Categories
london quotes

Ian Nairn on Ward’s Irish House

“This is a basement under the angle between Shaftesbury Avenue and Coventry Street. It is not trying to be Irish; it just is. A big, bare room with a central zinc-topped bar; no concession to comfort, but on the other hand some of the best draught Guinness in London… It has surely got the fairies on it, though mentioning fairies in this rough, shabby, real place you might get some strange looks.”

Ian Nairn on Ward’s Irish House, in Nairn’s London, 1966.

(NB. before it was Irish, it was German…)

Categories
Beer styles

A lot of stout about

Guinness have set out (pretty successfully) to turn St Patrick’s Day into International Guinness Day but their’s wasn’t the only stout about this week.

For example, Cask in Pimlico had the brilliant, Guinness-baiting Sussex Extra Stout, while Shepherd Neame rolled out their own tastefully branded (ahem) Double Stout.

Could it be that the market is managing to do for stout in March what CAMRA is trying so hard to achieve for mild in May? We’d love to see stouts and porters other than Guinness on sale in pubs during the rest of the year, but this is a start.