Siren Craft Brew - Reading — Restaurant in Reading

Here for a first visit to the Siren Reading Tap. 1st visit fine. Good beer, staff and facilities. Spent a few hours enjoying ourselves there.

However, our 2nd visit was a bit of an ordeal. We noticed on the website that RG1 closed at 12.00am. We arrived at the bar at 11.15 and was refused entry by the security staff. When we queried this the security staff became beligerent and refused to answer my queries.

I was not threatening or aggressive towards them at any time. Their stock reply was "The bar is closed. Move away!"

Perhaps Siren may seek to explain why the times on their website do not match the actual opening times of the bar, and they may want to address the issue of the unhelpful and rudeattitude of the security staff.

Its a shame because I have been a supporter of Siren for many years, going to most of the anniversary events at Finchamstead and every Siren event with the Craft Beer Company in London.

The friend I was with has invested over £1000 in this company and has his name on the Siren board. It is shameful he was treated this way! In return for this investment he was given bar credits! Pretty useless if you can't spend them during opening hours.

However this experience has left a sour taste. Not sure if I'll go back.

Update I am not a person who generally goes back to re-read their reviews, but recently I revisited this review and noticed the reply from Jade @ RG1. My response is this.

I very much appreciated the feedback from Jade and thank you for responding in the way you did. I accept that the security staff on the night acted independently without consulting RG1 management and appreciate your understanding that a problem existed on the night.

The point of my review was not to solicit any freebies from Siren, rather I just wanted to vent some steam due to a situation that my party found unaceptable. Therefore I wont be contacting you via e-mail for free food and drink as I find your acknowledgement of the situation to be a reasonable resolution to my grievance. I just hope in the future that security staff are fully aware of your opening time policy and act in a more curteous manner rather than the rude & dismissive way they treated us on this occassion.

I have ammended the original score your venue to reflect the experience we had earlier, rather than the one we had on our 2nd visit of the day. Unfortunately we didn't eat at the venue so I can't score RG1 for food, although when we return (which we will do now) I hope to rectify that! Thanks again for...

I had wanted to try this place for a while. The bar is an impressive building from outside and I was hoping it would be a cool new place to visit in Reading.

Unfortunately, it was all a bit underwhelming. The whole ale/craft beer artisan thing gets a bit lost when you create a big, loud, rattly beer factory that looks like the Pepsi Brewdog. I do prefer my pubs a bit old-school, but I appreciate innovation and like supporting new ventures. However I just wasn’t feeling this bar and the way it’s designed and laid out: the late 90s industrial chic décor, the loudness, how cold and uncomfortable it was, the fact that you couldn’t sit in a third of the bar as the tables were booked for later.  There is a large outdoor seating area that we managed to get a seat in eventually.

The staff had all seemed to disappear on Saturday evening when we arrived, seemingly dashing around as if to fight fires. It was busy to be fair. We did get served with not too much delay, so credit to the bar staff that were there. Found the beer offering confusing, hard to find detail on what they're serving, maybe you have to use an app or something. Didn’t want to cause hassle to the bar person by asking for samples or info, though I'm sure they'd help.

The place wasn’t anywhere I wanted to linger and neither did the group I was with, but they seemed to enjoy their beers anyway, which is the main thing. Whole place feels like a concept bar from Canary Wharf or something, dropped incongruously into the heart of Reading.

Anyways, it was busy, other people seemed to be into it and the food smelled good at least. It's just not for me. If I'm going to spend (a lot) more on beers it wouldn’t be a setting that’s like an office canteen.

However, it is a local brewery and exciting venture for them so I do...

Popped in here last week for a pint and a quick bit of lunch with some friends. The beer selections was good, as you would expect however our experience with the food was disappointing.

A small plates menu is available which recommends 3 small plates between 2 people. As our group was all big men we opted for 2 plates each instead. When we went to order we were told the Pork Belly and Corn Ribs were unavailable which was a shame as that was going to be my order. Nonetheless The Korean Chicken Bites and Makan Malaysia Sambal prawns sounded nice so I opted for them.

The Korean chicken bites were delicious, sticky and crispy on the outside and juicy in the middle. However the portion size was a touch on the small side, even for a small plate.

The prawns on the other hand were not only fairly tasteless but it was clear part of the dish was missing. They are advertised as coming with a Crispy Rice Noodle Nest and Lime Yoghurt. There was 6 little prawns, far too much yoghurt and no noodle nest in sight. Pretty underwhelming for £9.25! When I pointed this out to our server they said it looked odd then scurried off to the kitchen returning with a couple of Asian salads as replacement. No apology or acknowledgement was made that the kitchen had tried to leave out part of our dish without telling us nor were we asked whether the salad was an adequate replacement.

This, along with a couple of other disappointing dishes my friends received left us with a bitter taste in our mouths and questioning whether we would ever want to return in the future.

I wanted to like this place as had great experiences at Siren Craft in Aborfield but even with the poor food experience aside the design of the place lacked the warmth and character that I...