This Saturday Alefinder are performing a Wetherspoon’s Pub Crawl in London. The plan is to visit 12 pubs between 12 noon and 10pm. We start at the Lord Moon of the Mall (Whitehall) at noon – and end at Hamilton Hall (Liverpool St.) at 10pm. Here is a run down of the pubs:

1. noon – Lord Moon of the Mall
2. 1pm – Moon Under Water
3. 2pm – Montague Pyke
4. 3pm – Shakespeares Head
5. 3:30pm – Penderels Oak
6. 4pm – Knights Templar
7. 5pm – Sir John Oldcastle
8. 6pm – Green Man
9. 7pm – Crosse Keys
10. 8pm – Liberty Bounds
11. 9pm – Goodmans Yard
12. 10pm – Hamilton Hall

So if you’re late – be at any pub at the time specified and you’ll find us.

Please come along. It’ll be fun – and not too heavy.

So. The trAle is going to be on 20th June for one day. The ‘whole weekend’ idea has been canned as the Sunday is Fathers Day!

There will be 10 to 12 pubs. The route is still under discussion but the definite start is Lord Moon of the Mall in Whitehall.  If you are coming, please say so.

We plan to have a nice, sensible, day on the ale, leaving the monopoly board to those who love lager.

See you soon

Alefinder are planning an ale trail in London over the weekend of 20th and 21st June 2009.

It is yet to be decided on the format but currently the choice seems to be between the traditional and well known monopoly board challenge and an alternative idea of visiting all the central London Wetherspoon’s pubs (currently over 20 are ear-marked).

The first could present ale issues as many London pubs don’t have good ale. The second would allow us to explore the range of ales in many Wetherspoons on one given day.

The logistics of the event are to be finalised but the date is set.

By the way, if ever there was a time to go to a Wetherspoons it is now. The have an ale festival on at the moment and Brad is very impressed with the standard so far. I’ll be there at the weekend.

See ya.

If you like Nethergate Ale, which I do, you’ll love the Fox and Anchor. Closest tube is the Barbican. Today they have a Nethergate brewed just for them – named Fox and Anchor – and Cross Border. Both very nice. They also had an excellent Purity UBU.

The great thing about this pub is you get pewter tankard if you get there early enough. On the offside you can taste the pewter so a glass is a better choice.

They have lovely pork pies too.

If you’re well off you can even stay in one of their rooms – but that’ll cost you over a hundred quid.

I love this pub. You will too.

This was a relatively new discovery to us, but the Castle has a really good selection of ales – roughly 8 on the night we visited, but usually a bit less because it seems to go quickly. Apart from one seriously dodgy pint – which was happily, if suspiciously changed – the beers are excellent. Initially I sought out the pub because it sells Nethergate ales, but only one in three visits resulted in actually finding any.

The interior is very standard with exposed wooden floorboards and there’s mostly only standing room. Being in the City, it gets packed on Thursday and Friday nights.

Update: I have it on good authority, that the Brockett Arms is has closed (probably to reopen), but never to be the same. The landlord that had been running the pub for more than 25 years has moved on and the pub is boarded up.

55 Britton Street, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 5UQ (map)

Having enjoyed quite a few bottled ales from the St. Peter’s brewery, I thought that we’d try their only pub – The Jerusalem Tavern. The building dates back to 1720, was a clock shop, and has been cleverly restored so that you wouldn’t know you were in 21st century if it wasn’t for the patrons. The ales they sell were in great condition – as you’d expect. We tried: Cream Stout, Ruby Red ale and the Organic Best Bitter. The cream stout was lovely but a definite one-pinter as it’s such full flavour, the Ruby red ale was my favourite. Prices were a bit high @ £3.10 per pint, but probably the going rate for the nicer pubs in Farringdon. 

We managed to get a table (as you can see from the picture), but the pub did get very busy outside at around 6pm to the point where it might put me off. I would highly recommend this pub for it’s ambience and the excellent rare ales on offer.

So that you don’t have to copy and paste postcodes into google maps to really work out where a pub is, we’re now including direct links to maps of a pub’s location with each review.

I picked up some new bottles that I’d not seen before from a brewer called Grain Brewery Norfolk. They came via the Classic Car Show at Helmingham Hall. According to the blurb: “Our belief in simplicity and quality means that all our efforts are put into making great beer for you. We have fed your beer with live yeast to give it a fresh taste and natural sparkle.”

You have to treat the bottles with care because of the live yeast sediment. I bought:

• Alburgh Bitter
• Chestnut
• Dark Oak
• Porter

So far, we’ve only had the Alburgh Bitter which is going down pretty well. It’s an outstanding ale (considering that it’s from a bottle and draught always wins). It’s a golden, dry, slightly spicy taste with a hint of grapefruit. 

9 Stoney Street, London, SE1 9AA (map)

This my favourite pub for finding ales. They usually have 9 ales on (8 guests and Harvey’s) that they shift pretty quickly, so I’ve never had a bad pint in there either. If you head there for ales, you won’t be alone, there’s always someone in there taking notes and sampling a selection. The place gets bombed out in the summer evenings and because it’s right next to Borough Market, so my favourite time to go is Sunday afternoons. The interior is pretty average, although they have an impressive selection of pump clips.  There’s very little in the way of seating, but well worth putting up with for the fantastic beers they have on all the time. Sadly, if you find something you really like, you’ll probably never see it again in there.