The Turf Tavern, Oxford - pub details

Turf Tavern
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Address: 4 Bath Place Holywell, Oxford, Oxfordshire, OX1 3SU [map] [gmap]

Tel: 01865 243235

Nearest train stations Oxford (0.8 miles), Radley (5.2 miles), Islip (5.2 miles)

Pub facilities/features:

NB: Information may be incomplete or out of date as this pub is not currently registered.

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> Current user rating: 7.2/10 (rated by 177 users)
> Local guides: Oxford pub guide, Oxfordshire pub guide
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other pubs nearby:

Next Door Bar, Oxford (0.1 miles), Kings Arms, Oxford (0.1 miles), White Horse, Oxford (0.1 miles), Turl, Oxford (0.2 miles), Mitre, Oxford (0.2 miles) - see more nearby pubs

 

user reviews of the Turf Tavern, Oxford

please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.

5 most recent reviews of 89 shown - see all reviews

I was there on Saturday and was very impressed with the pub, the beer was superb and the food was good...however, the staff left a lot to be desired. Poor service inside, ok I accept it was busy, but staff should be noticing who has come to the bar and in what order to serve them, and outside, we were made to feel most unwelcome.
King_Viv - 16 Jul 2008 20:38
The pub is a very popular place to go in Oxford and provides a good range of real ales and very reasonably priced and excellently cooked meals. Be careful though that you don't get short changed on your pint, mine was missing a considerable amount from the top!
Gets very busy especially on sunny days and if you are in a big party, arrive early as the staff don't like you moving the tables around outside.
Having said that though, I would certainly return if in the city.
pistolknight_ViVi - 16 Jul 2008 00:53
If you want to know a nice place where the locals go to have a good time, the Turf Tavern. I stumbled upon this place and it looked interesting, so i decided to eat. The food was priced cheaply and was high quality. I actually received my meal in about 4 minutes. The staff at the Turf was the most friendly ive ever encountered in the UK or the states.
JOgilvie - 11 Jul 2008 04:51
I work at the Turf and am really pleased so many of you have enjoyed coming to the pub. I just thought I would make a comment about the drip-tray pint issue some people have mentioned below to explain why we do it and why we don't think it is a problem.

Because we are a very busy pub which is well-known for its ale, we go through our 11 very very quickly. Also, because it is a very old building with even older foundations, the cellar is extremely small and the ales do not have as much time in the cellar as they can enjoy elsewhere. (Sometimes our choice of beers reflects this - ie. through experience we've learned that some beers require more settling time than others and so we tend not to get those beers in much) This means that although we only ever serve the beer when it is in good drinking condition, it is not always in perfect pouring condition. The effect of this is that sometimes the beer is a little more 'lively' than we would want - this makes it hard to pour without more head than we would get in perfect circumstances. So, in order to give people full pints rather than ones with large heads, or with too much delay, and without over-pouring them which not only wastes beer but results in a flatter, muddier pint, we tap the excess head into a second pint-glass which is kept on the drip tray by the appropriate pump. The original pint is then topped up from the pump. The tapped-off head then has time to settle out for the next customer to buy that pint, normally within a couple of minutes. When it is quiet we don't need to tap off the head and don't use the system. There is only ever a centimetre or so of beer in the tapped-off glass.

As far as I can see the only difference to the beer sitting in a glass by the pump and the beer sitting in the barrel in the cellar is that it does not get drawn through the line. (As anyone who has worked with ale will know, when you vent the beer before tapping it, you make the beer open to the air in the cellar - unlike a lager). Drawing beer through the line gives it a little life and freshness because of its journey but does not add anything else to it whatsoever. Since, when we are using the tapped-off beer, only a tiny proportion of the pint is not drawn through the line, this quality is not lost.

Of course, the system has to be properly managed so that there isn't too much beer sitting for too long, but in busy periods we are essentially just starting some else's pint a few moments before they order it - it is settling before you order it and while we can be doing something else rather than between you ordering and paying. Given the fact we can only ever have 4 people behind the bar for such a huge pub it is a way of saving time and getting you served slightly faster while not wasting beer or, as far as I can see having any impact on the quality of your beer. Of course, if any of you ever have a problem with the conditioning of your pint do come up and let us know - we take our reputation for serving good beer seriously and want you to be happy with what you get.

I hope this helps explain the matter. If you have any other questions about it, do put them down and I'll try to remember to come back here and reply to them!

Dan
dan1980 - 5 Jun 2008 13:20
Famous 16th Century city centre pub within spitting distance of the Kings Arms down a side alley by the much photographed Bridge of Sighs ( there's another alleyway off Holywell Street ) and close up against the old city walls.

As previous contributors have pointed out, its a GK pub, but it serves a good range of approx a dozen real ales, including local micros ( these included West Berks Good Old Boy and White Horse Wayland Smithy on my early May visit. As the pub itself proclaims - " its an education in intoxication".

There are several outside drinking areas - the one in front of the main entrance has chalk boards providing interesting snippets of information on the pubs history / customers.

At the time of my visit, the Southern Counties Beer Festival was in progress in the garden at the back and the usual CAMRA worthies ( all looking like Bill Oddie of course ) were starting to roll up.

Mind your head on the low beams in the front bar and look out for the inevitable picture of Morse and Lewis supping a pint in the pub.

Recommended - but likely to be busy whenever you visit
JohnBonser - 30 May 2008 14:04

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