearly wasn’t sufficient, as one member of our group can devour an entire pizza in one mouthful (not me), so we had to make the sad decision to move on. Which meant I never got to try the liquorice stout….

The interior of the pub, very on-trend and contemporary, and very much my favourite sort of pub. Of all the pubs we got time to go to in Swindon, which was only four, this was my favourite. But, onwards we marched to pub number four for food.