photo by Ewan-M

The Royal Oak is wonderful because it is such a perfect example of an ordinary pub. It does nothing extraordinary or alarming. It is a Proper Pub, with small rooms and nicely mismatched furniture, and random plates and pictures on the walls. Here are some of the reasons that I love it:

The beer: Harveys’ beer is delicious, and the Royal Oak has a full range of it on tap. It’s one of the few pubs in London where you’re pretty much guaranteed a pint of Mild. (I have seen them run out of the lovely dark brew, but I have usually contributed to its demise.) In winter, they do a good smooth sour Old, and there’s always delicious hoppy, happy Harveys’ Best. Tucked away behind the bar are tiny bottles of Imperial Stout, and the Christmas ale – appearing on tap every December – is nearly as lethal. May is Camra-approved Mild month, with bonus extra milds to quaff. February features the seasonal ale ‘Kiss’ (and I’m certain that the bar staff never tire of the utterly hilarious variations on ‘Give us a Kiss please’). This seasonal run of beers is very comforting to a creature of habit like me.

It’s not such a great pub for those fools who spurn the warm, flat goodness of real ale; provision for the keg-drinkers is very limited. As is my sympathy. Drink some ALE instead! It is much, much tastier.

The food: This is the antithesis of a gastropub. The Royal Oak’s menu features PIE, PIE and PIE, with some pudding, and maybe a stew or two, and huge doorstep sandwiches. The portions are vast; I am AFRAID to have the steak and kidney pudding after seeing it defeat more qualified pudding-eaters than me. I have, however, scoffed down the fish pie (with an egg in!) and the veg and stilton veggie option, and can recommend them both. I’ve also been led astray many times by the wonderful salt-beef sandwich – meltingly tender beef, lots of mustard and gherkin – delicious, and excellent at soaking up the many pints of mild.

The toilets: Usually, if someone says ‘Oh! You must see the toilets! They’re the best bit of the whole pub!’ I assume that they’re talking about one of those terrifying city Wetherspoons bank conversions, where the toilets occupy the entire of the basement, and have a water feature in place of a sink, and every time you need a wee you feel vague guilt because this vast cavern could house twenty families in comfort. Anyway. I love the toilets in the Royal Oak, but they’re not actually the best bit, and they’re definitely not vast. They’re quite small, and covered in lovely dark green glossy Victorian-style tiles. The sinks and toilet, and high-up pull-chain cistern, are embellished with blue-painted flowers, and made by Vernon Tutbury. The toilet in the ladies’ is called CHARLOTTE! (This name’s painted inside the bowl. I don’t know what the toilet in the men’s is called. Can anyone illuminate me?)

The moustaches: Heading to the toilet, the observant drinker will encounter a collection of portraits of dudes sporting fine, fine moustaches.

The tiny charity shop in the corner of the back room: Here, you can purchase dubious paperbacks for the princely sum of 50p each, or three for £1. Except I bought all the Jilly Cooper and Jackie Collins paperbacks last week.

Late-night opera: One night a few of us were drinking late-night porter (this  pub has a relaxed attitude to chucking-out) when a small portable stereo was popped onto the bar, and opera blazed out of it. In our tipsy state it was nicely surreal. I think this is the only time I’ve heard music playing in there.

Take-out beer: The tiny tasty Indian restaurant across the road doesn’t sell beer, but you can buy whole jugs of the stuff from the Royal Oak to drink with your curry.

The tiling on the outside: It is orange and glossy and most appealing! Tiled pubs make me happy.

Drawbacks to this fine hostelry are:

• NO PUB CAT! I have met a pub-dog who appears downstairs at closing time but everyone knows that cats are better than dogs. (Actually, the pub dog is quite nice.)
• Can get a bit crowded at past-work-o-clock. (Which is fair enough. It’s an awesome pub. EVERYONE should want to be here.)

The thing about the Brickies is that it has , like the good Sam Smiths of the turn of the millennium, two very distinct areas for drinking. Downstairs, it is bright, breezy, small and – well – bricky. A nice central bar which splits the downstairs into the poky one table back room and the only slightly bigger four table front area. Downstairs is a place for plotting, for a quick pint after a film, or a night spiralling out of control (the Brickies is of course fantastically close to the Spanish Bar). Downstairs I have seen some appalling pub behaviour from the best of friends, I have seen pranks played, I have sat rolling my eyes at another play of Kid A* as we make the most blatant table grab in history scaring off two poor shopgirls. Downstairs is business turning to pleasure. Oh and dodging the dartboard too.

Upstairs, well upstairs is one of the few places I approve of sofas in the pub. The real problem with sofas is that they are often difficult to get in and out of, especially while drinking. You sink into a hole, and you end up resembling an some sort of woodpecker rocking back and forth for your pint. Low slung leather sofas, picked to give the vibe of a gentleman’s club end up giving the vibe of a dormitory. Upstairs at the Bricklayers though eschews the leather sofas for a more robust, harder set of sofas, around some equally solid glass topped coffee tables. You can drink upstairs, be comfortable and it not feel wrong. And also the sofas a re set up for big groups, making it easy to turn into yet another garrulous session. More relaxed than downstairs, around the fire maybe, in the dark comfort of the upstairs. Unless…

There is one more mode of drinking at the Bricklayers, and it involves the very odd corner by the bar. The bar swoops round, has a couple of stools but barely enough room for more than a couple of people. And yet in that corner you seem to be able to fit no end of people slowly going mad. Yet again the pub provides the perfect air for vertical drinking too. As hard to find as a central London pub can be, at the end of Stephen Street off Tottenham Court Road, the Bricklayers has been all things to me. Tall, skinny, perhaps unprepossessing (the highest pub name in London?) Fancy a pint?

*It does seem a lot of our fond early noughties pub memories do rotate around inappropriate uses of Radiohead in pubs.

Estate pubs, of course, occupy a special place in pub fandom. Being integrated into the fabric of a residential (often Council-built) estate makes them peculiarly close to the lives of the residents, and often makes for a more cosy and welcoming environment, if always with the danger of a hostile reception for outsiders. You never can quite be sure. Cask, which opened in mid-2009 as a renovation of the old Pimlico Tram, is classic estate pub from the outside: dark and forbidding, squirreled away at the foot of a fairly ugly post-war residential block. However, inside the space has been opened out, with light streaming in from large windows at the right of the pub, the walls painted brightly and decorated with maps, and plentiful cushions lining the benches.

This in itself could be the prelude to some hideous gastro-pretentious makeover (the place is worryingly called “Cask Pub & Kitchen”, and the particular shade of green adorning the walls isn’t exactly comforting), but where Cask excels is in the range and quality of beers they offer. Five handpulls which offer dependable and ever-changing stand-bys like Dark Star ales and the Everard’s Tiger which provided our group sustenance all night on our first visit. Add to this a vast range of German and Belgian bottled beers, and a few ciders, and you’ve got… well, something that’s starting to sound like ad copy, but I’m trying to get across that this is a good pub in the hinterlands of Zone 1.

I use the word “hinterlands” advisedly, as of course it’s not so far from civilisation (aside from the tube station, the pub’s not exactly a stretch of a walk from Victoria), but somehow Pimlico remains a corner of central London which just seems cut off, a quality exploited by Ealing Studios in its 1949 comedy Passport to Pimlico. Perhaps this is due to its primarily residential character (rare enough in central London), or perhaps because it’s physically cut off by the train lines into Victoria, but then perhaps it’s just because those of us who go out drinking can’t reach our homes so easily from there.

Therefore, the fact it shows up on this list is a sign that the pub is getting something right, and it’s why we’ll be finishing up there on our annual pub crawl this year.

(Cask on Fancyapint.)

Past crawls have taken in the Euston Hexagon, the Mornington Crescent, strange arcane routes across the river and last year a foray into Marylebone. This year we are again pushing further afield, by about half a mile and have settled on the wonderful environs of Pimlico, and its surprisingly large number of estate pubs!

So I give you Das Pimlico Boot (when you see the map it makes sense).

We start at 3pm by Victoria Station: The Kings Arms: http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub1525.php
4pm: Jugged Hare: http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub1521.php
5pm: White Swan: http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub447.php
5:45pm: Morpeth Arms: http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub446.php
6.30pm: The Grosvenor: http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub3547.php
7:15pm: The Pride Of Pimlico: http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub3833.php
Finishing at
8pm: The Cask: http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub3531.php

We will then stay at the Cask til kicking out time, or someone suggests going to another pub to make it eight (I think we eventually made nine in the end last year!) Please come along, and if it is your first time remember this isn’t about drinking (completely) – rather savouring the interesting architecture of London’s pubs. Well, maybe a bit of drinking too.

Facebook event here if you want to invite other people.

The Blue Posts, Rupert Street, was my first London love. Sure I had dallied with a few pubs in Oxford, and there were a few old boilers in my suburb that I had affection for, but the BPRS was the first pub I “discovered” and made mine. And we fit together perfectly. It was a small, unpretentious pub in the heart of the West End, set on a tiny alley which is a perfect rat run between China Town (China Street more like) and the Trocedero. It had a downstairs built mainly for vertical, and stool based drinking but a good selection of ales and a compact but well stocked bar. Upstairs was not always open, the bar upstairs even less so though they were always happy to ferry stuff up in its dumb waiter. But upstairs had five tables which it was possible to fit a largish group around and for its size, you could always have a good night in there. I think the pokiness of the downstairs put people off exploring. My enthusiasm for it is cataloged here.

In the earliest days of going there I thought that Rupert Street was just an extension of Berwick Street, that the bottleneck of Raymond’s Revue Bar did not change the name of the street. This led to, very early on, the odd confusing line of calling it The Blue Posts, Berwick Street – which is of course a pub in its own right. Which then led me on to the existence of the six central London Blue Posts. My pub now had history and stories about it. Berwick Street (and Rupert Street by actual extension) was my favourite street in central London, when I used to bunk of school it was always my destination. By the time the 00′s came around I could happily tell stories of youthful wide eyed wanderings, avoiding disaster (one of those bunking off days had me missing the Kings Cross Fire by twenty minutes), sleeping in a pub (the White Horse Rupert St), bumping into pop stars and stories of the Blue Posts itself. There was an entertaining early UK blog meet there. The first Trig Brother had a key moment in this pub. I had my 28th birthday in this pub, taking over the whole upstairs on a Friday night. Not to mention this sterling write up in its place as part of the epic Blue Posts’ Pub Crawl.The Blue Posts Rupert Street seemed to offer everything, including a wonderful jukebox.

You can fall out of love with a pub. Sometimes it is you. Sometimes it is them. With the BPRS it was both of us, but it started with the jukebox. The jukebox had always been a draw when small groups of us would congregate downstairs. Our pop agenda was well served by this jukebox, though it also allowed for storming renditions of Immigrant Song and Meatloaf. Then suddenly it wasn’t there. Within weeks the space the jukebox had been had been replaced with some low tables. The beer changed, the ale went down to London Pride and more dull lagers popped up. Upstairs seemed to be closed or booked out every night, the staff were different. We catalogued its decline here.

OK, I had changed too. Now I was going out drinking with much larger groups. Manageable Friday nights of six or seven people were going upwards of ten every week. Midweek Soho drinks were skewing towards Sam Smith’s pubs because of the expense. And what expense. I think the BPRS was the first place I liked that sold me a three pound pint. Blackboards were outside it, enticing in tourists. The Blue Posts Rupert Street was no longer the pub it was, and I was a different drinker. We drifted apart. A friend had her 29th in there: the pub was seeing other people.

I didn’t go in it for five years.

I have been a couple of times recently, just for old times sake. Another friend had a birthday meet in it, citing happy times. We were cramped at the bar, though the beer was better than it had been when I fell out. The table arrangement still seems crazy downstairs, and they seem to put on live music at incomprehensible times. Another time we went, the whole downstairs was booked out for a party. When has a pub ever booked out its main room, but left its function room open? The staff got pernickity about how many people were sitting around our table, to maximize seating opportunities. The last time I was in there, I almost got into a fight with an old geezer who had left his coat lying around on the only free table. The pub itself menaced me. Sometimes you can’t go back.

But the Blue Posts Rupert Street is there for the memories. I’ll go back again, maybe in five years. It is still my first real pub relationship. But you can’t live in the past, and you certainly can’t drink there.

Not for beginners, you understand, by one for lo, I am a new bug. I don’t remember the smoking ban coming in (here, at least; it was quite an event where I was at the time, in Mid Wales) and Samuel Smiths are still a little entertaining to me in their sheer oddity; people say ‘Clerkenwell’ to me and I go ‘cor is that a real place? I really liked the Real Tuesday Weld album of the same name!’ and I have, on two separate occasions, spent ten miserable, sodden minutes standing in a doorway outside Euston Square station, peering at Google Maps and wondering what the hell happened to the road that I’m sure I went down the last time I came out of one of the doors here; I think everywhere east of Westminster is bat country, still find Oyster cards a bit esoteric and don’t understand the Blue Posts acronym system; occasionally I still give bartenders scandalised looks when they tell me how much a pint of Kronenbourg and a Winter Warmer is going to be and despite the best attempts of my educators, I’m not actually sure I understand what an estate pub is* and six months ago I knew a lot less.

Here is what I have learnt.

I am, as anyone who knows me will know, no stranger to the concept of pubs. I used to live in Aberystwyth, which virtually has more pubs than people and I frequented its fine (and terrible) establishments greatly. I have also tried and tested the drinking establishments of Oxfordshire and indeed, anywhere else I’ve spent more than about an hour. The concept of ‘pub’ is not difficult to me; London pubbing, especially with a large friendsgroup that extends across all corners of at least the zones 1-2 area is quite a different prospect though, since an Oyster allows you access to a far greater selection of establishments than almost seems wise. I am, at least for the moment, quite wedded to West London and have far greater in-depth knowledge of where to find a pint between the West End and Hanwell than most other places but the great and wonderful thing about the N207 is that I haven’t let a few terrifying falling-asleep-listening-to-Mastodon-after-a-little-too-much-soporific-ale-oh-my-god-where-am-I incidents hold me back from broadening my horizons.

My London pub education could, it’s possible to estimate, have started on what I think was 30th December, 2007. I went up to South Ealing, where my boyfriend at the time lived and en route to a friend’s birthday party in Surrey we went to The New Inn, South Ealing Road. Since at the time I was living in Aberystwyth, I spent most of my time there internally hyperventilating whilst eyeballing the astonishingly small amount of change I’d got from a tenner after buying three pints of London Pride. “What,” I thought, “is the fvcking point of this city?” At home I could get a pint of Hoegaarden for a bargainous £2.50 in a pub with a proper jukebox! London was rubbish! “Bvgger this,” I proclaimed, “this is sh!t and I can’t even get a pint of Brains,” and went back to Wales the next day.**

Now in 2009, I have of course changed my tune. When deprived of pub, I pine and seethe against whatever is depriving me and I have extended my repertoire far beyond the Fullers empire that encompasses zones 3-5 of West London. This is, in no small part whatsoever thanks to the contributors to this site, who took me in, found me a job and showed me the best watering holes to find a nice pint of something tasty and in my time here, I’ve only ever discovered two truly, truly terrible pubs and one I didn’t think much of and in all cases, the company more than made up for the less than wonderful surroundings.

One of the things you may notice throughout this is that I cannot remember the name of any pubs I have ever been to. This is partly the result of beer’s amnesiac allure and partly because my brain appears to classify them as “the one with the armchairs” or “the one with Steve LaMacq in” or “it was blue;” you’d think my job as a bookseller, where I am daily faced by people who can’t remember anything about a book except possibly its cover colour and that might be wrong, I would have learnt to be a bit more specific but sadly and possibly due to said job, the bit of my memory that ought to remember important facts such as which Blue Posts is which appears to be full of ISBN numbers and anecdotes rather than anything useful. So it is that I have to tell you that my first FreakyTrigger pub action occurred in a pub in Covent Garden which has a lot of Beatles memorabilia. TfL had told me to come out of the wrong door at Covent Garden tube station and I spent fifteen minutes wandering around thinking bleakly to myself that I was lorst and had no way of finding the pub ever and would just have to go home, after circling the theatre showing the Lion King musical for the sixth time.

Fortunately I happened to spy a pub sign down a sideroad just as I was giving up and eventually made it to the pub, which was tiny and charming and not even that overpriced, as well as serving some strange poppadom crisps which came with their own little dips and which in no way prevented me getting really quite trollied before wobbling home. Still, I’d met some ace new people (not all for the first time; I’d been to a Poptimism at the Cross Kings in September 2007 but, despite said establishments, err, charming murals I’m not sure that counts as a proper “going to the pub for the pub” type outing) and had had a jolly nice time and not got as lost as I thought. “Excellent,” I thought, “I’ll do this more often.”

One of the great things about the FreakyTrigger collective is that when I turned up to said pub, whatever it was called (Cross Keys? I think keys were involved?) I was immediately inundated with information regarding the pub itself, the pubs in the area, the history of the area and anything else I’d care to think of whilst boggling at all them ‘ouses etc. Obviously, I forgot all this within seconds but the fact that it was proferred immediately suggested to me that I would do well here and served to significantly transform my ideas about London pubs as something irritating and noisy and overpriced that were never going to be homey in the way my old haunts were.The terrified attempt at finding places was to become something of a theme to at least my first six months of Going Pub in London and indeed, still often actually is a thing as I attempted to find the Exmouth Arms in the pouring rain the other day but that’s an inevitable part of getting to know anywhere and I look forward to the day when I will actually remember where anything is. The collective pub knowledge contained within the contributors to this site, though, far exceeds any guide you’re going to get and it’s probably a testimony to the number of pubs we go to that we haven’t actually quite got around to writing a comprehensive one yet.

Another great thing about said collective and their pubgoings is that there’s a pretty broad selection of tastes here; me, I am an oldmanpub stalwart, although after spending far too much time in Y Bae, Aberystwyth, I do require that the toilets at least be habitable if you have fewer than six legs and no exoskeleton and I am always going to favour battered settees over benches or even worse, pleather or even worse than that, somewhere I might be expected to look remotely respectable. Nevertheless, I did once wind up drinking actually-not-all-that-overpriced-on-the-scale-of-overpricing cocktails in Bob Bob Ricard, with Sarah and Ewan of this manor and Ken, who doesn’t write here as far as I’m aware, at about 1am after probably a lot too much karaoke. This is the sort of venture that leads to one’s getting mesmerised by the sheer softness and luxury of the paper hand towel things and indeed nicking a load to take home with me and in all fairness I am, like everyone on this site, pretty easy going about pubs so long as you never ever take me to the Stinging Nettle in Shepherds Bush, which if it were not in quite a nice building deserves to be PURGED WITH FLAME and then salted for its crimes against the concept of drinkable wine.

Some of the basic criterions of FT drinking, though, go along these lines-
1. Must have proper beer, ie: not just lager
2. Actually, that’s basically it.

We tend to drink in large(ish) groups but haven’t let that stop us invading, for instance, The Gunmakers in Clerkenwell which is about the size of 1x front room (and a very lovely pub) for Ewan’s birthday or from trying to all cram ourselves into a corner of the Shakespeare’s Head last Friday, so although the assemblies occasionally take on sizes which might merit a substantial part of The Drayton Court (which we have, to my knowledge, never visited en masse due to it being in zone 3 and also strange anti-West biases that I myself find mystifying) being reserved we simply take the concept of budging up slightly on the benches to a sort of space-time artform.

Despite not really understanding what an estate pub is, I have the feeling its something to do with the feeling of “localness” in some establishments. The having of a local is an important thing; I think I’ve at least temporarily adopted the Ladbroke Arms as mine, since its vaguely equidistant between mine and Magnus’ houses and if everyone is going to be so inconsiderate as to live in other parts of London then we can choose our poncy drinking establishments accordingly but the idea of a local in London is more than just somewhere near your home. Myself and Kat used to treat the Hope and the Blue Posts Newman Street as our locals when I was working twenty feet away from her (now a whole zone away, sob!) and the Champion is also an Owl Country favourite (also Kat & I tended to avoid it for fear of colleagues) but equally, I have locals I go to with, say, Cis (admitedly, the Four Goats Head is in Oxford but what can you do?) and some that prove convenient when meeting friends from Ealing, places I go with Sukrat whenever I venture over into bat country, etc. etc. etc. And basically: wherever the FT lot are, it’s a local.

The ace thing about the mobility of London is that although I will piss and moan every time anyone suggests the Calthorpe*** it doesn’t actually prevent me getting there; whilst there were hundreds of pubs within walking distance of my house in Aberystwyth and at least five I could get to in Oxfordshire, the number available to me in London is brainboggling to the point that I am always incapable of selecting one since with all that choice the sudden panic that I will in some way choose the wrong one and offend everyone kicks in, although I’m told this eventually wears off when you turn into Pete Baran. And y’know, I’d probably actually go to the Calthorpe again if it was strictly necessary.

I suppose, before this turns into even more of a wordy, distracted ramble (my writing is normally swearier and I’ve forgotten the policy FT has on such so you’ll have to forgive the otherwise pretentious tone; it was that or Mr Tourette) or I succumb entirely to Beechams Powders and my duvet, my point is that basically: I came to London, discovered that it might not be true that the streets are paved with gold but if it’s pubs you’re looking for then you can go very, very wrong (having lived in Shepherds Bush, I can say with authority that it is evidently important that you avoid all antipodean themed establishments) but the sheer amount of choice on offer means there’s always an opportunity to correct yourself.

Unless, I’m led to believe, you’re in the Spanish Bar. Which I haven’t been to and maybe don’t, err, need to now.

*This is a bit like the offside rule, as far as I can tell, insofar as I asked once and didn’t understand it and now probably can’t ask again. Except I do actually understand the offside rule.
**As per schedule, as it happened.
***ALSO BECAUSE IT IS HORRIBLE. But mostly because it is miles away from Westbourne Park.

The thing that finally got me through the door was horse-racing.

Having lived in Cheltenham for seven years the excitement of the Gold Cup meeting in March had stayed with me, but I’d never found a pub in London that was that bothered about it. I think it must have been 2007 that I realised that the Newton was a racing pub (and with proper RacingUK pictures at that), and had my lunch late on the Tuesday to catch the Champion Hurdle and scope the pub out. What I found was a very friendly and courteous welcome from immaculately dressed barmen (white shirt and tie at all times) and Really Quite A Lot Of Freemasons which, given the area, is hardly surprising (and I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a stake in the place to be honest). I resolved to return on the Friday, and have now spent the last three Gold Cup days there.

It really is a cracking afternoon pub though, even when I’ve been sat on my own watching the racing, it doesn’t feel like you’re being looked at as some kind of weirdo. The fact that the last of their lunchtime punters don’t leave ’til about half two and the first of the knocking-off-early ones arrive at three helps I think. The lunchtime food is top notch too, Chris and I shared an awesome plate of bacon and chips (i know this shuold be boiled potatoes, but we fancied chips) and parsley sauce last year and they keep a decent pint of Adnams.

It does seem to be slightly obsessed with high stools and ledges rather than proper tables, but it’s a long way from being a Vertical Drinking Establishment. I know it’s an awful cliché, but you do get a real mix of people in over the course of an (afternoon and) evening (we have spent some evenings there as well!). Anyway, if anyone’s looking for me on Gold Cup afternoon (19th March next year), you know where to find me.

FancyAPint Link
BeerInTheEvening Link

“Excellent,” I said to my colleague, “There’s a pub opposite.”

“It looks a bit rough.”

This was nonsense. It didn’t – and doesn’t – look at all rough, it just looked like a pub. Alright, there was something unvarnished about it in comparison to Tooley Street’s other drinkeries – it was clearly not after the same clientele as Skinkers Wine Bar, or the anonymous booze barn that serves Hays Galleria.

It turned out that the roughness assessment was second-hand information: a group of youngsters from my work had scouted the area around our new office and had decided that the Shipwrights was full of “locals” (oh no!) who didn’t take kindly to office folk invading their space. I protested, but the damage was done – when I went for a pint with colleagues, Skinkers would be the place.

I quickly realised, though, how ideal the Shipwrights was as a place to meet friends. Its London Bridge location makes it very handy as a meet-up (and of course for me it’s terribly convenient) and it’s proved a superior pub for plotting and planning. Unlike a lot of pubs on the list, it’s a hard one to sprawl in, with a lot of smallish tables spread out around a central bar in the round. Not suited to the gradual accretion of friends over the course of an evening, but rather good for getting things done. Lollards shows, Freaky Trigger revamps, Trig Brothers – the Shipwrights has played host to them all. (It’s also – a black mark this – the place that put Carling’s unspeakable C2 lager on tap for us to test.)

And while the beer is unspectacular** and the amenities unshowy there’s something more-ish about it: a hard pub to leave, which is the vaguest but possibly greatest complement of them all.

*the Hitler Pie advertises the war museum a door or so up from the Shipwrights. This has nothing to do with the pub, which does not even serve pies.

**though not bad – it has Deuchars and a couple of other ales, and – C2 aside – its lagers are fine too.

Raw-milk cow cheese from France, from Le Marché du Quartier

This wedge of cheese is grubby on the outside; gray and brown, pitted and wrinkled. Inside it’s a soft moist translucent creamy paste dotted with little holes. The inside tastes tastes tangy and bright and grassy and citrussy, the rind composty and dusty and mushroomy. It’s a happy contrast of taste and texture.

Fourme de Ambert

Pasteurized cow’s blue cheese, from France, bought from Le Marché du Quartier

This is a wide round slice of blue cheese; pale and creamy and scattered with green gray mould. It’s a pale yellow nearer the rind, and almost white in the middle.

Fourme de Ambert’s a smooth and gentle cheese, tasting of hazelnuts and mushrooms, mellow and creamy. But there’s also an almost spiky, slightly liquorice fruitiness, and a decent hit of saltiness. I get a slight whomph of booze from it, and it prickles my mouth very gently. The rind has a gentle crumbliness that contrasts with the silkiness of the paste.

Abondance

Raw-milk hard cow cheese from France, also bought from Le Marché du Quartier

This slice of cheese is pockmarked with little holes. The rind’s a darker orange colour, and inside it’s a pale and creamy yellow. It has a mild  sweet nutty taste, with lots of toffee towards the rind. It’s fruity and juicy, and has a smidgen of herbal and floral flavours in the background. Initially there’s a slightly chewy plastic texture, but it very quickly – and surprisingly – melts away in my mouth.

So things to note. The John Snow is named after John Snow the health campaigner, not the newsreader, which is amusing in itself as John Snow was a confirmed teetotaller*. The pub is near the pump that Snow brought fresh water into Soho thus sorting out the cholera epidemic. This marks it out in Soho already, for an area with a pretty full history an awful lot of the pubs are highly anonymous. Another key point about the Snow is its compartmentalisation. I started drinking after nearly all the separate bars in pubs had been knocked through so there is something really rather nice about seeing various rooms in action in the Snow. Not that the John Snow is precious about it, the weeny door downstairs notwithstanding its an easy and compact pub to navigate. Indeed its size has sometimes worked against it. A regular FT correspondent was supposed to meet us for the first time in there. It was too full so we decamped down the road, his memories of the John Snow are of disappointment.

It is a pub of first meetings, and often drinks there spiralled into odd areas. One night a bunch of us were sitting downstairs shooting the breeze (I guess early 2005) and slowly realised that the blokes on he table next to us were having some sort of UKIP meeting. Somehow we got embroiled, and suddenly it turned from a night of firendly banter into THE MOST IMPORTANT ANTI-FASCIST BATTLE IN THE BRITISH ISLES SINCE MOSLEY GOT HIS ARSE KICKED IN THE EAST END. Or something like that. They walked away tail between their legs and UKIP are now a spent political force because of us a four pints of the Fatman.

For me though the John Snow is synonymous with one of my favourite images of the 00′s. Pre-crossrail, pre-any kind of refurbishment of the Tottenham Court Road area, Centre Point was looking a bit run down. From the upstairs room in the John Snow there is a perfect view of the upper twenty storeys of this oft derided building, towering over Soho. And in its run down state, one of the letters on top had not lit up. So proclaimed to all in the John Snow was the prophetic legend CENTRE PINT. Which is what the John Snow has always been for me.

*Which the newsreader certainly isn’t. Indeed I have drunk in the same pub as the other John Snow on at least two occasions.

Selles sur Cher

A French raw goats cheese, bought from Mons

This little flat round cheese has a greeny-grey charcoal rind, speckled with a white bloom. There’s a soft squishy translucent layer directly underneath the rind, and a putty-like dense bright white layer in the center. The clean white paste inside contrasts really prettily with the dark rind.

The rind tastes prickly and peppery and medicinal; hints of TCP. Inside it’s soft and smooth, and melts in my mouth. It’s very creamy, for a goat’s cheese and has small bursts of thyme and rosemary flavours and a gentle sweet nuttiness.

Cheesy Woofer: Finn eats this cheese after some persuasion. He doesn’t recommend it. (However, I do! It’s very tasty.)

Kirkhams Lancashire

A semi-hard raw cow’s cheese from (can you guess?) Lancashire, bought from Neal’s Yard Dairy

The Lancashire is a crumbly pale yellow slab of cheese. It has a soft buttery texture, tastes tangy and sour, and reminds me of gooseberries and lemons. It’s almost fizzy in its exuberance – Pete compares it to eating cola bottles. It’s creamy, too, but in a sharp yoghurty way. This a giddy teenaged slab of Lancashire we’re eating. It does get calmer as it ages; I’ve had older, sweeter, creamier versions of this in the past.

Cheesy Woofer: The hound LOVES this, scoffs all he is given in one big drooly gulp, and makes huge puppydog eyes asking for more.

Basically The Kings Arms was the nearest decent pub to the Resonance FM studios when we were making the second series of Freaky Trigger and The Lollards Of Pop. So every Tuesday night we would meet for swift pre-show pint, desperately try to plan the show and then reconvene an hour later. Occasionally a few extra members of the team might just wait in the pub for the team to come back. Because The Kings Arms is that classic of a type, a dependable, solid boozer which always had OK ale on, always had pork scratchings and seemed to bring out the best in us. Numerous examples spring to mind when we left the radio studios to continue the show in the pub, where with a few text messages and a few beers we usually created the radio show we wanted to make.

I remember in particular after the first show I hosted, the Murder show, myself, Alix, Sarah, Tom and Rob (who was producing) returned to the pub to discuss whether or not it was a good idea to have run a live murder mystery with my guests without really telling them what was going on. The consensus from the guests traumatised by the mystery gunshot was it was a bad idea. And yet after a few more beers it all seemed really rather ridiculous. Another night, after this show, we just got Al Ewing to say Tim Boo Bah over and over again.

And the last show of that season might as well have been recorded in the pub. And it certainly continued in this vein. My fondness for the Kings Arms is huge, and like many pubs on this list it has rather notable toilets too. Poked away without being poky, and with lovely staff – the great pity is when we made the third series it was a Saturday show and the Kings Arms was closed. We never found a suitable replacement. Though I can say in comparison The Blue-Eyed Maid is horrific. Actually in comparison with a shit pub, the Blue Eyed Maid would still be horrific. The Kings Arms, great.

So firstly, before we go to far. These are not the 25 best pubs in London if you are a tourist. They are probably not the best if you live and work in London. Hell, some of these pubs no longer exist. But these are the pubs that the core of FreakyTrigger, and lots and lots of friends visited the most, and had the best times in. A great pub is a space which allows the magic to happen, and does not necessary thrust itself upon you. So a lot of these pubs tick the boxes by virtue of being geographically convenient for us.

That said this list is about good times we have had. So the write-ups will be based upon those good moments, memories perhaps of the beer, but perhaps of the conversation, what happened next and so on. Some of the pubs will be given special placement by when they were our regular haunt, some pubs have fallen out of fashion, or as mentioned above no longer there (note, neither version of the Intrepid Fox turns up in this list). That said, if you wanted to go drinking with us in any of these pubs, we happily would go, pubs are now a place of memory for us too.

A note of methodology: As ever those of us who regualrly go to the pub together wracked our memories for our regular pubs. This was boiled down to a list of about 50 pubs, which were then voted upon by a ground, in a “neutral” pub – The Exmouth Arms in Euston. this then ranked the pubs, and this ranking was then used to provide a list of the eight best pubs, which then were pitted against each other tournament style. There is a winner, which hopefully we will get to by Christmas. But before then, there will be a few pubs that didn’t make the cut which need talking about and the list itself. And feel free to disagree massively in the comments.

Soft raw cow’s cheese from France, bought from Mons

St. Felicien comes in a shallow round wooden box. It has a wrinkled white and cream coloured, softly bloomy rind. When I cut into it I see exactly why it’s sold whole, in a box; it’s entirely liquid, and the creamy cheese puddles out of the rind. It’s the colour and texture of double cream. I fetch a spoon.

Creamy probably goes without saying, but this cheese is also surprisingly sour and bitter. It’s got both a lemonishness and a taste of soured milk. It’s also got a bit of herbal astringency, reminding me of thyme. It’s bitter in the aftertaste, and it leaves my mouth tingling. The rind (I have to fish a lump out of my sea of cheesy ooze) is creamier, if that’s possible, and softer and sweeter; it has nutty fudgey notes. The St Felicien is so oozy and liquid that I was rather expecting a slightly tart and funky cream, but it’s more complex than that, with a big contrast between the sweet creaminess and the bitter and sour ends of the cheese. It’s good!

Chaource

Raw cows cheese, from France, bought from Une Normande à Londres

We have half of a small round of this for lunch. The rind is orange and white, mottled and pale and wrinkled. Directly under the rind it’s pale and soft and creamy. The middle of the cheese is slightly chalky.

The rind has a hint of pungent washedness, a hint of mushroom, and bit of plumminess. It prickles my mouth and throat. Further in, the saltiness of this cheese really kicks in. Nearer the rind it’s creamy and mushroomy, nutty and sweet and slightly toffee-ish, and intensly salty. The center is sharp and sour and intensely salty. Cheese-scoffing chum says that it tastes a bit of pickles. It reminds me of buttermilk. I like this, but I think I’d also like to try a slightly older version of it; I think it will turn stickier and oozy as it ages.

The Dictionary of Drink

The failure to list all the ingredients in Um Bongo was forgivable but a much worse crime had been committed on one of the simplest of all cocktails:

Whaaaaa? Had they just not heard of tonic water? Apparently not as the mixer has its own entry. The error left us dumbstruck and wondering if some powerful soda lobby had bribed the publishers.

It’s still an entertaining read, especially if you enjoy boggling at glaring mistakes, but as a reference work you’re better off with Wikipedia.

A. very much in favour of the pub

B. quite partial to a festival every now and then

So, hey, what could POSSIBLY GO WRONG with Pub In The Park? I, I don’t really know where to start…

I know we’ve had our issues with the GBBF over the years, but at least you know where you are with it. It’s a very big room full of people drinking good, mainly UK produce and getting (nicely, socially, happily) drunk, and CAMRA, quite rightly, does little to hide this. PITP seems to be doing everything it can to get away from the idea that pubs are places of drinking, but rather places where karaoke, pool, darts and battle of the bands competitions are the most important thing, not welcoming places where Unorganised Fun is the key to a cracking night.

Given that there’s more space given over on the website to cocktail making than what beers they’ll have on (there is no link here for a reason), I’m a little confused by what they mean by “pub” anyway, and this list of Pub Cos and brewers and their endorsements doesn’t really help (not to mention that all bar two of the spokes are middle-age, white males. Good representation of the community, there, chaps). I mean, I know they’re speaking to the trade not to punters but really:

This initiative gives every operator the chance to engage with Pub in the Park and at the same time drive custom through the business.

really? It’s a bad state of affairs when the bloke from Mitchell & Butler sounds the most normal…

I understand why a trade event, where suppliers and publicans can meet and do business is a good idea, but I don’t understand why you’d want to open this up to the public, and, even worse charge EIGHTEEN POUNDS SEVENTY FIVE PENCE (or twice the cost of GBBF) and then make people buy tokens for food and drink rather than just letting them spend normal money. That seems to be really not what what The Pub is like at all…

It was for the most part a horrible place, filled with ersatz gothick decoration (think thick cobwebs, chains, rusty steel cages, big fake spiders, book cases, and lab testing equipment), a meagre range of drinks and truly awful music played far too loudly which didn’t even conform to the rest of the pub’s decor theme (generally, it was bad AOR rock music).

And yet, and yet, a bit of nostalgia creeps in for the old place. It was like some branding consultant’s idea of the student drinking experience, all-caps and underlined, with bright ‘cocktails’ made from cheap vodka looking for all the world like a terrible Aftershock experiment. It was an oasis of dependability, for some value thereof, in a desert of despondency. It was certainly preferable to the Green Man across the other side of Oxford Street, itself every bit as loud and obnoxious. It made ridiculous claims about the quality of its food, “best in Soho” it said on multiple sandwich boards outside, cue derisory laughter: it was in Noho ahem, Fitzrovia.

And now it’s being converted by Geronimo Inns as The Adam & Eve (after the little alleyway that runs behind it). They run a few decent drinking places in Heathrow Airport, as well as the Betjeman Arms in St Pancras, locations which should suit them well to the transitory environment of Oxford Street. But it won’t be the same, really. It won’t be the same kind of naff that Oxford Street really deserves, that can stand proudly alongside the t-shirt sellers wedged into Adam & Eve Court and all the cut-price discount stores.

(* Eerie Pub fans in London can console themselves with the London Stone, opposite Cannon Street station.)

You could get around easily, there was very little rowdiness, and very few bloody part-time tourist lager-drinkers in stupid hats people unused to the joys of ale. There was also a much closer gender balance than I’ve ever seen (we’re not talking 50/50 here, inevitably, but I’d guess 70/30 male to female? maybe 65/35?) and, yes, definitely more couples, rather than just groups of people (and a fair number of the groups were left over from the early afternoon trade session I think).

Also good to see that the Champion Beer of Britain is a Mild, although at 4.4%, it’s pushing it a bit (but then i like my milds subtle to the point of tastelessness). I don’t think any of the group got to try it, but I did have some pretty good (if randomly selected) bouze, nothing made my palate explode* with excitement/difference/wtf (i’ve gone off stunt beers a bit) although the Spire Dark Side Of The Moon (Peak District** bar) and the Holden Black Country Mild (W Midlands bar, obv) were both good chocolately, dense milds, just the sort of thing I like. I rounded the evening off with a personal favourite, a WHOLE PINT of lovely lovely St Austell Proper Job, which i know is a stinking kernow beer, but they do make a decent drop of ale down there, eh? Really hoppy and very dry aftertaste, I’d only had it in bottles from uttobeer/the rake, but it’s just as good on draft.

And we had a pretty good dirty crossword too, well done us!

*OK, nothing i drank made my palate explode, the pickled chili garlic from the Olives and Things stall did a pretty good job though (also, marvellous conversation starter with other people sat at our table).

**although why there are separate Peak District and North West bars, i’m not quite sure, as most of the PD beers were manc/cheshire/merseyside…)

“Every Wednesday evening 2 courses are £11.90 and 3 courses are £14.90 from The Dial Ladies night menu. Visit www.thedial.uk.com to see the full menu.

BEER COCKTAILS ARE JUST £4.95!”

BEER COCKTAILS?!

http://www.bittersweetpartnership.com/experiment/

(Let’s have an example of this beer cocktail then:
Amber Mojito
6 fresh mint leaves / caster sugar / 1/2 lime, cut into wedges / 60ml Havana rum / ice / 100ml ice cold Coors Light / 1 spring mint to garnish)

Well I can’t see WHY you’d want to do this in any way at all but whatever…. for one crazy second I thought this would be like – you know – Black Velvet (guinness and champagne)… but I was wrong. Yet I still don’t know who on earth the Bittersweet Partnership are (I wonder what their name could.. imply…) – ooh and note the “Coors Light”, for the ladies…

More clicking through, and by this time I have developed RSI, I get the “Alfie” page: http://www.bittersweetpartnership.com/whats_it_all_about/. (DYS?). It appears that the main push from the Bittersweet Partnership, via a Facebook intro, is to raise awareness of a super new product. KASTEEL CRU ROSE. You heard. Rose and lager. Rose… and… la…

Rosé lager! All this clicking and we’ve reached the grail. And what a grail! This isn’t just a fruit beer. This is pink wine topped up with Wifebeater!

My Former Boss once poured half a bottle of pink blossom hill into the remnants of his pint of Carling at the end of a boozy lunchtime, and i suspect Kasteel Cru Rose would not at all dissimilar… if you’re reading, Former Boss, perhaps you could sue them? I mean, SOMEONE SHOULD. This hamfisted and bon-bon-bonKERS attempt to get women drinking beer by MAKING IT INTO COCKTAILS is both the worst and best thing ever! Let’s think about the assumption it’s making: women like cocktails. Women don’t like beer. But if it was in a cocktail!! There’s only one problem – and that is that brewed hops plus tequilla plus vermouth plus a maraschino cherry and ideally a sparkler would taste like a Hermesetas addled pig had done his business in your mouth… \o/ \o/ ???

Taking this back to the initial facebook page for “women who like beer” – it’s not surprising that no-one is ‘a fan’, given that by the time we’ve gotten to the crux of this bizarre push, we’re not reeeally talking beer anymore, are we Tonto. It makes me wonder what’s lurking at the bottom of other facebook ads. A fanpage for La Roux will turn out to be advertising Jeremy Vine endorsed stock cubes?!

Oh, and whilst I’m putting “cru” on a beer doesn’t make it any more premium… (hello Kronenboug ‘Premier Cru’ et al, purse, sows ear, springs to mind)…

Full disclosure: you can probably disregard all of this as I myself have been known to sample the power shandy in my younger days (half of budvar, topped up with smirnoff ice). Internet searches give me a whole range of variants on the power shandy – mostly with a “bomb” aspect – i.e drop a shot of midori into a can of Special Brew. One suggestion is for a shot of soju to be chucked in a mug of Hite! Non, mon cher…

Perronelle’s Blush, eh? Now look, we know it’s Cider & Black, you know it’s Cider & Black, CALL IT CIDER & BLACK!!!

Here at FT Towers we are now awaiting the launch of “Serpent’s Kiss”, and Le Petit Tatou…

I’m sure you can think of a few others in the comments box?

*who was also not taken in by this subtle bit of re-branding, to her credit.

I was in a pub with a friend watching the cricket. The nature of this pub is that the table was close to the TV, so the best angle on the cricket was from one end of the table. The other end of the table was bookended by the window in the pub. Nevertheless we had happily shared this table with a French couple having a slightly disappointing Fish And Chips. Who left after being slightly disappointed. To be replaced by a couple of Finnish women who asked if the end of the table was free. Yet again, showing excellent pub manners, we assented. They were joined a few minutes later by a third blonde Finn. Now the nature of this table was that it was designed to hold four square on. By placing ourselves at the end, square on, we had probably extended that to six. So when the first Finnish man arrived it reached what we assumed to be capacity. And then they kept coming. Surrounding us. Singing Finnish drinking songs. TRYING TO GET TABLE SERVICE FROM THE POT MAN. And then the crazy one, possible sensing our good natured, stiff upper lipped irritation, started talking to us.

Now I work with a large range of people around the world. I can be garrulous, but I also know how to be polite but brusque. Polite but brusque was cutting no mustard here. Before the hour was out she will have insulted my accent, my companions Middlesbrough accent, the entire nations of Sweden and Russia, cricket and rubbed spilt beer on her hands dry on my jeans. All the while the stream of Finn’s seemed unending (eleven) drinking the pub dry of pineapple Bacardi Breezers, and England lost the cricket.

There are a number of pub deadly sins in the behaviour above, but the shameless land grab of two women into THE ENTIRE NATION OF FINLAND is surely the worst. There are times then a little bit of intimidation by numbers works, and I have done it myself. But when two people are clearly watching some sport (even if it is one you don’t understand) you must know that you are unlikely to win. And two to eleven is audacious even for a bunch of Scandinavians (hey you insulted me, I’ll insult you).

In the end we skulked out at the end of the game avoiding the loony woman, dejected and ready to start a war. Which is not what pubs were invented for.

BUT NOTE YOU CAN ONLY APPLAUD WITH TWO HANDS.

Look, Its PINK!!!! FOR GURLS

You could be queen of the Castle
(or the Crown, or the Prince of Wales…)
We’re looking for more women to run pubs. Currently, only 13% of the Greene King pub estate is operated by independent females and we’d really like to recruit some more. Come on girls, it’s not just a job for the men, you have as much right to be in charge as they do.

Indeed you do have as much right to be in charge as men. IT WAS CALLED THE SEX DISCRIMINIATION ACT OF 1975. But fair play, Greene King have thought long and hard about the reasons women make better publicans:

WHY WOMEN AT THE BAR?

We know what women want.
Women have more attention to detail.
Women know how to clean a toilet.
We can create a pub that women love and will want to use.
Women are more diplomatic, so you don’t get problems.
Women are multi-taskers.
Women create better teams.
Women are natural home makers and customers want to feel at home.
Women nurture and train staff.

Can’t help but thinking SOMEONE should be sent on a “True meaning of diversity course” here. Why not add “Women are easier to bully by the brewery when we make ridiculous changes to the beers you are allow to sell and the prices you want to charge”. Or how about pointing out that “Woman can use the dregs in the drip tray to condition their hair”. Or perhaps more suspiciously, “Woman can be paid 17% less than men on average and as self-employed tied publicans, its not illegal”. All rather shocking stuff. Ten out of ten for the idea, one out of then for the execution. (one of the case studies however is The Queen’s Larder, a minor favourite of mine).

But wait there is more. Civvy Street Pubs, Greene King actively courting ex-servicemen to run pubs. Unfortunately this microsite is less patronising to our boys, though there is a subtle hint that it might suit you if you still fancy a bit of a dust up.

*Proving once and for all the FreakyTrigger is also JUST FOR GURLS.

No artificial additives or preservatives and a shelf life of twelve years (though I reckon I’d get through a jar a week) it really is the pasty gift that keeps on giving. As the creator Vilhelm Lillefläsk says “Aldrig kommer att ge dig upp!” Which we believe translates as “Never gonna give you up”. On assumes SQUEEZ BACON is also unlikely to let you down, run around or desert you. Though you can put it on your dessert.

Nevertheless the jar does make excessive claims about its powers, including :”it’s rumoured ABBA met while eating Squeez Bacon® sandwiches?”. Now I don’t want to pour dairylea on their squeezy bacony parade but everyone knows the members of ABBA met after getting their respective bumper cars entangled at a funfair in Stockholm.

Though perhaps I could offer the suggestion of aerosolising it is as well. BACON WHIZZ…

Poptimism is back! Back! BACK! This Friday, upstairs at The Horse Bar on Westminster Bridge Road, just across from Lambeth North tube. FREE entry, 7 ’til Midnight, hopefully the first of many.

If you don’t want to miss out on future Poptimism excitement, join the facebook group, innit.

There’s also a TIME GRAPH about 3 minutes in to further understanding of the song.

*sorry, it’s a post about The Fall. You have to do that. It’s the law.