They say…

Des de Moor
Best beer and travel writing award 2015, 2011 -- British Guild of Beer Writers Awards
Accredited Beer Sommelier
Writer of "Probably the best book about beer in London" - Londonist
"A necessity if you're a beer geek travelling to London town" - Beer Advocate
"A joy to read" - Roger Protz
"Very authoritative" - Tim Webb.
"One of the top beer writers in the UK" - Mark Dredge.
"A beer guru" - Popbitch.
Des de Moor

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George Orwell N1

London’s Best Beer, and Bars updates
North — Canonbury & Barnsbury

The George Orwell, 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.
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.

comes from local producers like or Sambrook’s, and at least five different bottled Kernel beers are stocked, alongside Freedom lagers, Sierra Nevada Pale and Innis & Gunn. Freedom also 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 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

2 comments to George Orwell N1

  • Ed

    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.

  • Des

    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.

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