Twickenham (also uses sub-brand Old Hands) - Winter Star
4.40
Not particularly sour but drinkable old anyway.
Greene King - IPA (was 3.6%)
3.40
Not Tried
Greene King - Abbot
5.00
Not Tried
Wimbledon - Copper Leaf
4.00
Not Tried
10 Sep 2013 (Philip Pirrip)
Late evening. A small Greene King beer festival is running at the moment but so strange that the advert cards mention beer names but not breweries - so much for educating and specifying provenance.
Beer
ABV
Score
Notes
Timothy Taylor - Landlord
4.30
2nd so much better but at £4.25 pp one would expect beyond perfection with every pint with every sip
Timothy Taylor - Landlord
4.30
1st out for a long time I'd guess particularly as at the Brompton road entrance the Landlord pump there said it was still conditioning
St Austell - Tribute
4.20
Not Tried
Greene King - IPA Gold
4.10
Not Tried
Belhaven - Herok & Howell’s Festival Ale
3.80
Not Tried
Assume this is the same beer as recently reported with poor reviews by correspondent Stephen Harris. Here the pump clips simply described it as Festival Ale American IPA 3.8%. The barman thought it might be a Greene King brew (GK IPA with a bit of added American hops) but appalling to see no declared provenance
10 Sep 2013 (HSB)
12:00 2nd stop on the tour. Very impressive interior. Well worth the CAMRA rating. Beer disappointing though.
Beer
ABV
Score
Notes
Greene King - Festival Ale
3.80
On the turn.
10 Sep 2013 (ChrisE)
mid-day visit with a group of friends. There was a poster advertising a beer festival but no mention of who brews the beers. I drank something called American Pale Ale at 4.7% which is advertising as being "specially brewed for us" on the Greene King Beerfest web site, but I still can't find out for certain who brewed it. I would rate it as average.
The pub is found in Knightsbridge, Central London, SW3 1LA.
Street corner historic pub on Brompton Road between Harrods and the V&A Museum (hence usually crowded with tourists) which was put up in 1844: it has three storeys and is now rather dwarfed by neighbouring 20th-century buildings. What is of interest are the fairly substantial vestiges of a late-Victorian refitting. Pride of place goes to a series of back-painted mirrors. The first is in the left hand lobby and shows grapes hanging off a vine above various flowers. The mirrors continue with five on the left-hand wall showing birds and all sorts of vegetation. They are signed ‘W James of Kentish Town’ and date from 1890. It is possible to get a good sense of the way the pub was laid out a century ago. The servery is in the middle and is surrounded by various fragments of screens that would have divided the pub up into a series of separate drinking areas. Particularly notable is the row of five snob screens on the left-hand side with representations of birds and, of course, bunches of grapes. The area where these are located is demarcated by a gross head-height baffle carved with truly gargantuan clusters of grapes. Other historic features are the cast-iron columns supporting the upstairs floors and extensive etched glass. Now a Greene King house there are 4 handpumps on the bar counter immediately upon entering from Brompton Road but these are usually for show only although they carry pumpclips and the beer is usually served from 4 handpumps on the rear bar counter.
We have visited this pub 5 times, seen 9 different beers and tried 3 of them.
