We’ve just spent a few days in London stomping our way through the West, the East and the South, stopping to look at pubs and drink a few beers along the way.
London is a uniquely stimulating place, especially if you’re interested in beer, and we found ourselves fired up with lots of thoughts and ideas.
Rather than turn each one into a blog post, though, we thought we’d create a single piece of all-lean writing.
London pubs still get away with being mediocre
Jess came up a day earlier than Ray and was taken to an East End pub that her family had heard “did good food”.
It was a shabby chic Antic-type pub and, in fact, had no food other than Yard Sale pizza. It also had no cask ale, and even the keg beer was pretty tired. Despite this, the pub was buzzing and busy.
It definitely wasn’t a “shit London pub 2023 edition”. Friendly staff and a Bohemian vibe went a long way, and it had more customers than the pub we wrote about a couple of years back. But it was a long way from the offer promoted on the website and, indeed, in fairly recent Google reviews.
We went past the same pub on Friday night and it was closed – closed, on Friday night! – making us wonder if it might actually be on the verge of collapse.
The pub in a shopping centre that’s become something real
Disclosure: Jess finds it hard to be objective about Tap East at Westfield Stratford for various reasons, not least that her little brother worked there for almost 15 years – and is back picking up some shifts over Christmas.
Think about that number, though: 15 years. A brewpub established because developers thought it might enhance the ‘retail offer’ has, in fact, enhanced the retail offer, and survived various bumps in the road, including the pandemic.
Not only is beer still brewed on site (we assumed that would disappear quite early on) but it’s also pretty decent, including a regular dark mild.
Most remarkably, the pub has regulars – various flavours of Londoner and Essex types who come in on their way home from work, or going to and from West Ham games.
It still looks like a meanwhile space but, at its best, sounds and feels like a proper boozer.
That other seats are taken by, for example, craft beer loving Canadian diving coaches only enhances its appeal.
Ian Nairn rarely steers us wrong
If you’re into pubs and like London, you need to read Nairn’s London from 1966.
Nairn was a grumpy, alcoholic architectural critic who featured many pubs among his long list of notable buildings in the city.
Whenever we’re heading to some London neighbourhood or other we check the index and often visit a pub he found interesting 60 years ago.
This time, he led us to The ‘Famous’ Three Kings, AKA the F3K, on North End Road in Earl’s Court:
“It would need a firm resolution to resist the call of the entrance in North End Road… A splendid volute, all wood and glass, draws you into the recesses…”
The doorway is, as promised, absolutely remarkable, and there are a few other little Art Nouveau or Arts and Crafts features remaining, even if they’re hard to discern in the glare of 38 television screens showing sport.
Keeping the gastropub dream alive
We haven’t been to The Dove in Hammersmith since 2010. Back then, we saw the appeal, but found it too hectic, too stroppy, and with too much emphasis on food service over casual drinking.
On a damp Friday afternoon in 2025, we were able to grab one of a handful of boozing seats in the front bar, and experience flashbacks to the gastropub era.
Most of the pub is given over to tables laid out for dining and we watched one party after another wander up the steps with their pints then wander back down, unsure what to do with themselves.
Since researching gastropubs for 20th Century Pub we’ve come to think of them quite fondly, especially as there are so few of them around these days.
For all the irritations and pretensions, it’s nice to know that this culture lingers on in the posher parts of town.
Happy hour with the Asahi boys
The George & Devonshire is the nearest pub to the Fuller’s (Asahi) brewery in Chiswick, West London. We figured it might have decent cask ale and some atmosphere at knocking off time on a Friday.
It had the latter alright, the bar being lined with brewery workers in Asahi hi-vis bantering good naturedly and enjoying happy hour prices.
The range of beers was limited, just London Pride, but it was good, and it was only £4.40 a pint, which is basically miraculous for London.
Somehow, though, the pub, which we’ve visited before, still feels ‘off’. Why is it painted grey? Why are the big lights always on? Perhaps the location, next to the Hammersmith Flyover, does it no favours.
It’s still post-war in Canning Town
The Alex, AKA The Princess Alexandra, stopped us in our tracks as we walked along the Barking Road towards East Ham.
It’s a well preserved post-war Courage pub which still has reminders of its original owners: a golden cockerel on one window, the words ‘Town Bar’ on another.
We assumed it must be derelict, because this model of pub usually is in 2025. But, no, it was just sleeping after what we assume was a heavy Friday night.
There aren’t many signs of gentrification in Canning Town – few grey-painted houses, scarcely any tactical four-wheel-drive pushchairs.
We’d be delighted to see The Alex still there next time we walk this way, whenever that might be.
The Boleyn is worth a detour
Jess wrote about The Boleyn Tavern last year and has been keen to take Ray there ever since. It’s an astonishingly beautiful building, all ornate wooden partitions and cut glass, brought back to life with a significant investment a few years ago.
A massive Pride flag hanging behind a cage of Victorian wrought iron, seemed to be sending an important signal.
So did the wall of West Ham memorabilia.
So did the reserved signs on many of the tables.
So did the obviously cockney dog with a table to itself.
So did the elderly man with a turban drinking Guinness at the bar.
So did an animated conversation in Dutch.
So did the party of white-haired woman dining in the back room, accents straight out of Albert Square.
The beer was decent enough but it’s the play of light on polished surfaces, the sense of something significant being rescued and revived, that’s the real draw.
Wait – do we like taprooms now?
That we spend most Friday nights at Lost & Grounded here in Bristol should have been a give away but the Five Points taproom in Hackney really made us confront the truth.
It felt rather more like a pub than some of the actual pubs we visited (see item 1, above) with a certain liveliness and freshness we appreciated.
All the usual trappings were there – neon signs, bare surfaces, pot plants, stainless steel – but it felt comfortable with itself, as if those things had come together organically and been allowed to meld.
And here, the beer is a draw, especially the funky, smoky cask porter. If you’ve only got one cask ale on offer, that’s a big hitter.
A new pub serving its community
We’ve been meaning to visit The Green Goddess for a while, since reading about it at Pellicle.
Jess’s attendance at Charlton supporting Bristol City Women on Sunday was a good excuse.
The Green Goddess is a funny old place (complimentary) whose owners seem to have said: if we’re building this from scratch, let’s do things differently.
If that one Pride flag at The Boleyn was one signal among many, The Green Goddess amplifies that one signal over and over. As well as Pride flags and bunting, there are also literal signs everywhere that underline its ethos: ‘All Gender Toilets’; ‘Be Yourself’.
Respecting this is the price of entry and that meant a particularly easygoing crowd.
One customer ordered “your best hazy”.
Another worked their way through the entire line up of beers in a succession of three-third-pint tasting flights.
Families traded the box of Sticklebricks back and forth.
South East London and/or Kentish accents were all around.
While Jess was at the football, Ray settled contentedly into a corner and, for a couple of hours, decided that, yes, he would be himself.
Nobody at The Green Goddess seemed to care, as long he ordered efficiently at the bar.
Tesco, Ladbrokes, banqueting hall
Walking London’s big roads, and its back roads, you pass a lot of pubs that haven’t made it.
The Denmark Arms in West Ham is tinned up, its Grade II Victorian gorgeousness hidden from view. Charlie’s Bar, “where winners drink”, was permanently closed.
To get to it, we passed endless buildings that were once pubs – Victorian, Edwardian, inter-war – and have now been converted to other uses. Branches of Tesco, private houses or blocks of flats, grill restaurants, and even nurseries (The Just Kid Inn).
You could get depressed about this (we do get depressed about it) or, we suppose, you could look at the new concepts, taprooms, micropubs, rebirths and survivors above and think: maybe it’ll work out.
