Times changed. Theakstons was merged. Paul Theakston sprang loose to found Black Sheep Brewery just over the wall from the White Bear. His kin eventually bought back their family jewels and are now spending £1.5m on the White Bear. Most of this is for a hotel annexe and conference facilities, opening in a few months. The rest went on expanding the kitchen and dining area at the White Bear proper, to where I returned on a wild and wet Thursday.

The site was once the home of the Lightfoot Brewery, which was amalgamated into Theakstons generations ago. The extensions have been careful to avoid diluting the core of the White Bear, its tap room, aka inner sanctum. "We would never contemplate changing the inner sanctum – that would be unthinkable," says Sue Thomas, its manager.

So that Thursday night I had a look at the den, cosy with log fires, gazed over by the mask of a bear and a sole occupant. Food? What we found was fairly traditional, honest, good value pub food, without gastro-pub intrusions or signposts. If it's locally shot, reared, hooked, snared or whatever, the menu doesn't give a clue. We did learn, on inquiring if the duck was bought fresh or frozen, that they had been seen hanging, ergo, not frozen.

The staff and manager are friendly and this is a relaxing place to eat; this new room with good proportions, a planked floor and decent acoustics, and a real fire burning smokeless briquettes. The pace of service is also relaxed, with an extraordinary gap after the main course until we gave up being unnoticed and called for attention.

The menu is à la carte, with soup of the day (leek and potato on this day) the price leader at £3.50, and other first courses bracketing the
£4 to £5 mark. Such as: black pudding with a poached egg and tomato sauce; chicken liver paté with melba toast and onion marmalade; grilled flat mushroom filled with peppers, bacon and spring onions; deep fried brie; Thai fish cakes.

The simple vegetable soup was too hot, under-seasoned, blended to a pulp, easily forgettable. This, and the way the plate of quartered bread is pushed on to the table and the side plates are doled out, set the tone for a meal which was short on both thrills and frills, but not bonhomie. That is not to say we did not enjoy it. We did, but it is not the sort of food which would tempt me to make much of a detour.

Steak pie, was billed, as are some other items, as home made (which invited the question: what about the rest?) It was a section cut from a larger pie, with integral, good pastry, decent quality meat, robustly flavoured gravy. At £7.95, it was reasonable value, accompanied by standard chips and baby peas. The other side dish choice was mixed vegetables – far better, virtually perfect new potatoes, broccoli, sprouts and carrots.

Other main courses tried, included a sliced, fried breast of tender duck with black cherry gravy (£10.95); also on offer, lamb shank, steaks, fish and chips, fish pie. The latter was hijacked by the flavour of the smoked haddock.

Generally, then, the evening was fine. The ambience is a happy one. The puddings menu, all at a value for money £3.50, yielded a textbook sticky toffee pudding and a quite ghastly chocolate crème brulée, which had a dull taste and a bizarre, solid filling.

Some of the dishes are served in their oven ramekins, which gets low marks in my book: too shallow for the apple crumble, too heat retentive for the fish pie and lasagne, but they make life easier in the kitchen.

Reckon on £15 to £20 a head for three-courses, plus drinks. The wine mark up is not giddy and a bottle of organic Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile, at £14.95, was very palatable. The bitter is £2.30 a pint.

Verdict: Neither fancy, nor frumpy, the White Bear is in the comfortable middle ground. The food is ordinary, rather than exciting, well priced and served by helpful and chatty people.

Full marks for the new room, which works well.

The White Bear, Wellgarth, Masham, North Yorkshire HG4 4EN. Tel: 01765 689319; sue@whitebearmasham.co.uk. Open for lunches, evening meals and bar snacks every day. Private parking. Disabled access: note three steps up to the door, dedicated WC inside.