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London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
West London: Twickenham and Hampton Hill
 Rifleman, Twickenham TW2 (London) Traditional pub (Enterprise)
7 Fourth Cross Road, Twickenham TW2 5EL
T (020) 8893 3836
Open 1200-2300 (2230 Sun). Children welcome until 2000.
Cask beers 4+ (Twickenham, Wells & Young’s, unusual/local guests) Cask Marque, Other beers 1-2 bottles, Also Bottled/occasional cask real cider
Food Sausages and other pub grub, Outdoor Front terrace, beer garden, Wifi.
Monthly beer festivals with up to 4 extra casks, M quiz, free chilli nights, big screen sport, fortnightly poker.
Following up a Good Beer Guide listing, I first visited the Rifleman during the initial research for the Guide late in 2010. I found a small but pleasant and very traditional corner local with a pretty beer garden, tucked away in residential streets between Twickenham Green and Fulwell. The landlord, however, regaled me with tales of woe, and I wasn’t surprised to hear a few weeks later that the pub had closed. Thankfully I’d also found the Prince of Wales (p232) round the corner as a recommended local outlet for the nearby Twickenham brewery.
New, young and ambitious tenants Luke and Cloé took over and reopened the Rifleman in March with even more of a beer focus. A Twickenham beer is always on, while a second pump rotates through Wells & Young’s brands like Courage Best (this is a former Courage house) and Young’s Bitter. Two additional pumps dispense changing guests from small and usually local breweries — Marlow, Nelson, Sambrook’s, Westerham and Windsor & Eton are all supported. One weekend a month the range expands further with three or four additional casks on stillage at the bar, often including a cider, while Leffe Blond provides a little extra interest to the keg taps. The pub interior has been stripped back in more contemporary fashion and isn’t quite as cosy as previously but the single space around a three-sided bar offers an open fire and some pleasant corners in which to enjoy great cask ales.
National Rail Fulwell, Strawberry Hill Bus Trafalgar Avenue / Prince of Wales (numerous Twickenham/Fulwell) Cycling Link to LCN+ 37, Hampton Wick, Brentford Walking Link to London Loop
London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Central London: Paddington and Marylebone
 Leinster Arms, London W2 Traditional pub (Stonegate)
17 Leinster Terrace W2 3EU
T (020) 7402 4670 W www.theleinsterarmsbayswater.co.uk f The-Leinster-Arms tw TheLeinsterArms
Open 1200-2300 (2230 Sun). Children welcome until 2100.
Cask beers 5 (Fuller’s, Sharp’s, 3 often unusual guests) Cask Marque, Other beers 2 keg, 3 bottles, Also 1 real cider, a few malts and wines
Food Limited enhanced pub grub menu, Outdoor Tables on street, Wifi.
Monthly quiz (last Tue), occasional live music, big screen sport, board games.
This elegant place sits among Bayswater’s hotel land of handsome early Victorian stucco terraces just north of Kensington Gardens, but still manages to retain an identity as a local pub despite the transience of some of its customers — I spoke to several regular locals at the bar. Inside it’s bright, comfortable and well appointed, a bit like the lounges of some of those nearby hotels, with a particularly pleasant library-style area at the back. It looks a bit like a Nicholson’s — which may well be because it did indeed belong to this chain until August 2010 when Mitchells & Butlers sold several hundred pubs to the Stonegate pubco. The new owners have notably improved the beer offer, doubling the handpump count.
London Pride and Doom Bar are the regular cask beers, joined by guests from the likes of Blackwater, Daleside, Dorset Piddle, Elland, Kelham Island, Lakeland, Salopian and Thornbridge, keg Hoegaarden and Kozel, and the odd bottle of Blue Moon. A short menu offers a choice of sausages, including vegetarian, plus pies, ploughmans, salads and club sandwiches. Big screen sport is a slightly surprising feature given the elegant surroundings but there are corners where the less sport inclined can escape from it.
Insider tip. Regular cask beer drinkers can take advantage of a loyalty card scheme to earn free pints.
National Rail Paddington Underground Bayswater Cycling LCN+ 45, link to NCN6 Walking Jubilee Greenway, link to Princess Diana Memorial Walk
London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Central London: Clerkenwell and Smithfield
 Pakenham Arms, London WC1 (Convivial)
1 Pakenham Street WC1X 0LA
T (020) 7837 6933 W www.pakenhamarms.com f The Pakenham Arms – Convivial London Pubs tw pakenhamarms
Open 1030 (1200 Sun)-2400 (0100 Fri, 0030 Sat, 2230 Sun). Children welcome until 2100.
Cask beers 12 (Sharp’s, Botanist,unusual often local guests) Cask Marque, Other beers 1 keg (Meantime), 20+ bottles , Also 3 ciders, specialist whiskies, 12 wines
Food Imaginative enhanced pub grub/gastro food, Outdoor Front terrace, Wifi.
Tue quiz, bring your own retro vinyl, occasional themed beer events, tastings and festivals.
Until August 2011, this medium-sized street corner local tucked off Farringdon Road in the network of pleasant but undistinguished streets linking Bloomsbury and Clerkenwell was an acceptable but not outstanding place managed by small London pubco Convivial, with a few solid real ales and a sporting slant, serving a steady stream of postal workers from the huge Royal Mail Mount Pleasant sorting office opposite. In September, partly in response to the success of sister pub the Botanist in Kew, it was refurbished and reopened under the stewardship of beer-friendly new manager Ken Davison, with the big screen TVs switched off, a significantly extended line of handpumps and a fridge full of craft beer goodies — further testament to the London beer renaissance.
The cask beer policy now focuses on rapid rotation of a great variety of beers, including more unusual and dark options, from small, unusual and often local producers — Ken once worked at the Market Porter (p59) and while the pace of change is a little more sedate than that celebrated microbrewery showcase, the pub will still reward novelty seekers on repeat visits. Beers from the Botanist’s house brewery usually feature, and others might come from Butts, Cottage, Hogs Back, Oxford, Purity, Rebellion or Twickenham. The link with the Botanist extends to commissioning beers on demand for groups and parties. Doom Bar and Meantime London Lager on keg are currentlly permanent fixtures. The bottles don’t include anything particularly rare but it’s all good stuff, from Anchor, Brooklyn, Cooper’s, Duvel, Innis & Gunn, Little Creatures, Sierra Nevada and the like.
It’s a proper pub, now with a single drinking area wrapped round a three-sided bar, mostly furnished simply but comfortably with wooden padded benches, plain chairs and solid tables on bare floorboards, though look around the back of the bar to find an attractive loungey snug. Like most Convivials it takes some care over the menu — crayfish and brie salad, halloumi and roast vegetable tart, cow pie and linguini with pancetta were on offer when I visited. Real ciders and a range of specialist whiskies complete the offer at yet another welcome new bolthole for beer lovers. And the posties still seem to like it too.
Visitor’s note. Mount Pleasant may bear an incongruous name today but once this was a grassy slope on the banks of the river Fleet, also known as Coldbath Fields after a nearby spring. Between 1794-1877 the site now occupied by the sorting office housed one of London’s major prisons. When the Royal Mail took over in 1889, workers objected to the name Coldbath Fields as it was associated with the prison, so a more attractive one was chosen. The sorting office was once thought to be the biggest of its kind in the world and is still the biggest in London.
National Rail Kings Cross, St Pancras, Farringdon Underground Russell Square, Chancery Lane, Farringdon Bus Calthorpe Street or Rosebery Avenue/Mount Pleasant (63 Kings Cross, Farringdon, Blackfriars) Cycling LCN+ 0 8
London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Central London: Holborn and ‘Legal London’
 Olde Cheshire Cheese, London EC4 Traditional pub (Samuel Smith)
Wine Office Court, 145 Fleet Street EC4A 2BU
T (020) 7353 6170
Open 1100 (1200 SSn)-2300 (1600 Sn). Children welcome if dining.
Cask beers 1 (Samuel Smith), Other beers 6 keg, 7 bottles (Samuel Smith)
Food Pub grub & “chop house” food.
Functions and parties.
The Cheese is one of a trio of heritage pubs around Holborn and Fleet Street now in the care of taciturn Yorkshire brewer Samuel Smith — see also Cittie of York (p81) and Princess Louise (p84). In common with them, its drinks range is all own-brand: wines and spirits as well as beers, which include Sam’s one cask ale Old Brewery Bitter, keg wheat beer and organic lager, and decent bottled offerings like Taddy Porter and Oatmeal Stout. This is one of the capital’s best known historic pubs and a well-established call on the tourist itinerary. Its greatest claim to fame as Samuel Johnson’s local is suspect as, although he lived nearby, there is no evidence the opinionated Doctor ever actually drank here, but the building is genuinely old, with parts dating from the late 17th century rebuilding of the area following the Great Fire. Literary figures whose patronage is better attested include Charles Dickens and W B Yeats.
The two oldest rooms are immediately to the left and the right as you enter. The Chop Room on the left, usually reserved for diners, does a good job of recreating the dining area of an 18th century tavern, with heavy wooden furniture and tables, some of them antique. The small room on the right is the most characterful, preserving what might be some of the original wooden panelling, with an impressive fireplace, paintings and a Victorian bar — thankfully the house rule written up over the door, ‘Gentlemen only served’, is no longer enforced. The lack of natural light resulting from the building’s siting in a narrow alley lends a characteristically gloomy aspect. The pub was extended at the back in the 1990s and there’s a warren of other rooms to explore, including upstairs function rooms and the extensive cellar bar, where some of the vaulting is said to survive from a 13th century Carmelite monastery. None of the other rooms is as authentic or cosy as the front pair but there’s some interesting stuff displayed on the walls including a 1970s CAMRA award.
Food is a modern interpretation of “chop house” — steak and kidney pudding, pot roast, pies, roast vegetable Wellington — at prices that would have likely achieved the remarkable feat of rendering Johnson speechless, but are reasonable by today’s standards, especially considering the pub’s tourist cachet.
National Rail City Thameslink, Blackfriars Underground Blackfriars River Blackfriars Cycling NCN4, LCN+7 Walking Jubilee Walkway, link to Thames Path
London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
East London: Hackney
 Off Broadway, London E8 Bar (Independent)
63 Broadway Market E8 4PH
T (020) 7241 2786 W offbroadway.org.uk f baroffbroadway
Open 1600 (1000 Sat-Sun)-2400.
Cask beers None, Other beers 2 keg, 20+ bottles (mainly US and UK), Also Cocktails, specialist spirits, 13 wines
Food Mexican fast food, Outdoors Tables on street, Wifi.
Thu open mic, Fri (& occasional other nights) live music or comedy, vintage clothing market, art exhibitions, table football, board games.
Although actually on Broadway Market, arguably Hackney’s liveliest (and trendiest) street, this little neighbourhood cocktail bar (yes, it’s the sort of place where they have neighbourhood cocktail bars) is a long way off the Broadway in New York City, proclaiming itself as “an East Village bar that got lost and ended up in East London.” It might be lost but it’s certainly found plenty of customers, thanks to an atmosphere generated by low key lighting, authentic lived-in clutter and hip but friendly and efficient staff, a good value menu of authentic Tex-Mex favourites (nachos, quesadillas, burritos, tamales), and an impressive drinks list that, if cocktails are your thing, will get you all the shaking and straining theatrics of swanky West End places but at considerably cheaper prices.
More likely to attract readers of this page is the complementary range of craft beers. The only draught choices are keg Brooklyn Lager and MillerCoors wheat beer Blue Moon, but there’s plenty of interest in the bottle fridges, with local brews from Kernel and nearby Redchurch and other English brewers like Dark Star holding their own alongside imports from Brooklyn, Flying Dog, Goose Island, Great Divide and the excellent Bear Republic from California, little seen in the UK. Australia and Mexico also get a look-in. The basement hosts comedy and music nights, and there are fish tanks in unlikely places.
For more on Broadway Market see the entry in the main guide for the Dove (p126). The Albion in Goldsmiths Row is also a short step away, though listed under Bethnal Green.
National Rail London Fields Overground Hackney Central, Shoreditch High Street Underground Bethnal Green Bus Broadway Market (236 Canonbury – Hackney, 394 Shoreditch – Hackney) Cycling LCN+ 8 9 16, Regents Canal towpath, links to CS1 Walking Jubilee Greenway, London Fields paths
London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Central London: Bloomsbury, Euston and St Pancras
 Lord John Russell, London WC1 Traditional pub (Wellington, free of tie)
91 Marchmont Street WC1N 1AL
T (020) 7388 0500
Open 1130 (1200 Sun) -2300 (2230 Sun). Children welcome until 2100.
Cask beers 6 (Brains, Caledonian, Wadworth, Wells & Young’s, 2 guests), Other beers 3 keg, Also Malts and specialist whiskies, 16 wines
Food Lunchtime pub grub, Sun roast, Outdoors Picnic tables in side alley.
Seasonal events, big screen major sports.
This bright and friendly traditional pub in another of Bloomsbury’s more fascinating streets has been leased by the same family business for a quarter of a century. The ultimate landlord is now the Wellington pubco, which doesn’t operate a tie on beer supplies, leaving the management free to stock what they want: the real ale lines have tripled in recent years in response to customer demand. Brains Bitter, Caledonian Deuchars IPA, Wadworth 6X and Wells Bombardier are fairly regular, and guests often include a local beer from Sambrook’s, alongside another from one of the regulars or the likes of Greene King, Holt’s, McMullen, Theakston or York. There’s a Budvar gadget offering the brewery’s pale or dark lager or a mix, and König Ludwig Weissbier is also on keg. Lunchtime food is no frills stuff like roast dinners, late breakfasts, pies and fish and chips. The pub is now one moderate-sized space, with big windows onto the street, bare floorboards and some attractive red and black tiling around the bar area.
National Rail Euston, Kings Cross, St Pancras Overground Euston Underground Russell Square Cycling LCN+ 0 6 Walking Jubilee Walkway
London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Central London: Bloomsbury, Euston and St Pancras
 Lamb, London WC1 Traditional pub (Young’s), Regional Heritage pub
94 Lambs Conduit Street WC1N 3LZ
T (020) 7405 0713 W www.youngs.co.uk
Open 1200-2300 (2400 Thu-Sat, 2230 Sun). Children welcome until 1700.
Cask beers 7 (5 Wells & Young’s, 2 guests), Other beers 1 keg (Meantime), 6 bottles (Wells & Young’s), Also 15 wines
Food Enhanced pub grub, Outdoors Small beer garden, Wifi.
Sat monthly live music, Sun quiz, functions.
A rare original pub dating from the late 18th century development of Bloomsbury, the Lamb is now both a heritage gem and a prime central London showcase for Young’s beers, with numerous Good Beer Guide listings to its credit. Bitter, Special, Gold and Wells Bombardier are the regulars, with a Young’s seasonal (it’s a reliable source of Winter Warmer at the right time of year) and selections from its owner’s typically mainstream but decent guest roster, like St Austell Tribute or Caledonian Deuchars. Meantime London Lager is on keg while Double Chocolate Stout and Special London Ale are among the bottles. A broad menu includes reasonably priced sandwiches at lunchtime, grazing platters, sausages, salads and main course specials like roast dinners, pies or scampi and minted pea risotto that creep over a tenner.
Inside it’s a charming and comfortable little place arranged around a three-sided bar, with wood panelling and engraved glass, plenty of secluded corners and an upstairs room with a theatrical theme. Numerous interesting prints on display include a series of Victorian political caricatures down the stairs. Star heritage features, though, are the surviving twin rows of “snob screens” on each side of the bar — opaque glass panes meant to obscure eye contact between well heeled customers and lowly staff that could be pivoted aside to serve drinks through. There’s no piped music, unless you count the polyphon, a giant Victorian music box that can be set working in exchange for a donation to charity. The pub is near the top of a picturesque street leading to Coram’s Fields, the only London park where adults are allowed only if accompanied by children, and the adjoining Foundling Museum on the site of the Foundling Hospital, a charitable orphanage founded by Thomas Coram in 1739.
National Rail Kings Cross, St Pancras Underground Russell Square, Holborn Cycling LCN+ 0 6 Walking Jubilee Walkway
London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
East London: Round the Olympic Park
 Cow, London E20 Contemporary pub (Geronimo/Young’s)
4 Chestnut Plaza, Westfield Stratford City E20 1GL
T (020) 8291 8644 W www.geronimo-inns.co.uk/thecow f TheCowWestfield
Open 1200-2300 (2400 Thu-Sat, 2230 Sun). Children welcome until 2100.
Cask beers 4 (usually Adnams Redemption, Sharp’s, Wells & Young’s), Other beers 3 keg, 4 bottles, Also Wines, some specialist spirits including Adnams
Food Enhanced pub grub/gastro menu, Outdoors Small terrace on square, Wifi. Disabled toilet.
Sat DJ, functions.
Commerce has driven the development of London since the beginning, so it’s curiously appropriate that the first component of the enormous Olympic Park redevelopment to open to the public should be a correspondingly enormous shopping mall. Westfield Stratford City opened in September 2011 on formerly industrial land between Stratford’s domestic and international stations, with more than 370 retailers occupying over 175,000m2 of floor area: the largest in London, the third largest in the UK in terms of retail space and the largest in the European Union in terms of size. You don’t have to be a shopaholic to appreciate its spectacular scale, with a grand staircase leading over the railways lines from the town centre, and some big public spaces, and it’s so environmentally friendly there’s even a special floor that generates electricity from the footsteps of shoppers. It’s already proved a great success, attracting over 1million visitors in its first week, and certainly transformed the local shopping experience, completely overshadowing the dowdy 1970s Stratford Centre opposite, with its 99p shops and fruit and veg stalls.
Beer connoisseurs adrift in this temple of retail will likely gravitate towards Tap East but there is an alternative, with a modest but reasonable beer selection and considerably more expansive accommodation. The Cow stands alongside several restaurants on Chestnut Plaza, a large square used for events and winter ice skating that during Games Time in 2012 will be on the pedestrian route from Stratford’s stations to the main eastern entrance of the Olympic Park. It’s arranged on three levels: a ground floor bar with plenty of vertical drinking space, a clubby and comfy mezzanine and a brighter upstairs restaurant-style area. Pleasingly, given the youth of the building, the decor is unashamedly, self-consciously fake, with sofas, tiles, bare bricks and quirky decorations with squirm-inducing dairy-themed puns. The toilets, inevitably, are labelled “Cowboys” and “Cowgirls”. But it seems to have worked, and when I visited on a busy midweek evening only a couple of months after opening, it already felt lived in.
The four handpumps each rotate different brands from the same brewer — Adnams, Redemption, Sharp’s (Cornish Coaster is favoured over the ubiquitous Doom Bar) and Wells & Young’s — with Bitburger, Erdinger and Staropramen on keg and two Camden Town beers plus Brooklyn Lager and Duvel in bottle. Typically for a Geronimo pub, food edges towards gastro and relatively high prices, with the likes of dry aged steak, haddock omelette, honey and lemon roast autumn vegetables and — of course — Cow Pie. Sandwiches, sharing boards and salad boxes widen the options. In terms of variety and rarity, the beer range might be the Stratford Centre next to Tap East’s Westfield, but beers are well served, it’s likely more partner and family friendly and there’s more of a chance of a comfy chair and a square meal after a hard day generating electricity.
National Rail Stratford, Stratford International Overground, Underground Stratford DLR Stratford, Stratford International Cycling Link to NCN1, LCN+ 16 155 156, Greenway, 2012 Games Walking and Cycling Routes Walking 2102 Games Epping Forest route, link to Capital Ring, Lee Valley Path
London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Central London: Bloomsbury, Euston and St Pancras
Update: This shop appears now to have closed (10/01/12).
 Belgique Boutique W1 Shop (Belgique)
179 Tottenham Court Road W1T 7NZ
T (020) 7436 7006 Website www.belgique.co.uk
Open 1030-1830 (closed Sun).
Cask beers None, Other beers 100 bottles, gift packs (Belgian), Also A few Belgian genevers and spirits
Food Belgian cheese, charcuterie, chocolates and other specialities
Fri fortnightly beer tastings.
This boldly branded shop — think Hercule Poirot and the colours of the Belgian flag — on the Bloomsbury side of Tottenham Court Road is something of an unexpected find, an emporium of Belgian food and drink. The beer range, though not a treasurehouse of rarities, reaches notably beyond the mainstream, and at reasonable prices given the area. You’d expect to see Trappists (Achel, Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Westmalle) and the likes of Delirium Tremens, but there’s also Belgoo, Ellezelloise, Gouyasse, Proef’s Reinaert beers, Viven and one of the better Belgian pilsners, Slaghmuylder’s curiously named Slag Pils. Lambics, unfortunately, are represented only a by a few more mainstream sweetened and mainly fruity versions. There’s much besides the beer, including Chimay and Maredsous cheeses, Rochefort butter, mouthwatering chocolate patisserie, artisanal bread and some products that can only possibly be of interest to expat lowlanders, like hagelslag — chocolate flakes for sprinkling on your breakfast bread. The shop is the West End outpost of a largely East London-based group run by Belgian Igor Bekaert which also includes several brasserie-style restaurants.
National Rail, Overground Euston Underground Goodge Street, Warren Street Cycling LCN+ 0 6 6A Walking Link to Jubilee Walkway
London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
East London: Bethnal Green and Mile End
 Albion in Goldsmiths Row, London E2 Traditional pub (Independent)
94 Goldsmiths Row, London E2 8QY
T (020) 7739 0185
Open 1200-2300 (0100 Fri-Sat). Children welcome daytimes
Cask beers 4 (Sharp’s, Timothy Taylor, 2 often local guests), Other beers 4 keg, 8 bottles, Also 12 wines
Food Lunchtime cold plates, weekend barbecues, Outdoors Front terrace, Wifi.
Fri live blues night, big screen football, darts, shove ha’penny.
The idea of a football (soccer) theme pub might suggest rowdy lads tanked up on industrial lager, but the Albion turns out to be a relatively sedate environment where supporters of two opposing sides might comfortably watch the same match, and with good beer to boot. The obsession with the beautiful game is obvious: the walls are crammed with football posters, photos, pennants, scarves, badges, press cuttings, rosettes and other memorabilia, ecumenically representing a huge variety of teams from both Britain and abroad. There’s a subtle emphasis, however, on West Bromwich Albion, whose badge is on the pub sign — landlord David Chapman is a Baggies fan, and renamed the pub, originally the Duke of Sussex, when he took it over 14 years ago after retiring from a career in the music industry. Look hard amongst the footie junk and you’ll find his collection of backstage passes on display; regular live music and interesting radio channels streamed over the speakers reflect his interest.
David also likes his beer, and so do his customers. Demand has spiralled over recent years and there are now four handpumps, dispensing Doom Bar, Landlord, a local guest often from Brodies, and quite likely one of the new breed of cut price reduced duty 2.8% “people’s beers” — Greene King Tolly English Ale when I called in. US craft beers also feature: Blue Moon and Sierra Nevada pale on keg, Anchor, Brooklyn and Goose Island in bottle, plus some British choices including Worthington White Shield. Football fever aside, this is an unpretentious and friendly East End local on the old drove route from Hackney to the City, adjacent to the historic alms houses built by the Goldsmiths’ company in 1703, and close to Haggerston Park and Hackney City Farm. It’s also a straight, short walk across the Regents Canal to the Dove (p126) and Off Broadway, both listed under Hackney.
National Rail Cambridge Heath, London Fields Overground Shoreditch High Street Underground Bethnal Green Bus Pritchards Road (394 Hackney, Hoxton), Warner Place (numerous Cambridge Heath, Hackney, Shoreditch) Cycling LCN+ 9 16, Regents Canal towpath Walking Jubilee Greenway, link to London Fields paths
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