please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
After walking along the Ridgeway from Tring to Ivinghoe Beacon and back, we were impressed with this place. At first glance, there appears to be no ale but there is a fine range of local offerings lined up diagonally to the bar including, appropriately, a couple from the Tring brewery. A path across fields leads from Tring station, making it closer to the railway than any pub in Tring itself. A varied clientele and a nice garden top things off.
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A lovely unspoilt pub serving good food and a good selection of ales. Both Siren and Tring featured a couple of beers each on the pumps today and they were in very good condition. I last came to this pub about 20 years ago and it hasn't changed that much. It was good then and it's still good now - which can only be a good thing in this age of every pub being given the 'sage green' paint job and losing their uniqueness.
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Very nice country pub with a good range of well kept local ales (Tring, Chiltern). Food was good but not great. Very popular on a Saturday lunchtime.
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This is a really nice pub, with a really nice garden. That's where nice ends..........
The food is excellent. You have to wait a bit, but it is cooked to order. No problem with that. The service was good, friendly and efficient.
There were six beers on the pumps on our visit. Fullers London Pride,Tring Side Pocket and Ridgeway. Can't remember the other three. I had the Ridgeway, which was kept very well and served as a full measure. Very nice indeed.
A return visit is definitely on the cards. I am awarding a very rare 9/10.
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Very enjoyable visit on May 26th. Good range of well kept beers and real cider. Very good atmosphere and very good menu/food. This is a good example of how to run a pub well - can't say this about too many pubs these days
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Always found the ales to be very well kept and a good range.
Whenever I have been in they always have a Tring beer which has been faultless.
Its also open all day which is handy. Proper pub well worth a visit
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we tried all the beers and they were not spectacular,the food was good but at �10 for a steak burger you would expect that, clean and tidy inside and out, very picturesque,
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A great little pub in a beautiful village just through Ashridge forest. Excellent for a nice pint of Tring Ridgeway Or one of around 4 other ales after a mooch though the woods with the dog. Food is good too, excellent ploughmans and sunday lunch is huge and very tasty. Try not to wake up in the stocks by the duck pond!
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A really great pub, good real ales, we felt at home the moment we walked in, quick friendly service, a good place to spend an evening.
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Very busy for a Monday lunchtime. Locals playing dominoes filled the main bar - that left the stables.
This room holds 40 people. A group of 36 were already in there, each person trying to talk above the other - and succeeding. Relaxing it was not.
It was just as well that three of the five beers on offer were worth having and the chips were crispy - very nice.
I hope my next visit will be in quieter surroundings.
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This pub always serves good ale and its good to see a pub supporting the local brewery at Tring. The food is generally good too, although their pricing can sometimes detract from the overall quality of what is being served.
But at times the locals really give off a very negative vibe to anyone they don't recognise! Hence my mark of 6.
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Pleasant old-style village pub with some good ales on my recent visit (I had the Tring Ridgeway, my companions the Wadsworth Celebration stout and Brakspear bitter).
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I was first introduced to the 'Trooper' by a mate called 'Peter Attwood', my visit then was exceptional although I can't remember the ales on offer. On my last visit I sampled the 'Tring Brewery' offerings, all in tip top condition. This is really a very good pub all round. Recommended.
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I popped in for a pint after a mountain bike ride in the local hills on Saturday afternoon and had a thoroughly gorgeous pint of Ridgeway from Tring Brewery in the beer garden. I didn't try the food this time but it's a pretty pub with low, beamed ceilings, stone floors, lots of character and I've never had a bad pint there.
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Shame the last landlord has gone - he and his wife worked very hard and raised the standards. Still a great locals pub and deserves success.
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We had lunch here today, i was not impressed. The online menu differs to what is offered on the day. We took friends as a gift for them, the vegetarian option was mushroom starters and mushroom main and not great either. The roast was not up top much either. I spent over �100 for lunch and would not return. Lovely setting tho.
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I viisted for lunch 3 June 2010.
I hesitated about going as about four years ago I had a thoroughly unpleasant experience with both the restaurant manager and my salad, which had a live worm in it.
Anyway, I put that behind me as pubs change every few months and visited again. What an enormous disappointment for a pub that used to have a good reputation.
The pub manager was, once again, one of those people who hated his job. New depths of miserableness are here.
The beer (which used to be a strength of this pub) was terrible. The Tribune was reject able (end of barrel) and then a later pint (new barrel) full of bits of yeast. At �3.10 this is not good.
The garden furniture is rotting to bits.
My lunch was dreadful. The terrine was so dry and crumbly that the bit I ate tasted like something from an oatmeal packet.
Somebody needs to get a grip of this pub as soon as possible.
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I had high hopes for this pub, but ended up being fairly underwhelmed. The good weather seemed to have brought all and sundry out for Sunday lunch, and the pub was a bit too busy for my liking. Very few tables in the garden were available, despite there being dozens. Service was a bit rushed. Nevertheless, the main bar area is unspoiled and the beer selection is good - Tring Trooper Ale, Brakspear Bitter, Hook Norton Hooky Bitter and Youngs Bitter. Unfortunately there was no real cider. Aspalls was the best cider on offer. I should try to return to this pub on a weekday when it's quieter. But first impressions were not brilliant.
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Great pub, friendly staff, good atmosphere and 6 different ales on tap, what more could you want!
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Without the restaurant extension on the back this old country pub is quite small with low beams, an inglenook at either end of the bar and not a straight wall in sight. The extension is large and stretches up the beer garden at the rear which is a good size and well kept. There are even some small climbing apparatus at the back to keep the kids amused on a summer�s day.
My Guinness was very nice and although there was only a limited standard draught selection available there was a good ale offering of Pride, Skinner�s Best, Brakspear and Trooper Ale.
I thought that the helpful woman behind the bar was friendly and apologetic when explaining that my choice of lunch was off the menu. I ended up with a nice substitute and the wife was happy with hers, it was a shame though that my daughter�s pasta was inedible and the sauce looked like the liquid that is found at the top of a ketchup bottle that hasn�t been shaken. Unsurprisingly it didn�t taste very nice either and I wondered why it ever left the kitchen.
On the whole I liked this place as it made a change from the London boozers that I usually find myself in, but I wouldn�t make another special trip to visit again.
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Had Tring's "Trooper Ale", very good.
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I live locally to this pub and always enjoy the beer - well kept with a good selection of local brews. It is a real shame that the food is not up to the same standard. Me and my wife were here last month for a meal on a Saturday night and it was really awful. There were six in our group and nobody enjoyed the food. The starters and main courses were all very disappointing. All the different mains seemed to be covered in the same terrible gravy - or as the menu suggested in one case - jus. Also, there was no atmosphere as the place was mostly empty - maybe word is out locally about the quality of the food.
It is a pity as I remember eating here at the beginning of the Summer and had a much nicer experience.
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The Valiant Trooper is the archetypal English Country pub, beams, woodburner and plenty of places to bang your head!. As said below, it's set in the beautiful little village of Aldbury which backs onto the Ashridge National Trust estate (I believe that Top Gear has filmed in Aldbury several times in the past). I went to 'The Trooper' recently with the wife and the in-laws for a fantastic lunch and even the famously finickety in-laws left happy! The lamb shank and the 'naughty' Trooper pie in particular were excellent. The beer is in great shape, the Brakspear and specially brewed local Trooper Ale were the favourites. The staff were excellent and managed to get the balance of service and privacy just right. Worth a diversion if in the area.
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It's so nice to see a proper English country pub these days! The Valiant Trooper is really "olde worldy" pub with beams, old wood floors and real log fires. The staff are really friendly and the food is great. I had the Trooper pie which was packed with a delicious mixture of meats and gravy and looked pretty amusing with a sausage poking out of the top (which my friends all sniggered at!). The rest of the group had sandwiches, ploughmans, fish and chips and lamb shank - all of which were thoroughly enjoyed. The puddings were to die for - all served with lashings of custard! A great meal all round - we'll be back!!
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I've eaten at the valiant trooper not so long ago and found the beer and the food to be amazing,I had a pint of trooper ale which was greatly enjoyed after a long hike in the woods,My wife and i then enjoyed a great pub lunch of which i had the tooper pie .All i can say is you must go and try this sumptious pie,My wife enjoyed good old fish and chips, fantastic well done all.
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The beer here is always well kept but the food is truly awful. The last occasion of my visit two weekends ago was with a group and no one within the group enjoyed their meals. Mine was cold king prawns with chilli on sliced bread followed by a main of tasteless faggots with a strange skin sitting in a gravy with a peculiar taste well short of the standard expected from Bisto gravy granules. If the owners could get someone in that can cook it would really rejuvenate this pub. It has so much going for it otherwise.
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Pub in ridiculously picturesque Aldbury. Small, cosy interior. The furniture appears relatively new. I initially thought there was only the local Trooper Ale (Tring Brewery), but five more pumps are hidden behind the bar - Tring's blonde, Pride, Landlord (is this ever nice?), Brakespear and Oakham's excellent Jeffery Hudson Bitter. I didn't sample the actual menu but did manage to pay �2.00 for a pork pie. The garden was crowded, predominantly with famillies and canines. From here, you can look up to the spectacular ridge, part of the prehistoric path, and just catch a glimpse of the Bridgewater Monument between the trees. It is about a mile from Tring Station. Recommended.
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This pub is situated in a delightful setting and serves excellent beer. The problem seems to be with the food. We ordered and ate in the restaurant. The vegetarian tart when it arrived was a tiny slice barely big enough for a starter - it had been ordered as a main course. It did not taste very good according to the member of our group who ordered it. The response of the staff was to provide an additional slice - this tasted equally bad. The other main course dishes we tried were reasonable if a bit underseasoned. The puddings were excellent.
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We found th new owners, Beej and Beth, very welcoming and they have done wonders to the pub and restaurant. The ales were faultless .. JHB was superb! I ha traditional fish and chips and the batter, made withlocal Tring ale, was great, everything tasted fresh and well made. Well done
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I visited early evening 12 June 2007. I was a bit nervous of going back there as last year I had a disastrous lunch which included a worm in my salad and a hassle with the uninterested manager. So, I did not eat this time.
The range and condition of the cask ales was absolutely excellent and the bar staff were cheerful. The range included two offerings from our local Tring Brewery, so the beer was very good.
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Beers are well kept. Food is truely awful, only attempt it, if you have no sense of taste. Staff not particularly interested either. Certainly not one to recommend, plenty of good boozers in the surrounding areas.
anonymous - 11 Apr 2007 08:56 |
Good, well kept beers in pleasant surroundings. More welcoming (and cheaper) than the Greyhound in the same village. Didn't try the food so unrated but beers 8/10
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Dropped in for a quick half last weekend. Good range of reasonably priced ales; the two I sampled were well kept.Too late for food so can't comment on that aspect. Pleasant reception. rate it more highly than the Greyhound near the pond.
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Old fashioned honest local with up to 5 Real Ales,Numerous lagers etc.
The pub also has a resturant adjoing it which is often very busy. No Juke Box,No Pool etc just dominos.
Beer prices average, but normally kept in good condition.
Christopher Bentley - 20 Jan 2005 09:47 |
