London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
North London — Canonbury & Barnsbury
The George Orwell, London N1
Contemporary pub
382 Essex Road N1 3PF
T 07973 695517 W www.thegeorgeorwell.com f thegeorgeorwell tw georgeorwellpub
Open 1630 (1200 Sat-Sun) -2300 (2400 Thu, 0200 Fri-Sat, 2230 Sun). Children welcome until 1900.
Cask beer 2 (local), Other beer 4 keg, 10 bottles, Also 2 ciders/perries, 10 malts, specialist bourbon, rum, mezcal
Food Scotch eggs and pies only, Outdoor Small beer garden
Thu quiz, Fri, Sat live acoustic music or DJs, board games, functions
This big old Victorian pub near the top of Essex Road has been through numerous incarnations over the years – not so long ago it was a goth club. Since early 2010 it’s been a friendly, independently owned free house with a smallish but well chosen beer list, reviving a former name that commemorates 20th century writer and keen pubgoer George Orwell (real name Eric Blair, 1903-50), who lived nearby in the mid-1940s. Some of the interior decoration picks up on the theme, with Spanish civil war posters recalling Orwell’s involvement with the International Brigades in the 1930s [see comment below for historical correction on this]. Otherwise it’s floorboards, wooden tables and a cosy corner with bookshelves, sofas and a standard lamp, while a small narrow courtyard to the side serves as a beer garden. It’s regularly used for parties and functions but is always kept open to the public too.
Cask comes from local producers like Redemption or Sambrook’s, and at least five different bottled Kernel beers are stocked, alongside Freedom lagers, Sierra Nevada Pale and Innis & Gunn. Freedom also features on the keg taps alongside Staropramen and Pilsner Urquell. In fact it fails rather miserably against Orwell’s checklist for the perfect pub as outlined in his essay ‘The Moon Under Water’, with a distinct lack of aspirins and foaming stout in pewter pots, but there are numerous other compensations.
National Rail Essex Road Overground Canonbury Underground Angel Bus Ockendon Road (numerous Angel) Cycling LCN+ Angel, Camden, Dalston, Hackney Walking Link to New River Path
Orwell wasn’t involved with the International Brigades. He fought in Spain with a militia connected to the dissident Marxists of the POUM that was violently suppressed by the Communists.
Thanks for this, Ed, and apologies. I’m afraid it’s been a while since I read up on my Spanish Civil War history and of course should have made a distinction between the IB and the (syndicalist?) POUM.