Showbizguru

Cavernous boozer that is rammed at lunchtime and early evening with the bridge and tunnel crowd and deserted later in the evening.
Like many City pubs it's closed at weekends.
Not a bad pint of London Pride.

VivoPerLei

Cavernous boozer. Sounds like a description of my ex

bibbju

Used to be a decent pub many years ago when it was owned by the gym next door. Now it's just ok. Bit bland, not much atmosphere. Suggest you keep heading either east and visit one of Wapping's 3 riverside pubs or cross London Bridge and go to The George (oldest galleried inn in London) off Borough High St although it can get very crowded so service can be slow. The Anchor and The Thameside along the river there used to be decent pubs but tend to be full of tourists these days. My favourite pub in London is The Gun on the Isle of Dogs. Great food (it's a gastropub), great beer, great wine, mainly locals and a great terrace overlooking the Thames and the O2. In summertime, watch out for rowers from the nearby rowing club going past on Tues & Thurs evenings.

X3Skier

I like the George for a pint after visiting Borough Market. Prefer the tables outside.

Cheers

X3Skier

Send the wife to Oxford Street and hide in the Barley Mow. Keep the credit cards.

Cheers

nobbyclark

Funny you write that, because when we lived in London and back in the days when you were allowed to park around there on single yellows after 1.30pm, that's what used to happen most Saturdays.

TheMadBrewer

if you are looking for some London pub recommendations from a couple of serious beer geeks (of which I are one) check out BeerGuideLondon.com (also can be accessed as LondonBeerGuide.com )

philemer

Do most of the pubs sell an American style IPA (highly hopped, like 50>100 IBU)?

teflon

Not as a general rule - as you may know, British IPAs are a slightly different beast, and not quite as hoppy as their American counterparts. (I find them much more drinkable, though). They're much more easy to find, particularly in chain pubs - you'll often find a Greene King IPA, Fullers Bengal Lancer, or a Deuchar's.

Visit any of the craft beer or independent pubs mentioned in this thread, and you won't be disappointed. An awful lot of the microbreweries which have popped up across the city recently do an American IPA. For example, you can find Kernel IPA in bottles all over the place these days (and on tap in their pubs - The Rake, and Tap East in, er, Westfield Stratford City), and Camden Pale is quite easy to find too. Look out too for BrewDog's Punk IPA (in their own bars and all over the place - I think even Wetherspoons stock them now), though with their 330ml cans I think they're trying to position themselves squarely in the hipster market - despite being an entirely different kind of beer, I think they want to be the UK's equivalent of PBR.


It's probably worth mentioning that, in central London, a lot of pubs are much of a muchness - largely because they're run by the same few chains. Wetherspoons are the McDonald's of the pub world, though that's not necessarily a bad thing: they often have interesting ales on, and very reasonable prices. Some of their pubs are in amazing spaces too - former banking halls and grand station hotel dining rooms. Mitchells & Butlers own quite a lot more, under various brands: Nicholson's and O'Neills are the most obvious, but there's also the 'unbranded' Castle chain which you'll recognise once you go into a second one, because it'll have exactly the same menu and comment cards everywhere. Fullers and Youngs are both breweries who run their own pubs; the latter also owns the Geronimo chain which is very female-friendly, and in some can feel a bit like drinking in an airport lounge. But look around and you'll find nice little freehouses, smaller chains, and microbreweries. Many have been mentioned in this thread - and I'm off to find one now. cheers!

philemer

Thanks, teflon. Prosit!

Just out of curiosity, what is the approx. cost of a proper pint in most pubs?

dunk

Now that is going to start a discussion

I would say anywhere between 3 and 4 pounds a pint, perhaps more for premium lagers, Guinness, etc, but I presume those don't fall into your 'proper pint' classification

Wetherspoons, as teflon suggests, can be cheaper, but IMHO you have to watch the quality of product, cellar management and service.

When I last drank regularly in the City about 3 years ago, our local (Nicholson's ??) served Fuller's London Pride for £2.50 a pint. At four pints for a tenner, that made after work drinking a definite liability !

Perversely, central London can be cheaper than the environs, perhaps due to competition, size of houses or sales volumes. Standard ales at my UK local in the home counties are generally in the range £3.60 - 3.80, rising to over 4 quid for the stronger styles.

hth

DENROC

Ye Old Cheshire Cheese
The Marlybone

visualAd

The Samuel Smiths pubs tend to do reasonably priced lager and bitter for under £3 and that includes the Cheshire Cheese and Crown and Sugar Loaf (worth a visit to check out the stained glass windows).

Food does tend to be a bit hit and miss in Sam Smiths, wouldn't eat in the Cheshire chesse but I have had a good Sunday roast at the Ordanance Arms in St John's Wood.

TheMadBrewer

The Cittie of Yorke is my go to place for a Samuel Smiths OBB when I'm in town. I've only eaten their Ploughman's but it was pretty good (though I'm no expert)

realjd

American craft beers aren't too rare in bottles. I usually see a lot of Stone in particular. You won't find American IPAs on tap often.

You should be able to find bottles of BrewDog also. It's a Scottish brewery that brews American-style beers. If you have time, check out their pub in Camden. They have their entire line of beers on tap as well as a few guest taps of American craft beers.

Also check out the Craft Beer Company. Several locations in London, all have a huge number of kegs and casks of craft beer:
http://thecraftbeerco.com/