Leadenhall pub crawl
26/11/2019 at 22:21 | Posted in Crawls | Leave a commentTags: City of London, Leadenhall Market, pub crawl
On a chilly November evening Dave led us around some thankfully well heated pubs in the City.
We met in Aldgate at The Old Tea Warehouse which is tucked away off Creechurch Lane. The sign for the darts club in the basement was a useful marker. We limited our sporting activities to what was on offer at the bar, and service was quick even for a busy Friday evening. A couple of the guest ales were off leaving the usual Greene King choices plus Old Tea Clipper ale, a reasonable bitter. The second bar can be accessed by a short subterranean passage. The serving area there is smaller but we found more space to stand. The pub also has a courtyard and the heaters were clearly doing a good job as plenty of people were standing outside.
Next we walked south to the East India Arms a small corner pub on Fenchurch Street which has been there since 1829. It offered the usual Shepherd Neame beers in a lovely old fashioned bar. It also keeps to the old City tradition of closing at 9pm. For a pub of its size there was plenty of room inside, plus drinkers could spill over on to the large pavement area outside.
A five minute walk along Fenchurch Street took to our next stop, The Swan Tavern, a Fullers pub sandwiched between two office buildings. The ground floor bar is especially small; if it were any larger it would constrict the alleyway. We took our drinks – London Pride, Olivers Island etc – to the larger upstairs room, which also has a its own bar. Again for a Friday evening in a small-ish pub, space wasn’t a problem. We remarked with approval that the floor was carpeted (and not sticky!), an uncommon feature in pubs today. This led us to some inadvertent trivia that Wetherspoons’ several hundred outlets each have their own unique carpet.
On Lime Street we visited The Grapes as it says outside, or Bunch of Grapes according some internal decor and the pub sign. Another distinctly old-fashioned corner pub with wood panelling and impressive lamps on the ceiling. The beers available were reasonable if not particularly wide. We tried to ignore the (muted) tv showing the leaders’ debates for the general election, to mixed success.
From here we headed into Leadenhall Market and a very short walk to Crafty Fellas, a recent arrival trading out of premises still signed as ‘We Grill’. As the name suggests they have an excellent range of craft beer, on tap and in the fridge, including several tasty non-alcoholic options. We got a table to enjoy our drinks and a highlight was the 2.8% strength Table Beer which was delicious. If there is a downside, it is the prices. A round of six pints cost over £40.
We continued through the market – always a pleasant stroll but even nicer with the Christmas decorations – to the New Moon. This Greene King pub had a wider than usual choices of beers, and offers a 10% discount on real ale for CAMRA members. One of our group reminisced about the days when it was part pub, part Pizza Hut. Happily it is now all pub, with a good-sized ground floor bar plus a cellar bar we didn’t explore. The (unobtrusive) background music was mostly 90s and put a smile on our faces.
Our final pub was the Cock & Woolpack just off Cornhill. It continued the theme of small pubs, though we had no difficulty securing a table. It had standard Shepherd Neame fare at the bar, but contrasted to other pubs this evening with its lighter wood and cosier feel. In an ‘off-piste’ moment we ascertained that non-alcoholic fruit cider is essentially overpriced fruit juice, and then reflected surely that was obvious.
Finally we came to the question of the pub of the crawl. There were several strong contenders and after much debate, for its atmosphere and beer selection the vote went to New Moon.
Sloane Square to Battersea
20/10/2019 at 18:23 | Posted in Crawls | Leave a commentTags: Battersea, Battersea Power Station, Belgravia, Pimlico, SW1, SW11
In October 2019, Phil took us on our first cross-Thames crawl, from Sloane Square to Battersea.
We met at the Antelope, close to Sloane Square station, just across the boundary from Chelsea in Belgravia, as pub lies just across the River Westbourne, which now passes above the platforms at Sloane Square within a pipe. The Antelope is a classic Fuller’s pub, and its only problem is that it’s so popular that it’s often rather crowded, as it was when we met.
We soon headed off, following the Westbourne to the Orange, overlooking Orange Square (named after the House of Orange) and its statue of Mozart. The Orange was a brewpub once upon a time, but is now a very pleasant gastropub, the drinking area at the front is quite small and was already busy with a Friday night crowd when we were there. Some of us had the N1 which was remarkably fresh tasting.
On leaving, we soon passed the church of St Barnabas, site of riots in the mid-19th Century and the ‘Popery in Pimlico‘ scandal, 200 years after the birth of William of Orange anti-Catholic feelings were still festering. At the end of the street came to the Rising Sun, a large and bright Young’s pub, with friendly barman. The whole the pub was lacking atmosphere at the time of our visit with its bright lights and only one hand pump, the ale from which was past its best.
A short walk brought us past the last remnants of the Grosvenor Canal, which once brought barges as far as Victoria Street until Victoria railway station was built on top of the most of the canal, the basin area was quiet in stark contract to its history. First a waterworks up to around 1850, drawing drinking water for London by the late 1800s the dirty tidal canal stood on top of a sewer and a pumping house was built, this is now awkwardly situated disused and behind the modern buildings flanking the canal.
We crossed Chelsea Bridge, making this the first of our crawls to cross the Thames. The original bridge, when it opened in 1850 was named Victoria Bridge but it was soon deemed inappropriate that a doomed bridge likely to collapse should carry a royal name. The well lit replacement was the first self supporting suspension bridge of its kind in the UK. To the east of this the Grosvenor Bridge was the first ever railway bridge to cross the Thames and it was underneath the approaching viaduct we were heading next.
We descended in a rather small and gloomy lift to the Thames Path – the stairs being closed for construction – and passed under the railway into the environs of Battersea Power Station, now a substantial way through its rebuild and with the first buildings hugging the western side complete. They have done a nice job of bringing the railway arches back into use, and one of them houses the Battersea Brewery, and another next door is its bar and taproom. This was very nicely done, with a wide range of beers as well, of course, as their own. Most of the house beers are keg beers but there were also 2 hand pumps on offer.
Battersea Brewery
Around the corner we stopped at Wright Bros, which is ostensibly an upmarket seafood restaurant but also has a bar and a range of beers at decent prices, and it has a lovely view to the river.
We then followed a temporary road through the building site around the Power Station to Nine Elms Lane, and to another new development slightly closer to Vauxhall, where the Nine Elms Tavern lies at the riverside end of a large new apartment building. The pub has been fitted out well and was doing a decent trade even quite late on the Friday night. For an area devoid of culture, including the US embassy, this bar was a welcome surprise.
This brought us to the end of the crawl; after a short vote, the Battersea Brewery was unanimously voted Pub of the Crawl. Congratulations!
Paddington
30/03/2019 at 13:31 | Posted in Crawls | 1 CommentTags: Edgware Road, london, Paddington, pub crawl, W1, W2
At the end of March 2019 we headed to the Paddington area, led by Paul.
We met at the lovely Victoria near Lancaster Gate, a small but perfectly formed late Victorian pub, with the usual Fuller’s fare on the bar, a classic Victorian interior, a delightful library-like room upstairs, and plenty of room outside, which we took advantage of as the weather was kind to us.
From here we headed the short distance to the Duke of Kendal, another smallish Victorian pub but a little more worn and less ornate than the Victoria, and with a more limited range of drinks. Pictures on the wall show Jack Black and Dick Van Dyke visiting the pub – I wonder if Tony Blair ever calls into his local?
Anyway, across Edgware Road now, once a Roman road but now distinctly the main commercial centre of Arab London, to the Duke of York, a small Victorian corner pub, modernised since our last visit in 2014 now with a better selection of beers for its size, which we enjoyed at an outside table.
Just around the corner lies the Lord Wargrave, another Victorian pub which has been beautifully restored, with a wide range of interesting beers and whiskies, and quality food with an emphasis on smoked meat.
Back across the Edgware Road again now to the Royal Exchange, a traditional place, a bit of a throwback to the 1990s – no frills but well-kept beers, a loud jukebox and a very friendly welcome (and goodbye) from the landlord.
Just a couple of minutes away and we entered a very different environment, in the form of Paddington Basin, a new district which has risen on the site of the former industrial area around the canal basin. Within this is BrewDog‘s latest London site, opened only two weeks ago in a former Draft House, with about 20 BrewDog beers on draught, from the 0.5% Nanny State up to strong specialist beers (but no cask ale).
Nearby was the final call of the evening, the curiously named Heist Bank, a very modern craft beer and pizza joint, all straight lines, concrete and tiles, doing a very brisk trade despite some pretty high prices; no cask ale here either but a number of different keg ales.
So, our walk took us from classic stucco west London, through the Arabic Edgware Road, and ended in the modernist Paddington Basin development – a very varied range of environments within just a few minutes walk.
After a short discussion we agreed that the Pub of the Crawl should be the Lord Wargrave. Congratulations!
St Paul’s to Cannon Street
02/12/2018 at 11:36 | Posted in Crawls | Leave a commentTags: City of London, craft beer, real ale
In November 2018, Dave took us for a walk from St Paul’s to Cannon Street.
We met at The Paternoster, a modern Youngs pub close to St Paul’s with plenty of space, even managing to bag a table on a Friday evening. It also offers a wider than average selection of ales. The Truman Zephyr seemed a little below that brewery’s average but still a decent beer.
A stroll around St Paul’s cathedral and along a pleasantly illuminated Watling Street took us to Williamson’s Tavern, tucked away on Groveland Court. This Nicholson’s pub has two bars and is laid out in a L-shape. The first bar as we entered was the smaller of the two, with more space and seating available in the back. The pub was rebuilt in the 1930s and certainly has the feel of that period. Long before that it was originally the residence of the Lord Mayor of London.
We moved on to the Three Cranes, now accurately billed as a ‘cosy gastro pub’ and previously the Hatchet when we visited in July 2014. It has two small rooms and a small but nice selection of keg beer.
A very short walk took us to another Nicholson’s pub, The Sugar Loaf, the name apparently referring to something which was used as currency in years gone by. Inside the pub has dark wood panelling and ample space as well as Nicholson’s usual wide selection of real ales with a bias towards St Austell.
Our next stop was not a pub in the traditional sense but the remarkable bar in the back of the Brigadiers Indian restaurant. Quite unexpectedly (at least if you didn’t know) it offered 10 craft ales in opulent surroundings, and was welcoming of non-dining drinkers. We particularly enjoyed Magic Rock’s Revelstoke IPA, a lovely session ale. Inspired by Indian army officers’ mess, the dark wood and red wallpaper create an intimate rather than overpowering atmosphere. We didn’t eat though the restaurant was full and the food smelled good, albeit judging by the beer prices – around £5 to £6 for two-thirds of a pint – we assume it is not cheap. Perhaps appropriately it is located in the new Bloomberg buildings which reportedly cost close to £1 billion.
Moving on we passed a sculpture to mark the location of the Walbrook river, now underground, with water flowing over what look like tree roots. A matching sculpture is located at the other end of Bloomberg Arcade which was the way we headed to our next pub, the Cannick Tapps. This Cask Marque pub had several hand pumps as well as craft beers on tap. Its location below street level almost underneath an All Bar One may have undeservedly starved it of customers, although on a visit earlier in the week it had been full for a lively pub quiz.
Our final stop was meant to be The Bell on Bush Lane, a small traditional pub, but we arrived just as it was closing up at 10pm. A quick change of plan and we moved to the Pelt Trader a modern craft beer pub, and the starting point for our July 2014 crawl referred to above. Still a favourite with the group it was a close second for pub of the crawl, with honours going to Brigadiers.
Tottenham Court Road (north)
29/09/2018 at 18:45 | Posted in Crawls | Leave a commentTags: london, pub crawl, W1, WC1
We returned to the Tottenham Court Road area for a crawl in September 2018, led by Phil.
We met up at the Northumberland Arms, on Tottenham Court Road itself but close to Warren Street station. This is a smallish pub with a small bar, but service was fast and friendly, with a small range of decent ales (e.g. Purity’s Mad Goose & Ubu). We were able to drink in the small outside drinking area, which was pretty pleasant despite the fairly close proximity of the evening traffic passing by.
Once assembled we headed all of 70 metres to the next pub down Tottenham Court Road, the Court. This had a much longer bar, on which were a slimmed down cask selection (seemingly normally a wider range, but reduced on our visit to Doom Bar and Pride), and behind which operated one of the slowest barmen in London. We stood inside (there is outside seating, but it was pretty full). The bar was pretty busy, with a rapid succession of people coming and going.
Soon enough it was time for us to move on too, and we crossed into the environs of University College London, one of London’s largest universities, and the Jeremy Bentham, now branded a Simmons Bar. The old sign remains though, showing the famous philosopher and reformer after whom the pub was named, and whose body now lies in nearby UCL. Inside, the pub is aimed squarely at the affluent student, with loud DJ music and no cask ales (though the kegs were at least decent Meantime offerings). The interior though is nicely done, and we particularly liked the neon signs (Top of the Pops, and the Sopranos’ Bada Bing!), but it was definitely one to stand outside rather than in, being about double the age of everyone else in attendance!
We passed next the plaque marking the efforts of Richard Trevithick in developing the steam engine, and paused to look at the Eisenhower Centre. This rather brutal structure, defacing what is otherwise a lovely crescent, is a pillbox sitting atop the deep level shelter which was built during World War 2, which had been intended to form part of an express Northern line for London Underground, but was used as a shelter and headquarters for General Eisenhower, Commander of the US Army.
Close by lies the College Arms, on Store Street. Last time I was here this was a fairly run of the mill place, fairly old fashioned, but it’s since been refurbished and opened up, with lots of fresh air and light from the street. The bar’s small but had a couple of ales on, one standard (Doom Bar) and a more interesting Ringwood Razor Back. They also get brownie points for having a couple of decent alcohol-free beers (Erdinger and Nanny State).
For the final stop of the night we headed to a pub we’ve visited before, but knew had been refurbished since, the Newman Arms. This sits alongside a narrow passage, which older readers may remember for its bent lamppost, which Arthur and Terry pretended to hold up in the Minder titles, now sadly gone. The pub’s got a much more modern look, with Truman’s beers on the bar. The downstairs room looks particularly cosy, and the place was doing good business at the time of our visit.
Finally, the matter of Pub of the Crawl. After some protracted discussions on recent crawls, this evening we had a very fast unanimous decision (albeit reached as people were leaving, so perhaps weren’t in a mood to debate!)… congratulations to the College Arms!
Charing Cross Road
04/08/2018 at 15:24 | Posted in Crawls | Leave a commentTags: brewdog, craft beer, london, pub, pub crawl, W1, wc2
On a hot evening in August 2018, Tim took us back to Tottenham Court Road, only this time we headed south down Charing Cross Road.
We started out at the Royal George, conveniently close to Tottenham Court Road station, just just down a side street. I’ve seen it many times but never been in; it’s fair to say the building lacks kerb appeal and has in recent years borne the brunt of being next door to the extensive Crossrail construction site, but it was in fact pretty pleasant inside, plenty of light and fresh air coming in, and a small but decent range of beer on the bar. In the fridge they even had Big Drop Brewing’s Pale Ale and Stout; these are decent craft low alcohol beers, and went down well to start with on a hot evening – I must be getting responsible in my old age! Fear not, there is also a good range of cask, keg and bottled beers too, and sometimes a tap takeover.
So, once assembled, we came back out past the construction site, where once the Astoria stood, and before that the Crosse & Blackwell building, and headed into Charing Cross Road proper. We paused at the entrance to the old St Martin’s College of Art, where Jarvis Cocker famously met a girl from Greece in the iconic Britpop anthem Common People, and continued into the Montagu Pike. Originally a Moon Under Water when I first frequented it in the 90s, this Wetherspoons was formerly a cinema, and then a home for the Marquee Club. The original Marquee a few streets away played host to a Who’s Who of late 20th Century music, and this venue was opened by Kiss.
After a quick round here we left the morning drinkers’ favourite and headed out the back exit to Greek Street, named after a 1677 Greek church (now long gone), and described by a police inspector in 1906 as “the worst street in the West End of London, some of the vilest reptiles in London live there or frequent it”. By the 60s it was at the heart of London’s creative quarter, and just next to the Montagu Pike was Peter Cook’s Establishment Club, a ground-breaking satirical comedy venue.
Where Greek Street meets Old Compton Street sits the Three Greyhounds, its name harking back to the days when Soho was a rural hunting ground. This is a fairly small Nicholson’s pub, but has plenty of room for al-fresco drinking outside, where you can watch the crowds wandering past, together with the traffic that the City of Westminster inexplicably insists on allowing to dominate the thronged streets of Soho.
A few doors down the street lies the Spice of Life, Hertfordshire brewer McMullans’s London outlet, which has been very nicely modernised and has a wide range of their ales on the bar, and a large area of street outside to stand and drink while the sun goes down. The pub was originally called the George, first opening in 1686, though the current building is late Victorian.
Directly across from the Spice of Life lies another venerable pub, the Cambridge, first opened as the King’s Arms in 1744, but was again last rebuilt by the Victorians. This is another Nicholson’s pub, pretty small inside but retaining a lot of character, not least with its highly decorative ceiling. Some good ales on, and as all Nicholsons pubs, St Peter’s Without in the fridge for those looking to pace themselves – particularly handy during this heatwave, it was hot out there!
Across the street we paused outside 84 Charing Cross Road, site of the famous bookshop recalled in Helene Hanff’s wonderful book chronicling her correspondence with shop worker Frank Doel, now part of McDonald’s. Well worth picking up the book if you haven’t read it – used copies are available from just 1p on Amazon, or better still pick one up from a real book shop, ideally one of the few remaining ones on Charing Cross Road!
After a few minutes admiring the architecture of Cambridge Circus, especially the lovely facade of the Palace Theatre, which is easy to miss if rushing through as I normally am, we headed to the newest pub in the area (at the time of writing!), a new branch of the BrewDog empire. Although it was inevitably pretty busy with tourists, and may therefore not be the fastest place to get served if the people in front of you have no idea what to order, the range of beers was extensive (over 20 on draft), and the live version of Dead Pony Club, which I hadn’t had before, was excellent. While BrewDog focusses on keg beers, the live Dead Pony is very close to a real ale and well worth trying. It’s a big venue and there was plenty of room even late on on a Friday despite its central location.
And so to the final business of the evening; after a short vote, the BrewDog Seven Dials was voted the Pub of the Crawl. Congratulations!
Lambeth-Elephant & Castle
29/04/2018 at 15:42 | Posted in Crawls | 1 CommentTags: Elephant & Castle, Lambeth, pub crawl, SE1, Southwark
In April 2018, Paul took us for a walk from Lambeth North to Elephant & Castle in south London.
We met at the Walrus (after some cheap Chinese food at the Olympic Cafe), on the corner of Lower Marsh, an interesting street of independent stores and a good weekday lunchtime streetfood market. The Walrus is also a hostel, but has a very decent pub downstairs with some decent ales on offer.
The next stop was just along the street at the Horse & Stables, but on entering we found that all the ales were unavailable, which is a pretty poor show for early on a Friday evening, so we headed off without pausing to the Steam Engine, which at the time of our visit had a Titanic tap take-over, with several ales and one keg from Titanic, and a good range of other beers on tap or in the fridge.
A short walk around the corner brought us to the Three Stags, a busy pub more or less opposite the Imperial War Museum, with some decent ales such
A walk past the Bakerloo line depot brought us to the Albert Arms, which has been refurbished and brought upmarket since our last visit a few years ago, and it was offering some more interesting beers now too, including Melon Head from Shipyard, which managed to taste something like a Victoria Sponge cake!
Back past the other side of the tube depot and we came to the Flowers of the Forest, which had a good atmosphere and diverse crowd, but of the “craft ales” and “small brewery offerings” advertised on the website there was sadly no sign, with only keg Courage Best, Guinness or standard lagers. Hopefully soon they will match the promise on the website and raise their game on the beer selection.
Fortunately a gem was awaiting us next, as we headed to one of my favourite places in London, Mercato Metropolitano, a large former industrial premises which has been transformed into a massive street food centre, with a bit of an Italian bias but encompassing cuisine from all over the world (and even a cinema within). We started at the Italian craft beer bar, which is in fact half imported Italian craft beer, and half British, with some unusual keg offerings including from local brewers such as Kernel, and is run by the same people behind London’s Italian craft beer pubs The Italian Job.
A new addition to the Mercato is its own microbrewery, the German Kraft Brewery, which as the name suggests focusses on German styles; we ended the night with a round of Heidi Blondes, which we drank standing just a couple of metres from the kit it was brewed on.
So finally it was time to choose the Pub of the Crawl. In common with some recent crawls we’ve pushed the boundary again as to what a pub really is; on the basis that you can wander in and drink draught beer without any compulsion to be seated or order food, we decided that the very un-traditional Mercato Metropolitano did qualify, and as an amazingly lively venue containing several bars including an Italian craft beer bar and its own microbrewery, it was a worthy winner. Congratulations!
City fringe pub crawl
02/04/2018 at 18:19 | Posted in Crawls | Leave a commentTags: City, craft beer, pub crawl, Shoreditch, Spitalfields
Dimo led the group East this time on a cold winter’s night (well, March) in 2018 and chose Kill the Cat as the starting point on Brick Lane, which is a funky bottle shop that also sells draft and does take-outs. Not sure if there was any HCl present and the only crackling was pig fat rather than a Geiger Counter. Artie had a Small Citra Ekuanot Pale from America to start the night. In terms of further descriptions Schrodinger would argue, you have to see it to know what state it’s in. And not-so-curious latecomers Phil and Tim will have to go back one day….
Next up was the latest sensation, the Tank and Paddle, round the corner and along a bit from Liverpool Street station. It is a modern concept bar which focuses on real and craft ales plus pizza and is a winning formula, as our previous crawl will testify featuring tanks of Meantime ale. The session IPA we had was very tasty. The place was busy early on a Friday night, but round the corner with the “Beast from the East” behind us suddenly we were on a street away from the crowds. It was like someone had switched off zone one and we were in some run-down industrial quarter.
It’s hard to believe in today’s city hinterland there used to be Shakespeare’s theatre on Curtain Road and on Worship Street/ Hog Lane the Old Bard himself is reputed to have once lived here. It was the second crawl in a row to feature Shakespearean trivia. And not unlike most of our crawls an evening that had started out as A Winter’s Tale not surprisingly ended up with Much Ado About Nothing.
The pub chosen next was the Long Arm Pub and Brewery, it had neo-classic features, such as ceramic tiling on the walls, its own brewery to the side, high ceilings, pipework visible and a long bar capable of serving quite a few different beers. On this occasion, in the heart of London on a Friday night it was surprisingly only half empty. The beer was good, continuing the IPA run most of us had the Jucy Pale or the Lucky Penny and we were in awe of the place.
The next bar we went to Finch’s (a Young’s pub) was already tarted up for St. Patrick’s day that weekend – and we ended up sitting outside under the heaters overlooking Finsbury Square, most notably an underground car park. The Chelsea Blonde was cloudy but in this new unfiltered age some tourists were happy to accept. Credit to them they changed it on request.
On the corner nearby was the Singer Tavern, with more tiling than a swimming pool but a name taken from a old sewing machine, one of the ale choices we made was in fact cider and the way the taps were displayed it was confusing.
We finished the evening by Old Street roundabout in the newly opened Craft Beer Company , a huge improvement on its predecessor establishment and a veritable heaven for beer lovers, and there was much to choose from. The conversation flowed, the pub of the crawl was given to the Long Arm Pub and Brewery and this was followed by a metaphorical battle between beer hunter and bar fly, won by the former, with so many beers to choose from, albeit controversially, we stayed for a second round of drinks. By that time we had forgotten what we were drinking, mine had a fashionable permahaze, probably the Styrian Dragon, we also tried the Werrd! and the Little Things That Kill by Weird Beard…..with so many to wacky names to choose from it’s very much As You Like It.
We discussed the evening’s choices and Dimo explained that he had gone for a sextet of nontraditional pubs/beer outlets – and it was true that was not any dark wood panelling, etched window or Doom Bar badge present at any stage tonight. In fact Dimo had perfectly addressed Tony’s existential question at the end of the last crawl, whether Schrodinger would agree is another matter.
Tanks, tiles, tattle, taps, tastes and trivia, what more was there to like?
Cheapside
03/02/2018 at 13:26 | Posted in Crawls | 3 CommentsTags: Cheapside, City of London, craft beer, EC3, real ale
To kick off 2018, I led a walk around the Cheapside area of the City, taking in some old and new pubs, and eventually a philosophical discussion about what a pub actually is.
We met at the Ship, a small traditional Nicholson’s pub, tucked away down a small alley connecting Gracechurch Street with Cheapside. It sits on the site of an old coaching inn, the Talbot, which was destroyed in the Great Fire of London, but still gives its name to the alley; the pub itself was renamed the Ship after its 17th century reconstruction. It is small and cosy inside but there’s plenty of room to spill out into the alley outside, and they manage to pack several good ales onto the bar.
Leaving the 17th century, we headed east and past a symbol of the 21st century, the Walkie Talkie, which looms large over Cheapside, and along Plantation Place, which has a fascinating piece of art on the paving, commemorating 2,000 years of the City’s history. Across the road in the lower level arcade of Minster Court we came to the Tank & Paddle, a large and modern craft beer and pizza bar. There are no real ales here, but its key feature is that it sells Meantime Brewery beer fresh from tanks (as opposed to casks or kegs). Accordingly we went for a rare lager, to test their brewery fresh concept, and it was pretty good, certainly a big step up from one of the mainstream keg lagers.
The third pub of the night was the second called the Ship, this time in a beautiful tall, narrow Grade II listed building. Inside you feel a long way from the City of London, the small bar serves a couple of ales and the atmosphere feels like a small local.
Next we turned the corner into Seething Lane at the church of St Olave’s, named after Norwegian King Olaf who fought alongside Ethelred the Unready against the Danes at the Battle of London Bridge in 1014; the church was built on the site of the battle. It was the church frequented by Samuel Pepys, who is buried here with his wife. Other interesting burials include Mother Goose, recorded in the burial register in 1586; and Mary Ramsay, who is believed to be the carrier of the plague to London in 1665; she was the first Londoner to die of the disease, and that year just this tiny church alone registered 365 plague victims. It is worth pausing to look at the graveyard’s gates, described as “ghastly grim” by Charles Dickens; the gates are inscribed with their date of erection (1658 – they survived the great fire) and contain a trio of skulls with cross bones.
A few paces down we came to the Draft House Seething, a large modern square bar, and another to offer tank beer, this time Pilsner Urquell from the Czech Republic. There are just one or two cask ales, but a very wide range of keg and bottled beer.
At the other end of the street lies another historic church, All Hallows by the Tower. As the name suggests, it is just next to the Tower of London, but is in fact much older, having been founded in 675; the oldest part of the church today is a 7th century arch, which was partially built with recycled Roman tiles. The bodies of those executed at the Tower were brought to the church before burial. Happier moments include the baptism of William Penn, who went on to found Pennsylvania, in 1644, and the marriage of John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States, in 1797.
Across the road lies the next pub, the Hung Drawn and Quartered, named for the grisly end that came to some of those executed at the Tower. It is a fairly standard Fuller’s pub with the usual decent ales on the bar (and on Paul’s trousers on this occasion…)
Back along Cheapside now, we paused to admire 33-35 Cheapside, now beautifully lit in the shadow of the Walkie Talkie behind. Back when Cheapside was London’s main meat market (cheap being the Old English for market), the main pub in the area was the Boar’s Head Inn, made famous by references in several of Shakespeare’s plays, and it was the base of Falstaff in Henry IV Part 1. The pub is sadly long lost to a road scheme, but this building commemorates it through the sign of a boar’s head poking through grass, and portraits of the heads of Henry IV and Henry V on the facade. The original Boar’s Head Inn sign is now at Shakespeare’s Globe.
We walked down the beautiful Lovat Lane next; this used to be Love Lane, on account of the ladies of the night that used to frequent this alley, to the Walrus and Carpenter, another Nicholson’s pub with a pretty good range of ales on the bar. The pub is very close to Pudding Lane, where the Great Fire of London started in September 1666. It was not taken so seriously at first; the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Thomas Bloodworth, said “Pish! A woman might piss it out!”
As it was it destroyed most of London’s civic buildings, St Paul’s Cathedral, 87 churches, and around 13,000 homes; the death toll was reportedly as low as six, although it is believed now to have been much higher. The Monument itself stands sentry in the heart of this neighbourhood, a 62 metre high stone column with a viewing platform at the top. The inscription for many years falsely blamed Catholics for starting the fire; the words were only chiselled out in 1831.
Around the Monument lie three pubs; we chose the Hydrant, a modern Fuller’s format which sells their usual ales but also a large range of craft beers, mainly on keg. The Hydrant is attractively fitted out with a fire theme, including ceiling lights made of fire extinguishers and a nice room upstairs with fire station doors. A shame they didn’t commemorate my distant ancestor, John Lofting, who in the aftermath of the Great Fire registered patents for two of his inventions, the fire engine and its scaled-down cousin, the beer engine – giving the world draught beer!
Anyway, the Hydrant provoked an interesting discussion; is it a pub or a bar? And what’s the difference? Some are obviously one or the other, but some are harder to pin down. I’m not sure that we really resolved this, but I think most generally bought into a theory I passed on (can’t remember where I first read it); that a pub is purpose-built and a bar is not; if a pub closes and is converted into something else, you look at it and think straight away “that used to be a pub”. A bar is a retail unit that sells alcohol; if it turns into an estate agent, who would know it had ever been a bar? It’s not a perfect system, as some of the oldest pubs started out as houses, and many of the newest micropubs started out as shops, but I think it’s a fairly good rule of thumb for most, so I’m sticking with it!
The second long debate was the Pub of the Crawl. There were wide views on this, proving that there’s no such thing as the perfect pub, everyone has different perspectives. But in the end there has to be a winner, and we voted for the first Ship (in Talbot Court); some of the newer pubs may have been more spacious and able to serve a wider range of beers, but for me, they can be replaced; if we were to lose a 17th century pub down an alley, a part of our history is lost. So congratulations to the Ship!
We also occasionally nominate a Beer of the Crawl; and being suckers for Citra, we (mostly) went for, and greatly enjoyed, Siren’s Suspended in Citra at the Hydrant. Congratulations to Siren!
Borough
03/12/2017 at 16:20 | Posted in Crawls | 1 CommentTags: craft beer, kernel, SE1, Southwark
For December 2017, Ed took his first crawl, as we walked from Southwark to London Bridge via Borough.
As ever we met close to the tube for convenience, and you can’t get closer to Southwark station than The Ring, directly across the street, and named after a boxing arena of the same name, which was destroyed in the last war. It’s a fairly small corner pub, which was fairly busy but without any queue at the bar and space to stand. As it’s a small pub the beer range isn’t vast, but it is good, with several good casks and a range of craft beer on the keg lines.
We headed east from here, past the Dog & Pot sculpture recalling Charles Dickens’s memories of this corner, to a very newly reopened pub, Mc & Sons, which prior to its refurbishment had been the Charles Dickens, and is owned by the same company as The Ring. This has a different vibe, though, with an Irish theme, but tastefully done, with weathered wood all around and a gorgeous snug at the front of the pub. The beer range included some excellent beers sourced from Irish breweries including Boundary Brewing of Belfast and Kinnegar of Donegal, alongside a good range of more local casks.
On leaving we called at the Crossbones graveyard before heading to the Gladstone, or the Glad; sadly on this occasion it was closed for a private party so we had to continue, pausing in the beautiful Trinity Church Square. As well as a beautiful church-turned-orchestral rehearsal/recording space, the Henry Wood Hall, the centre of the square hosts a statue of King Alfred, believed by many to be London’s oldest statue, having been ordered by Richard II as one of a set of eight for Westminster Hall in 1395.
A few more steps and we reached the Roebuck, a good pub on a prominent corner site, with a smallish but good range of cask and craft beers. Interestingly this sits across the street from the site where building work in the 1990s turned up a Roman grave, which experts at the Museum of London believe is the only known grave ever found of a female gladiator.
We came next into Tower Bridge Road, and the first micropub we’ve ever called at one one of our zone 1 crawls, The Other Room. In common with the typical micropub formula this is a small former shop, kitted out with wooden seating and a small bar, though unusually the focus is on craft keg beer rather than cask ale, and prices were higher than you may expect at a cask micropub. Nevertheless it was a very homely find, and the beers were all local Bermondsey/Rotherhithe beers.
A few minutes to the north we came to the Simon the Tanner, a good pub which is larger than it looks, extending some way to the back. There is a range of good cask and craft keg beers, with the local theme continuing here with several of us going for the Zeus Pale Ale from Kernel, who kick-started the Bermondsey brewing scene a few minutes’ walk to the east.
Next up we headed close to London Bridge station for the Rose, which had once been in the crawl itinerary but was, when we arrived, in an advanced state of demolition; someone hadn’t done their homework! Fortunately they completed their refurbishment and reopened the pub a few months later, and it remains a lovely interior, though sadly with just a solitary handpump, which on this particular evening was dry; they had a couple of decent kegs though including Shipyard Rye Pale Ale, which we went for.
A very short hop away lies the Horseshoe, the last stop of the evening. This is quite a large pub, which feels like it could support a larger range of interesting beers being on the cusp of where London’s brewing centre of Bermondsey rubs up against central London, but the ales were fairly standard (Hobgoblin, Brakspear).
Finally we had quite a long debate on the Pub of the Crawl, with various different opinions; but eventually we settled on Mc & Sons, in recognition of the amazing job they’ve done in refurbishing the pub such that you would be hard-pressed to notice that the building it sits in was pretty much gutted and rebuilt over the last couple of years.
And we also nominated a Beer of the Crawl this month; Kernel’s Zeus Pale Ale, as drunk in the Simon the Tanner. Congratulations!
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