Fairview Inn

Now some of my friends' local but only in the sense that it is their nearest watering hole, not in the sense that they go there regularly (thank goodness). The Fairview holds the dubious honour of serving me the worst pint of beer I have ever had in Oxford. It is also a front-runner for most run-down and tatty pub in the city too.

I have visited twice - on the first occassion I was served a pint of John Smiths which took 5 minutes to pour and turned out to taste both fizzy and sweet (2 words you don't usually associate with that particular brand of beer). I could only manage a quarter of a pint before pushing it aside. Given the ordeal it had taken to pour I presumed there must have been a problem with the pumps/pipes and put that episode down to bad luck. On my second visit (I'm a real sucker for punishment) I remembered my previous woes and opted for a bottle of lager from the fridge that wouldn't have had the chance to pass through the pub's pipes. My friends on the other hand did not have the benefit of experience and picked a simple pint of Fosters lager each. To my astonishment their pints tasted exactly as my John Smiths had some months earlier with a really unpleasant sweet edge. Disgusting. I don't know if it's the pipes being unclean, the beer being off or the glasses being dirty but it's now certainly a case of twice bitten, thrice shy!

Joe B (Unverified), 02/08/09

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