The Mason Arms, Bury St. Edmunds

A clap board (?) covered GBG listed pub badged as Greene King but just their Abbot and IPA on the seven handpumps plus a couple of their kegs. The other five casks were a mix of fairly local beers, Mad Squirrel, Woodford's, Oakham and a Cornish visitor from St Austell. No doubt these change frequently. A low 5 way T-bar is devoted to fake foreign lagers and a higher quad has two more fake lagers plus Guinness and a peach lager - Pilfer. Descriptive wise its about the same as Blackthorn found 10 years ago and Strongers last year. I walked in on a Tuesday quiz as it finished, the pub emptied almost straight after the quiz, I also failed to note the warning about mind the step on entering the bar. Nice pub though and worth its GBG place.

The Masons Arms is a short and wide pub with old thick wooden beams throughout and a central bar area that has a serving counter across the rear that faces a couple of barrel tables and a thick Masons Arms etched glass floor that looks down into the cellar below. There’s seating either side of the bar area, the right-hand side being down a step. Out the back is a popular beer garden that is also access via the old horse and cart arch up the left-hand side of the pub. In amongst the keg, I counted seven hand pumps that were drawing St Austell’s Tribute, Woodforde’s Sunbreak, Oakham’s Green Devil and 3 Witches alongside GK IPA and Abbot Ale. There was a Masons badge on the last hand pump, not sure what this was. This is a very popular pub that is worth a look.

Decent pub which is just a few minutes stroll from the main square. Good choice of beers with 4 from Greene King plus Oakham Scarlet Macaw, Tribute, Black Sheep and Woodforde's Volt. I went for the Volt which was excellent. Well worth a visit.

A pleasant pub in a quiet side street just off of Bury’s main square, it has a slightly unusual appearance with it’s white timber clad exterior, but inside nonetheless retains a traditional and cosy ambience with plenty of wooden beams and a suitable wonky ceiling for such an old building. It’s a largely open plan layout internally, although with a small segregated snug area at one end with a long Chesterfield sofa. The flooring was a mixture of wood strip and mosaic tiles, whilst an etched glass panel in the floor provided a view in to the cellar which was an unusual and interesting feature. Despite the old beams, the paintwork had perhaps a slightly more contemporary feel with use of Farrow & Ball shades and some floral wallpaper, but this didn’t in any way detract from the feel. A brick fire-place was down at one end, but this looked to be unused with just a beer barrel in the grate. There were a number of large beer barrels to rest your pint on for vertical drinkers, and a bunch of hops hung from the ceiling. A number of old black and white pictures of the nearby Greene King brewery were on the walls. The menu looked to offer a decent selection of dishes such as fish & chips, lasagne, sausage & mash, hunter’s chicken, etc., as well as a number of pies, burgers, sandwiches and a specials board. Most of the main courses were in the £9 - £10 range. There was a good selection of beers on tap, which unusually for this area were not dominated by Greene King, although there were three different varieties of their IPA available – Regular, Gold and Reserve. These were joined by Oakham Inferno, Theakston’s XB, Betty Stogs, Bath Ales Gem, Timothy Taylor Landlord and their own Masons. Ciders were also well represented with Thatcher’s Gold, Strongbow Dark Fruit and Aspall’s Suffolk. Of all the pubs we tried in Bury St Edmunds, this was my favourite and well worth a visit. If we had been staying longer I would have returned to check out the menu.