Maynard Arms N8

London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
North London: Other locations – Crouch End

Maynard Arms, N8. Pic: Greene King

Contemporary pub, gastropub (Realpubs/Greene King)
70 Park Road N8 8SX
T 020 8341 6283 w www.maynardarmsn8.co.uk f Maynard-Arms
Open 1200-2300 (2400 Fri-Sat). Children very welcome until early evening.
Cask beer 4 (sometimes local or unusual guests) Cask Marque, Other beer 3 keg, 6 bottles, Also Around 50 wines, specialist spirits.
Food Enhanced pub grub/gastro menu, Wifi. Disabled toilet.
Mon BYO wine, Fri Scotch Egg night, occasional live music, quiz planned, beer festivals, functions.

As well as being a thoroughly decent pub, the Maynard Arms is also an illustration of how the upsurge of interest in quality beer and pubs in London is changing the rules. Previously when big operators swallowed up smaller ones, they quickly stamped their new acquisitions with corporate homogeneity as yet more outlets for their standard products. But when new national brewer Greene King bought Realpubs, a small but upmarket London pub chain, in 2011, it not only preserved the established identity of the new pubs, but set about converting some of its old pubs to the newly acquired model.

Previously a straightforward and unremarkable GK house, the Maynard is now a comfortable, independently minded gastroish place staffed by knowledgeable enthusiasts, with not an Abbot nor an IPA in sight. Instead the four handpumps rotate beers from the likes of Dark Star, Hog’s Back, Hopback, Sambrook’s, St Peter’s, Triple fff and Truman, while the kegs come from Camden Town and Staropramen. Brooklyn Lager and Duvel are top choices from the fridge. Big tables and a restaurant area with burger bar booths round the back provide spreading room to try slightly pricey but good food such as seasonal home baked pies, braised rabbit, Barbary duck breast or wild mushroom risotto, while interesting bar snacks stretch to oysters, hummus and pita and charcuterie platters. Big picture windows give an airy feel and the large and verdant garden adds to the attraction. There’s a long list of other GK pubs that could benefit from similar treatment.

Visitor note. Crouch End – the name is mostly likely from the Latin crux (‘cross’) – was once a rural village among woodlands on a major junction of an important route north from London. Developed from the 1880s into a middle class suburb for clerical commuters, in recent years it’s gained a gentrified and arty reputation, thanks partly to the presence of Hornsey College of Art, the centre of a Paris-inspired student protest in May 1968. It also boasts a famous symphonic choir, the Crouch End Festival Chorus.

National Rail Underground Finsbury Park Overground Crouch Hill Bus Wolseley Road (W7 Crouch Hill, Finsbury Park) Cycling LCN+ 82 Walking Link to Capital Ring