Bermondsey pubs

Not reviewed yet.

Want to review it? Seeking to escape from the Tower Bridge Bling of overpriced restaurants and All Bar One clones, I randomly took a side street and ended up in front of a not-very-promising sign. "Traditional British Pub" it boasted, in a way that suggested Beefeaters, Pearly Kings and £10 for a plate of fish and chips. What a fantastic surprise, then, to find myself in a wonderful, slightly ramshackle establishment that was properly traditional, rather than a hamfisted faux impression of ye olde England. It has lots of different rooms (including a games room), orange walls, knackered wooden decor and a decent amount of space on the aptly-named Brewery Square for al fresco drinking. Excellent barstaff, a relaxed atmosphere and no music all add to the impression of solid, unpretentious decency. Mad tourists can occasionally be seen wandering the corridors in search of a toilet. Not reviewed yet.

Want to review it? This is a brave step by the owners. They have attempted to create a contemporary feel, but without upsetting the traditionalists. Abraham Lincoln said, "You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time". Well, I am sure some ardent pub purists would be offended by this establishment, but I think the owners might just have succeeded. The full and rather impressive range of Adnams beers is on offer for the ale fanciers, the wine list appears to tick all the right boxes and the food on the menu looks tasty. All the effort seems to be paying off to a degree; the clientele on our visit ranged from Phil Mitchell look-alikes to besuited career professionals. There is even a nice view of the Thames. Hyperactive music. Big screen. Sport. Everything wooden - even the food. A workie pub. On walking past I discovered it was a hideous gastropub that was devoid of customers. I chose instead to go to the Woolpack across the road... Cracking pub slightly removed from the frantic bustle of London Bridge. Ordinary beer and food selections made up for by a fun crowd, rather nice upstairs patio and a beer garden. Big windows, slightly battered decor, plenty of tables and usually room to sit down. Shows football, but has a room out back for those wishing to escape the joys of watching 22 dull millionaires trying to kick a pigbag. Seems to be a favourite with darts players. Good barstaff. Another rather pleasing Modern Baroque pub, this one distinguishing itself by the assorted bedroom lampshades hanging above the bar. Cheerful in character, with friendly bar staff, good food and a decent range of lagers and ales, there's little here to set the world on fire but certainly nothing to complain about either. The crowd can get a bit shouty but overall the place bears the hallmarks of a well-run, well-loved pub. Sky sports etc. Large, high-ceilinged, student oriented pub that is cluttered with tables and students. Served some interesting, non-standard real ales, and on a bleak Sunday evening when everyone else in Bermondsey had given up on providing food, also gave us chips. Reasonably-priced, reasonably interesting fayre, along with a cheerful atmosphere, managed to elevate it above the simply mediocre. How depressing. A bad refit has denuded the place of atmosphere and intimacy, with too-bright lights and a terrible juke box bringing on the sense of a school hall during a really bad assembly. Rather weighty, scary-looking people lumber around in a slightly lost fashion. The only point of interest is the carpet, which has drawings of ships on it. The pub stands on the south side of Tooley Street facing the various new glass and steel structures that make up 'London Bridge City', buildings which themselves will soon be dwarfed by the new 'Shard of Glass' tower in a few years to come. The pub itself is a charming 19th century building and both its name together with some aspects of the traditional decor within allude to the rich seafaring history of the Pool of London. The bar, staffed by a very butch barmaid indeed, is situated slap bang in the middle of the pub and serves a decent range of beers. It's popular with local office workers, but didn't seem to get overly full on our visit. Worth a visit if you happen to be passing by. What a relief to find this place after wandering the wastelands surrounding the Old Kent Road! Now I truly know why the creators of Monopoly consider going back there a punishment. Its bleakness is only punctuated by massive B&Q warehouses and McDonald's drive thrus. Even after we escaped north we still had to cross seemingly miles of bland housing estates (and no pubs) before we considered ourselves to be back in the land of the living. Fortunately for us this wasn't your average grotty backstreet boozer. Our drinks were served with a smile and to our utter amazement the cricket was on, which meant we were finally able to watch the thrilling climax to the NatWest one day series. Cheerful banter with the friendly locals ensued as England's cricketers staged a heroic comeback. Consequently we left the place with a warm fuzzy sensation and a familiar feeling of drunkenness. A good pub. A combination of the silly name etched out in a dreadful font and the soft-purple exterior had left me thinking for years that this was some kind of arsey delicatessen. It is in fact a pub marooned in the 1990’s, all stripped wood, clean lines and lots of light. The corporate blandness fits well with an ethnically mixed but dully conformist white shirt/white blouse work crowd, many of whom probably think they’ve somehow grown a personality by voting in Boris for mayor. The bar staff are reasonable friendly, if somewhat unfocussed, serving an ordinary range of beer but an excellent spread of (you guessed it) Thai food. They didn’t bother to lock the door before opening up the outside cellar entrance for a delivery, the result of which being that I nearly ended up down with the beer kegs on my attempted exit. Using such underhand means of retaining custom smacks of desperation. Half decent pool table. Unless South London light-industrial estates are your thing, the chances are you could walk all the way down Tower Bridge Road without ever realising that The Victoria exists, only 200m or so from Manze's pie'n'mash shop. Honestly, I'm amazed that it's still open, given the rate backstreet boozers have shut over the last few years, but it seems to do rather well out of a clientele of locals and workers from the nearby printers, plumbers merchants and assorted other businesses.

Outside, this is a seriously traditional pub, still bearing the name of the Truman brewery, yet inside...actually, no surprises inside, either - polished brass railings, pristine seating and one of the shiniest wooden horseshoe bars I've ever seen. The landlord clearly believes in cleanliness. As for the beer, rather disappointingly Pride is the only draught bitter, but the customers don't seem to care - I've yet to find the atmosphere anything but good, with a low buzz of conversation the order of the day, every day. All Bar One meets gothic. A stylish, dark interior gives way to a decked beer garden adorned with local street signs. The far end is dominated by a huge umbrella decorated with heat lamps, thus enabling people to drink outside in all weathers. On our visit most folk were outside enjoying a rare glimpse of the British sunshine. Clearly some had been drinking a little too much in the sun. We witnessed a business meeting degenerate into a debate about whether salt and vinegar crisps were better than cheese and onion. Back at the bar, trendy and rather expensive continental lagers are the order of the day.

---

All content © Random Pub Finder 2001-2012, website development by Doogal