The Defectors Weld, London W12
London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
West London: Other locations – Shepherds Bush
Contemporary pub (Five Eight Zero)
170 Uxbridge Road W12 8AA
T 020 8749 0008 w defectors-weld.com f DefectorsWeld tw DefectorsWeld
Open 1200-2400 (0200 Fri-Sat, 2300 Sun). Children welcome until 1800.
Cask beer 5 (Adnams, 4 sometimes local/unusual guests), Other beer 6 keg, 30 bottles, Also Cocktails, 20+ wines.
Food Gourmet burgers, quality cooked snacks, sharing boards, pub grub, Outdoor Small rear yard, Wifi. Disabled toilet.
Thu-Sun DJs, occasional live music, quiz, functions.
The small triangle of green space known as Shepherds Bush Green is a rare remnant of the rural past still reflected in the name of what’s now one of inner London’s busiest local centres. Shepherds Bush has long been an important road junction, shopping focus and entertainment centre. In 1908 it hosted one of the big outdoor events popular at the time, the Franco-British Exhibition.
Today the area continues to draw crowds through the presence of major popular music venue the O2 Shepherds Bush Empire (a former music hall that also once did service as the BBC Television Theatre) and the rather more sedate and elegant Bush Hall, not to mention Premier League football club Queens Park Rangers, based at Loftus Road since 1917. In 2008 the opening of the massive Westfield shopping centre on the old exhibition site brought millions of new visitors, and the BBC will retain a presence at its White City media village even after its landmark Television Centre closes. Yet despite all this activity Shepherds Bush retains a reputation for being tatty and downmarket and isn’t exactly bursting with great pubs.
One possible exception is the Defectors Weld, a big place in the northwest corner of the green formerly known as the Beaufort Arms that was reworked in contemporary style in 2004 and has continued to evolve since. Named in an online poll as the best pub in the Bush, the Weld divides opinions, with numerous reports of bad service and irritatingly arbitrary house rules.
Certainly the burly black clad door supervisors regularly on duty, and the prominent notices everywhere telling you to look after your belongings at all times, don’t send out the most welcoming signals. But it’s civilised enough, with a customer base of young professionals, shoppers, concertgoers and arty BBC types mixing on match days with well behaved QPR fans.
One recent area of improvement is the beer offer, which has grown from intermittent supplies of indifferently kept standard cask brands and overmarketed ‘premium’ lagers to a relatively modest but well chosen selection of decent stuff. Adnams Bitter is joined on cask by four rotating guests that increasingly come from London brewers like London Fields, Truman’s or Sambrook’s as well as reliable suppliers like Itchen Valley, Old Dairy and Purity. London Fields also supplies Hackney Hopster on keg, alongside Sambrook’s Pale Ale, Black Isle and imports from Bitburger, König and Licher. The bottles are mainly from better known US brewers, with a good range from Anchor and more unusual offerings from Old Dominion. Staff appear to know what they’re talking about.
Overground Shepherds Bush Underground Shepherds Bush Market, Shepherds Bush Cycling LCN+ 35, 39
Leave a Reply