Guest newsletter: The pubs of London
Canadian beer connoisseur Greg Hawken pulls us a pint of English tradition
My friend Greg Hawken, a Canadian retiree who loves both beer and traveling, takes the wheel this time for a trip through the historic, beautiful pubs of London. Enjoy!
There are so many reasons to visit London! Those with a thirst for history can take their pick of museums, castles, monuments and palaces. A thirst for culture can be satisfied with theatre, cinema, art galleries and music. One can simply drink in the scenery of a great city with travels via a train in a tube, double-decker buses, boats along the River Thames and simply walking about. When I was able to return to London this past September, I had a particular thirst to quench. The thirst for beer. British beer. In British pubs.
I took advantage of the pandemic’s halt on overseas travel to plan a series of pub visits in London for when it reopened to tourists. With the aid of a dearly appreciated gift of A London Pub for Every Occasion, I began my research on which of the thousands of pubs were worthy of my brief time in the city. Online sources, such as Time Out and Londonist, were tremendously helpful. And my faithful Google Maps allowed me to pin my choices of pubs with friendly gold stars. Now it was time to travel!
For fun—it’s not simply about the consumption of liquid, honest—I created a series of themes to guide me along my way. A few online questions about “haunted pubs” delivered a series of addresses of some very interesting spots. The Grenadier is infamous as the pub of a soldier who was murdered over a game of cards, and the ceiling is papered over with money to help pay his debts. The Viaduct Tavern stands adjacent to the site of the notorious Old Bailey prison, and its basement is allegedly haunted by the ne’er-do-wells who were guests when the jail was full. The Ten Bells is associated with the victims of the serial killer Jack The Ripper, although the neighbourhood is much safer these days, thanks partly to demolition of substandard housing by the Luftwaffe and postwar redevelopment.
A pub crawl along the north shore of the Thames revealed a series of pubs with centuries of stories. I began my walk at the Town of Ramsgate pub, where nearby steps led down to the shore of the river. A zig and a zag (aided by a pint or two) took me to Turner’s Old Star, once actually owned by the painter Joseph Turner. Further east of the Wapping London Overground rail station is the Prospect of Whitby, where a pub has been on site since the 1500s, and a hangman’s noose at the back porch overlooking the Thames reminds the visitor that this was once a spot for the execution of pirates and various other baddies.
I didn’t forget to visit the south side of the Thames, where more historic pubs await. The Angel, near Bermondsey Wall, is a mere youngster when compared to the site of King Edward III’s manor just next door. Further downstream is the Mayflower, very close to where the famous ship began its voyage to the New World. Descendants of the Mayflower passengers are welcome to sign the pub’s registry while raising a pint or two to those who bravely departed for an uncertain future.
There are many more pubs to salute, but what about the beer? I found that many pubs are licensed to sell beers from specific breweries only, such as Fuller’s, Sam Smith’s or Greene King. That’s not such a bad thing—Fuller’s London Pride is brewed upstream at Chiswick, and you can find Sam Smith’s beer at the famous Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street. The Cheese reopened after it burned during the Great Fire of 1666, and since my hometown was a combination of forest and swamp in 1666, I give them extra points for durability.
I found that my favourite pubs tended to be “free houses”; that is, pubs offering whatever beer they want to sell without the pressure of an absent landlord. I’m a big fan of the Fuller’s London Pride or their Extra Special Bitter, but I have a special place in my heart, or stomach, for the glorious Timothy Taylor’s Landlord from West Yorkshire or the very yummy Sharp’s Doom Bar out of Cornwall. Best of all is when the bitters or ales come from a cask. Not a bottle, not even a tap, but a special cask from which the beer is hand-pumped, barely cooler than room temperature. Don’t worry, room temperature in drafty (or draughty) England is very different from on our side of the Atlantic.
There are so many wonderful pubs in London, and so many beers to enjoy, that there is really no choice but to return. And so I am there now. Fancy a pint? Cheers, mate!