please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
IT's just so joyless, it serves good beer, decent food but when I go out for a drink I like to enjoy myself and have a laugh, not read the Observer.
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for the past 3 years i have been meaning to make the journey to the Vic in Beeston , finally ended up there this Sunday afternoon planning a few pints and a meal with the wife before entering i read the hundred rules and regulations the pint of Harvest Pale was excellent , what happened next an old friend of mine spotted me who had a lot to say , I'm sure the whole pub stopped drinking and eating to scorn at us to talking ! there was not sign saying NO TALKING , then for my sins i ventured out front for a cigarette taking my pint with me , a woman leaving spotted me and went back in to grass me up , within minutes three bar staff yes three , turned up and removed my pint from the wall and told me it was now on a shelf within the pub , we did go back in found a table looked around , felt very uncomfortable like being on detention at school , was going to have a meal the lamb shank looked delightful , but drank up and made a swift retreat .
I'm still giving the Vic an high rating i can understand what there trying to achieve , it will get another visit but I'll go prepared .
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Excellent for food, stopped here for lunch on a long journey up north, pub has lots of character and welcoming, must go back soon for a longer visit.
Meena - 16 Jun 2008 20:00 |
Just perfect. Great beer, great food, great staff. Just wish it was closer to home.
glugg - 13 Jun 2008 20:30 |
I've been coming back to this pub for the past 5 or so years and it never disappoints. Huge selection of ales, imported beers, and whiskys. The food is excellent. Not standard pub fayre. It does get very busy, so finding a table indoors can be tricky at times.
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Home sweet Home. This is a lovely pub to have as your local. 9/10
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Work bought me this way. Excellant, Fantastic, Wonderful, superb, brill. I think can can work out I rate this place high. Well worth a visit.
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If on a trip to Nottingham. Have a trip to Beeston it will be worth it.
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I love this place. Excellant menu. Whiskey selection is top notch oh and the beer is good too. 9/10
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Probably the most comprehensive stockholding I have ever seen! Sixteen Irish whiskeys, umpteen malts, excellent selection of real ales and friendly, competant and knowledgeable staff. Well done!
tonyh - 16 Jan 2008 16:03 |
`moribund` - in all probability the customers are outside in the garden because a series of signs has ordered them to do so (see previous postings).... `islington dinner party`.... wished i had thought of that
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Like you've died and woken up in an Islington dinner party. Gastropub pretensions well in evidence: take the grandparents there and treat them some al dente (i.e. "raw") vegetables but never booze there.
A tardis in reverse: massive old building with hardly any room inside...everybody is outside...even in winter!
A pub for people who don't like pubs with a gargoyle pretending to be the landlord.
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staff are a bit anal
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Great pub. Great beers. Great food. Best pub in Nottingham. I welcome the ban on mobile phones - it makes a nice change not to have to put up with the usual inane conversations.
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Excellent range of well kept beers and plenty of reasonably priced food.
Unlike a previous correspondent, at last a pub which deals with the inconsiderate and selfish people who don't know how to turn off their mobile phones .
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If you can get into the front bar it's fine but the rest of the pub has no atmosphere - a bit sterile. You felt as if the staff were doing you a favour serving you - maybe it's because I wasn't a regular. The beer selection and quality was good but the food was fairly bland and boring. Not cheap either. Handy for the station - almost on the platform. Wouldn't rush back.
chick - 26 Oct 2007 12:56 |
A `real ale` pub with middle class pretensions. I agree with the comments about the signs - `don`t do this` `don`t do that` `ask permisssion for etc`
Another sign now informs the fortunate consumer that smoking is banned throughout the premises, including the garden. Walking through the car park i noticed odedient customers standing on the pavement dutifully smoking their cigarettes at the required distance.
That stopped me in my tracks. I didn`t bother going in that day. The beer is well kept, but so is the beer in lots of other pubs. Spent my money elsewhere. Won`t be going back either
I propose another sign be posted near to entrances - `not welcome`
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Beer selection and quality is second to none here - usually two Castle Rock beers plus others from small breweries with emphasis on local ones. Nice to see plenty of session ales as well. Landlord is a good bloke, staff are friendly and very efficient.
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beer excellent!
cobs excellent!
staff peculiar, overeducated i think is the word.
the no mobile phones policy is just pathetic.
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rather austere atmosphere a bit like being in a library - very good beer
anonymous - 8 Apr 2007 10:49 |
I live 400yds away from the vic which is handy for their pork scratchings, they are the best darn scratchings in the world! After 8 double vodkas they are anyway.
However finding a handbag full of them the morning after is not a good thing.
Note to self.....stay off the vodka!
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Good beer, friedly staff. No mobiles, great! Put the thing on vibrate and wander outside when you need to talk. Some reviews describe this place as strict, POW camp like.... get real. Could do with a few more rooms and sometimes feels a little too set up for food. As for hype, its a friendly pub that sells good well kept beer. Its hardly rocked science!
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For the most part, I love the Vic, an excellent selection of real ales, continental beers and an UNBELIEVABLE range of whiskeys!
The best way to describe the food is 'good' and 'wholesome'. One of the best things is the vegetarian selection, it's great to see more than just Vegetarian Lasagne.
I have mixed opinions about the actual venue, whilst the interior rooms are traditionally cozy (easily mistaken for tatty) it could just do with being a bit bigger but then I guess it would loose it's homely feeling. I say this, because when it gets full, the only choice is to sit in the outside area with the patio heaters, and whilst it is a covered area, you can't help feeling a bit 'out of it'.
I kind of agree with the mobile phone comments, but, on the flip side, you do have to stop and think, has life come to the point where we can't even live without our phones for a couple of hours whilst we enjoy a pint and a chat with friends? I guess it's only pretentious middle class fascists like me that like to actually talk to the people he's with...
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Absolutely excellent pub. Four rooms, an excellent range of beers from interesting breweries, never ever had a beer that wasn't spot on here. Live music on Sunday is highly recommended, as is the Vicfest in July, three weekends with live bands outside from lunchtime to 8 (folk/rock oriented). ah this description is making me thirsty, I think I'll pop over there now...
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Great Beer, good mix of people in the bar, very good food, friendly staff, really good selection of whiskies.
The lounge/restaurant areas can be packed and the bands can take over, but there is usually somewhere to retreat from the racket.
A good place to have a few drinks.
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Excellent range of well kept beer (yes, that's real beer), usually a couple of darks, some continentals and real cider. Whiskey is listed on its own menu!
Good honest food, large range, changes regularly, good vegetarian selection (more that just mushroom stroganoff).
Always crowded, but the locals are friendly. Staff are friendly too, until 11pm when the kickout starts ;-)
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The Vic is a bog-standard English pub. There's no competition venue-wise in Beeston, so The Vic rates itself pretty highly and is the only pub in the suburb/town with middle-class pretensions. As a result The Vic is actually so far up its own backside that it's in danger of morphing into an infinite self-referential bum-loop.
When I arrived in Beeston many people in Nottingham would comment, "Oooh, The Vic is in Beeston". The reputation of the venue certainly preceded it: I was therefore pretty disappointed to encounter it for the first time. The interior is pretty tawdry - one room is nothing better than miserable, the largest central room is just bland, and the backroom feels like it belongs in a tacky seaside guesthouse. The staff are OK but not particularly warm or friendly. The clientele think that they are part of some sort of alternative, intellectual Beeston elite, and there are usually far too many fey weirdy-beardy academic types in attendance.
The most irritating thing with The Vic though is the amount of signs telling punters what they can't do. These signs are written in rather abrupt language.
'Don't move the furniture without asking'
'No food service to children after 7'
'Turn your mobile phone off'
I wasn't sure if I was in a pub or a POW camp. The Vic management obviously believe their own hype - the humble customer must comply as they are so privileged to be present in such a palatial venue! The sign requesting people to turn their mobiles off is probably the best – something along the lines of:
'Your call may be important to you, but is isn't important to us!'
It's like someone squaring up to you before you've even entered the establishment.
Having said that, if you're unfortunate enough to end up in Beeston, The Vic is probably the best place to go – but ultimately it's best not to end up in Beeston!
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Granted, the Victoria offers a smorgasboard of fine ales, but I find it hard to swallow anything there due to the suffocating level of smugness that permeates through the pub. Ask for a pint of Carling and you might as well have defecated on the bar by the looks you'll receive from the bar staff, trying vainly to mask their contempt. And you can't move for pretentious middle-class snobs pontificating over the malty nose of a pint of "Bishop's merkin" (insert your own hilarious name), while eating a pack of crisps that costs almost a pound!.
The clientele are such fascists too. Heaven forbid you use a mobile phone in their exalted establishment, or attempt conversation when some God-awful folk band has taken over the whole pub, but you're welcomed with open arms if your army of tawdry and rancid dogs are in tow, slobbering on fellow drinkers with gay abandon.
"Oh, the food's superb" is the oft-heard mantra of the pub's shameless acolytes. But no, it isn't. Ok, so they cook from scratch, but that doesn't give them carte-blanche to charge central London prices for what is, at best, mediocre fare. You won't see me there, I'll be enjoying a Whetherburger over at the Last Post, Join me!
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Always a great range of ales.
The food did go through a phase of taking itself a bit too seriously, but the drinking/eating balance seems pretty good now.
Arrive early for seats in the garden on summer weekends.
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Absolutely superb. Everything a pub should be. Great range of well kept, reasonably priced (I am from Surrey though) beers and the best pub food I've tasted in 10 years. Staff are excellent and the dog by the fire just adds the finishing touch. Worth moving to Beeston just so you can call it your local.
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Only 400 yards from my house! This pub serves the best pub grub in the land. Fab traditional pub. Lovely outside except for the trains deafening you as they speed past.
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Great, well run pub. Superb range of quality beer and great food.
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By far the best pub I've ever been to. Friendly staff, the best selection of alcohol I've seen, and its lovely outside in the winter with the heaters on.
I strongly reccomend the Platinum Blonde cider.
Charley - 31 Oct 2004 17:47 |
The best pub I have visited in years. Superb beer range. Ditto for wines and malts. Staff friendly and quick to serve.
Food excellent, imaginative and changes frequently. Definately not typical 'predictable' pub fare and great options for vegetarians! [at last somewhere thinks of veggies]
Not sure about the negativity in the comments above as none of those issues read true for me. Everyone is welcome and made to feel that way.
A true pub where you can chat and while away a few hours sociably. A must for anyone that has not been.
Mark - 18 Aug 2004 08:21 |
the best pub in the world - Torres Rose, fine whiskies, excellent grub and beers from around the world. And despite a tiny bar, super-quick service!
Vickster - 16 May 2004 22:00 |
Forget to mention that this is a mobile-free pub and therefore deserves an extra point in it's ratings.
palmwinedrinkard - 21 Apr 2004 10:12 |
This would probably be Nottingham's best pub if there wasn't so much emphasis on 'the restaurant'. It looks huge from the outside but it's long and narrow. Different rooms and spaces which fill up very quickly. One can be ruled out if you don't want to eat, another if there's a band on.
I sound really negative but this is actually one of my favourite pubs in Nottingham. The staff are always helpful and quick considering how busy it gets. Always a good atmosphere (apart from the 'dining room'. Don't sit in the beer garden with a hangover as the trains pass within a few feet of the fence.
Great quality and array of beers - always a selection of dark beers - and a whisky paradise. I think I'll go there right now.
palmwinedrinkard - 16 Apr 2004 16:53 |
york centurian ghost champion dark beer opf britain was v nice-
C - 2 Feb 2004 13:18 |
A serious point-if you ever find yourself travelling through Beeston on the train, get off and go to the Vic. It's next to the station and you can get a Gold and a Guest in before the next train.
Charlie - 3 Dec 2003 13:57 |
Graham pours a good Grantham Stout
Nuff said....you heard.
Charlie - 16 Nov 2003 16:20 |
Fantastic pub to enjoy the castle rock regular ales, and the many guests which always provide the excitment of trying a new ale, with very rare disapointment. Good food, and a nice atmosphere to enjoy your drink as the trains roll through Beeston railway station
El kTel - 10 Nov 2003 17:09 |
Only been in here a few times, but they sell decent beer and had a really good live band on one time. Food is good too.
Simon - 23 Sep 2003 23:42 |
>108 real ales, stout mild & cider+ > 100 malt whiskys.
exceelent food, generally no amplified music
Tom - 30 May 2002 17:42 |
