Location:  139 Highgate Rd, London NW5 1LE

Year of Inscription: 2023

Venue Type:   Beer + Cider Specialists / High Street Ale House 

Map

Description

Gallery

EBG Rating:	8.5/10
Choice/ Quality of Drinks	❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Boasting to be the only London pub solely serving beer from independent breweries with 9 cask hand-pulled ales with a keg selection and cider range to match. An impressive offering competing in this category with anything in London.
Style/ Décor	❤️❤️❤️❤️ Small pub by a railway bridge which a large glass window at the entrance more similar to a cafe. Inside the old school boozer features have been retained with pews, piano and a large bar. The old painted over pub sign is hung on the wall.
Atmosphere/ Character	❤️❤️❤️❤️ Popular evening spot with a natural buzz and excitement, but an effective quiet afternoon spot also.
Amenities/ Events	❤️❤️❤️❤️ Piano, outdoor seating. On the food front no gastro, just good bar snacks, pork pies, sausage rolls, scotch eggs, roast pork in baps plus veggie options. The music is played on vinyl which is great, there is also live piano music on Sundays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays. No tea, no coffee, but a bloody mary kit is behind the bar. Pub stays open to midnight most days. Pub quiz Monday.
Value For Money	❤️❤️❤️ Priced according to strength, and overall entirely fair given the standard of some ales you can nab.
Description	In its previous life, this was a resolute basic boozer with sports, Carlsberg and Guinness. Then, around 2009 it was taken over by a brewery and with a committed emphasis on cleaning it up, improving the drinks offering without removing the character. Since then, it has attained the status of local classic, a place anyone in North London might think about taking the train to visit (and it is in a triangle of 3 available stops). On a row of shops by a railway bridge, as you approach there is a timeless since of permanence to the exterior. It has changed, it has received a lick of paint, but the function overall has not. Here you will find exclusively beer and cider from independent breweries, often small and in need of this kind of platform. Spit n sawdust type floors, pew seating and old signage is balanced by the large front mirror, and a café vibe at the front known as ‘Cockney corner’ after the stalwarts who decided to stay. At the back, by the garden, “Poets corner” describes the vaguely Bohemian, if middle class crowd. In the evenings the place becomes busy and buzzy, finding a seat a matter of ruthless opportunism, but not impossible if you give it 10-15 minutes usually. During the day the worn wood and general ambience endows the place with a classy charm not unlike a brown café of Belgium or Netherlands. One of the highlights of pubgoing in North London. (Added September 2023)