Butcombe BreweryAvis 

I ordered and paid for my keg 4th February, shortly after was sent a note stating a delay due to high demand, update to follow- now 25th Feb neither update or my mini keg has been delivered- two email requests for up date sent.

I have been a supporter of Butcombe’s from its early days but this recent experience has left a very sour taste. An abysmally poor service.
1612/25 Ordered two minikegs for Christmas drinking. Order confirmed, delivery 3 – 5 days by Butcombe van (BS post code).
22/12/25 Nothing received. Tried contacting by phone and email but no response.
23/12/25 Again phone not answered. Further email sent which did receive a reply – ‘I can see your order is packed and on a pallet being collected by DX today for next day delivery. All being well you will receive your order tomorrow.’
24/12/25(!) Notified that the Christmas beer would not be delivered, blaming DX(?). ‘we can either proceed with your delivery after Christmas and add a case of your choice free of charge as a gesture of goodwill, or cancel and fully refund your order for you.’
Subsequently ‘Further to this, our head of sales has informed me that we can issue a 50% refund if you wish to proceed with a delivery after Christmas.’
I accepted this offer, fully expecting delivery soon after Christmas, and certainly before New Year’s eve. Off to the supermarket for alternative supplies for Christmas.

20/12/25(!) Nothing received. Emailed for confirmation of delivery for NYE, otherwise cancel. Response: ‘I can see your order has been processed and packed yesterday, however, it wasn’t collected.’ So the second time it has been packed apparently? ‘We have done everything on our part to have this ready (Ha ha!), all going well DX will collect this today and deliver it tomorrow, however, since they did not collect yesterday, we cannot rely on this being so last minute so I have requested your order is fully refunded to avoid any possible disappointment tomorrow.’
Why not try to deliver and refund anyway? After being so messed about, that would not have been unreasonable expectation.

Absolutely awful experience and as others have said, I wish I'd seen the reviews first.
I ordered beer for Christmas on 14th December, two days before the cut off date for Christmas. I could've ordered earlier but was mindful of the shelf life of kegs and deliberately ordered eight working days before Christmas. The first note of concern was a note on the email confirmation stating there may be delays 'due to high parcel volumes with courier DHL.' I happened to order some lager from the excellent Beerhunter.com the following day, received a DHL delivery notice the next day and the delivery was made within 24 hours. No DHL issues with other companies then. I sent a query email after 5 working days had passed and was assured delivery would be made by Christmas. I was sceptical, which is when I read the TrustPilot reviews and made other arrangements. Today, Christmas Eve, I got a message at 1pm saying the beer would not be delivered and apologising, once more blaming the delivery company rather than take responsibility for what is a total shambles. Avoid at all costs.

Order not delivered. No response to emails, calls or messages. I placed an order on 27 Nov, it is now 10th December and no order received. I have emailed three times, left 3 voicemail messages ( no one is answering calls) and messaged via Instagram. They do not respond. I wish I had checked TrustPilot before ordering, but mistakenly thought they were a reputable company, If I do not hear back within the week, I will dispute the charge to get a refund.

Six of us went for breakfast at the RoyalOak, Lavant, on 23rd october 2025, which was booked two months in advance. There were only 4 other people in the 'restaurant' and they were residents already eating their breakfasts when we arrived. We ordered 6 classic breakfasts. We were informed that there were no sausages . The waitress returned after the order had been placed and told us there were only 3 rashers of bacon left in the kitchen. We then chose 5 eggs benedict and one scrambled egg on toast. We were offered 'extras' to compensate for the lack of ingredients so we chose mushrooms and the waitress said she would put a plate of hash browns in the centre of the table. 30 minutes later the breakfasts arrived. The scrambled egg was cold and one plate did not have a mushroom, so we can only presume that they ran out of those as well. When the bill arrived we had to get it changed as we had been charged the 'free extras.' We had second cups of coffee ...one was served in a tea cup and there insufficient tea spoons so some dessert spoons were put on the table ! The coffees were barely warm. We settled the bills individually at the table and left.
Later, I was contacted by the deputy manager by telephone so I was expecting an apology when he introduced himself. Not so. He was contacting me to say that one of the credit cards had not gone through and I owed £18.88p. I was very blunt with him and detailed our visit. He apologised stating that he had not been informed about what had happened, would look into it and would not be pursuing the £18.88p !
Whether he looked into or not I cannot say as he hasn't contacted me again with any result.
To summarise, our visit can only be described as a fiasco from beginning to end. An appalling experience.

As it was raining pity hard yesterday Monday 20/10/2025 and as walking passed The Bear Inn in Cirencester I noticed they were open at 11am, food could be ordered at 12 midday with two choices table service or sit in the bar and get food to your table but you need to order drinks and get your own cutlery from the bar.
The food range was great from children’s, to small bites and full on meals with prices ranging from £5 to £30 for the streak. The staff were very happy to serve you and very polite and even came half way through your meal to check everything was fine with your meals. The bar staff were friendly and very polite in serving you drinks and nothing was too much,ranging from coffee to wine with a great range of beers to choice from. Even had spaces left for the Christmas meal which at £99 was good to know.
Myself and my family will be visiting again in the not to distant future maybe even Christmas meal.

Staying at the Methuen Arms Corsham was one of the most horrendous experiences of my life. I had booked for 3 nights and for dinner the first evening. However, I found the food pretty bad (especially for the price) and voiced this to the server. The venison was way overcooked and small in amount - not that I was particularly tempted to eat it. I was offered a replacement to which I agreed and thanked the server. I thought macaroni cheese a safe bet. But the mac cheese was almost worse. It was so overcooked that I demonstrated, picking the portion up in one solid mass like a piece of cake. The server then called the manageress and after reiterating my dissatisfaction, she said she was CALLING THE POLICE BECAUSE OF MY AGGRESSIVE DEMEANOUR and I was to pack my room and leave. I decided just to wait for the police to arrive because the whole thing was so ridiculous - a genuine complaint about very poor food and the police are called.

I asked "did I swear?" "no". Did I personally abuse anyone or use racist language?" "no", "Did I shout?' No - but you slapped your hand on the table which was perceived as an angry gesture and another diner saw you do this. The restaurant was almost empty at 6:30 and there was a couple in both further corners, who in no way could have heard the conversation. I could not hear theirs, it was too far away and I very much doubt either of them would have come to the manageress and say "I saw that diner slap her hand on the table". Also the police confirmed that I was not shouting. I strongly deny that I slapped my hand on the table but this was only the reason the manageress could give for calling the police.

The police came into my room because the manageress said I had 10 minutes to pack and vacate. To be fair one of them did say as an aside that they had never been called out in response to circumstances like these before (intimating that they thought it a bit over the top), but did HAVE to respond (strange they don't do this for burglaries and shoplifting unless over £200!). They packed up my things (very humiliating), called me a taxi, which I had to pay for, and sent me off to a hotel in an adjacent town - full. I was then left stranded but the kind receptionist managed to ring round and find me a hotel (again I had to pay for the taxi fare).

I see the hotel cancelled the second and third nights but I am billed for the first night at £183.60. I did not use the room or even anything in the room (like bathroom minis), was out of it before 8 pm, and had to pay for another hotel at £145 plus about £35 in two lots of taxi fares. So apart from this humiliating experience, I am vastly out of pocket.

Now editing this, because of the kind intervention of Booking.com Customer Service guys, I had the first night refunded. I am pretty sure this was only done because of their intervention - they told me it sounded like a situation they had not come across before and surely it is the job of a manager to resolve such disputes - without calling the police! So I am now at least, not out of pocket.

I think the offer of a lunch voucher at one of their pubs (as a kind of token admission of their mistake) is somewhat risible.

Finally, I would like to add that if one reads the reviews rated one or two, many of them mention poor service and even rude staff as a reason for giving a low score..... !

So we stopped at The Rising Sun, Backwell for a breakfast. Taken back at the £17.90 each price, but we were hungry so thought it must be good. Waited 40 mins and it was 40mins not 22mins as your reply for it to arrive, even though the dinning area was almost empty. Bacon was over cooked and hard. Toast was solid, half a mushroom each and dry burnt black pudding. Would recommend avoiding this place. Very poor quality at an extortionate price.

I placed my order and it was delivered in less than week. Carefully and securely packaged, it arrived in perfect condition. I'm very pleased.

Had dinner in Metheun Arms pub in Corsham, great food but service was very slow - way to many tables and staff sadly coudnt keep up. Starters took an hour to come. Great shame as it’s a good pub with nice and friendly staff

We stayed in a Butcombe Pub back in April, the stay was pleasant and I shall review that separately. This review is based on the company overall and is regarding use of personal data. When I order or book anywhere I specifically ask that I do not receive marketing information. It appears That Butcombe Inns breach the data protection act by sending unsolicited marketing information even though you have not asked to. It started with emails then recently texts to my mobile. It is not on, yes I can unsubscribe but why should I have to when I asked not to be included, if every company you deal with on a daily basis was to send marketing information you would spend a whole day just opting out. THE RULES - You need explicit consent for sending marketing emails, meaning you must make it clear to individuals that you will be sending them such emails when you collect their details. They have breached the GDPR

Wish I had seen the reviews before ordering…..order took 10 days to arrive, no contact after leaving numerous voicemails, email, Facebook messages, received my mini keg 10 days later to find a 7 day shelf life, totally unacceptable, I would advise not to use, shocking service & customer service

I am having the same experience as as everyone else who has made a review, beer ordered nearly 2 weeks ago, still waiting, DHL drivers have either drunk it or nicked it to sell. No one at Butcombe rings or emails you back, how am I supposed to get a refund, this was a £50 order and I wasnt expecting such discussing customer services. Like the others have said, dont go there

Placed an online order on 28/4/25 Still haven’t got the order! Tried ringing many times left messages, e mailed and left chat messages on line. Nobody has contacted me at all. I would not recommend ordering online from this company. This is not the first time we’ve had a problem with an on line order. We will not be ordering from them again!

Weatherspoons Street your gold was off it was not drinkable very bland and flat stick to what you do best Original

I placed an order 4 days ago on a 3 day delivery for a Birthday present. Butcombe say the order is fulfilled but "SHOP" and DHL say its not yet despatched. I've called Butcombe 3 times and left messages which get ignored, I've also sent emails without reply. The Brewery Website has a live chat function which just says "order fulfilled".. Liars

Great Beer, Sh1t customer services. I can't track my order, though Shopify says it's been delivered!! They haven't answered email and telephone goes through to answering machine and no one replies... So Sad, SO FRUSTRATING

Awful customer service. Ordered non alcohol beer and the online system prompted more beer to be added. This new other beer comes also as non alcohol, however, the basket added alcoholic variety. This got delivered and the brewery will not have return or even except exchange for non alcoholic. There customer service person does not care for that customers and does not try and find solutions. I order a lot of non alcoholic beer, I would not recommend any buying from here.

What a shambles this company is! Customer service is only available between 9am to 1:30pm. They use DHL who cant work out delivery addresses. Using maps. Or come the time they have messaged they are coming. That was a christmas present. Absolutely atrocious customer service avoid!