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london pubs

Confusing name, underwhelming pub

You could be forgiven for thinking that Shaw’s Booksellers, in the City of London, not far from St Paul’s Cathedral, is a booksellers.

The confusing name (which came with the premises) nonetheless conceals a pleasant enough pub.

Fuller’s have tailored this for the City crowd. so there’s a nod to real ale (two pumps, Pride and Discovery); lots of exotic-sounding but unexciting kegs (Blue Moon, Erdinger Weiss); Belgian and German bottles, but nothing you can’t get in Tesco; and ‘chilled beats’ straight out of 2002.

We tried Blue Moon, a controversial pretend craft beer from Molson Coors, and found it reminiscent of Kronenbourg Blanc, though less offensive — a bit sweet, a bit cloudy, not much hop flavour and an odd artificial lemoniness in their place. Not a candidate for beer of the week.

We’re no nearer yet to finding a perfect pub in the City of London, but we are working our way through them, one by one.

5 replies on “Confusing name, underwhelming pub”

‘We’re no nearer yet to finding a perfect pub in the City of London, but we are working our way through them, one by one.’

Does the – shall we say – mercurial service at the Seven Stars prevent you from singing its praises? The Castle is good on beer choice but questionable on throughput – too many braying Peroni lawyers.

But surely Ye Olde Mitre is worthy of your patronage?

I don’t think there is a perfect pub in The City, and I’ve had a really good look. The Swan has its fans, just off the bottom end of Gracechurch Street, though I can’t speak from personal experience.

Jesusjohn – The Mitre and the Seven Stars can’t count as being ‘City’ pubs can they? Wrong side of Farringdon Road.

We’ve never managed to get into the Swan. It’s either crammed or shut, as far as we can tell. Looks quite cosy, though.

Never been to the Seven Stars, I don’t think. Ye Old Mitre is great and only just beyond the border of the City of London.

The frustrating thing is how many pubs in the City *look* great but disappoint on the beer front. I’m thinking particularly of the two in Leadenhall Market.

The Seven Stars and Ye Olde Mitre are both in the City, I think. The Seven Stars certainly is.

By chance I went into Shaw’s Bookseller’s with Ed on one of our Friday afternoon power-pub-crawls (two hours off from the pub with one of the girl’s minding the bar – see how many pubs we can do and how far we can walk, then jump in a fast black and speed back in time for after work rush).

To be honest we were impressed. The manageress was nice and the food looked fantastic. The beer selection was certainly adequate, and the pints of Discovery we downed in two gulps tasted fine.

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