The London Traveler

London station pubs are generally rather disappointing. Their prices are often high, the beer offering lacklustre (fizzy keg for the most part), and the premises depressing.
The Betjeman Arms might mark an interesting new departure.  It has real ale – Adnams, Meantime, and Sharp’s (‘Betjeman Bitter’) as well as Belgian beer. That’s a very interesting list for a London pub, with three ales usually on handpump.
At £3 a pint, prices are not extortionate for London. And while I’m not a lover of the faux-traditional style, at least it’s not a fluorescent strip-lit waste of seventies decor, like so many other station …read more

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There’s a superb piece in the Independent today looking at the decline of the traditional English pub, and featuring interviews with landladies, a pub quizmaster, and regulars.
It includes  one lovely old favourite that every Londoner should try once – the Wenlock Arms in Islington.
But I’m not so sure that the great British boozer is on its way out. Look at the Jerusalem Tavern near Farringdon tube station – owned by Suffolk brewery St Peter’s. When I first started drinking there, Farringdon was still the wild west of the City, and the spit-and-sawdust feel of the pub was not post …read more

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