Harp correctly named best pub in Britain

It couldn't happen to a nicer pub. The superb Harp in Covent Garden, handy for Trafalgar Square tourists and Charing Cross commuters alike, has today become the first London pub to be named CAMRA's National Pub of the Year. Whether it was the excellent and ever-changing selection of great beers, the unbeatable level of service or the all-round, constant hum of good feeling that flows through the place that swung the judges, this is a hugely deserved accolade for Binny and the gang. I recommend an urgent visit for a taste of this delightful place, the best of all possible pubs.

In praise of gastros

For some purists, if a pub serves any food more elaborate than three flavours of crisps or, for special occasions, slippery eggs fished out of a jar of pre-war brine, then it's not really a pub. The presence of flavoursome meals and cutlery, the argument runs, is a desecration of a sacred institution, worthy of derision, boycott and, worst of all, the terrible label of gastro, the pub purist's equivalent of accusing someone of drinking lager.

It's true that some instances of gastrofication are, in effect, restaurants taking over pubs, with the existing premises remaining but the atmosphere and experience being totally transformed so that if you're after a drink and a chat you'd be better off at Starbucks. But such cases are relatively few. Far more often, providing good food and the space in which to eat it does nothing to diminish a pub's character and welcome to non-diners, while doing a lot to boost the pub's chances of survival without any appeal to the local community or the government, which is surely a good thing. And, rather than, as is often the complaint, the offering for non-diners being reduced, my experience is that it usually improves, with a better selection of beers and greater attention to their condition.

Take the Anglesea Arms, tucked away in a residential street on the borders of Hammersmith and Shepherd's Bush. Reportedly one of the earliest gastro-pubs in West London, it should in theory be a hostile and unrewarding environment for the visitor with nothing but a thirst. Instead, it offers a small range of excellent beers, with regular changes of guest ales, and a pint of Harveys Sussex Best I had on a recent visit was in superb shape. The staff are friendly, the atmosphere is cosy and easy, and there's plenty of room to sit and drink and talk all evening without any hint of pressure to order hand-fed octopus in maple syrup with sun-dried chitterlings. Yes, a pub going gastro can mean a few changes. But if they're the kind of changes that create a place like the Anglesea, there's nothing to complain about.


 

Last orders at the Wenlock?

There's no shortage of fine pubs about the place, but within that number there's a handful that are nearly mythical in their fabulousness. Is there a pub that sits almost on the beach in the shadow of Golden Cap in Dorset? Yes there is. Is there a pub hidden away by a canal in Staffordshire where jugs of beer are carried up from the cellar by the umpteenth generation of the same family? There is indeed. Is there one in the heaving heart of North London that dispenses probably the widest and most interesting variety of beers on the planet? Yes, but maybe not for long.

The Wenlock Arms is mythical not only due to the quality and variety of its beers, the thickness of its sarnies and its rare atmosphere, but also because its very existence seems pretty unlikely. As you turn off City Road and make your way down a dim, quiet and faintly unsettling street, the chance of finding one of the world's finest pubs seems slim. But it's always there in the end, a warmly lit jewel with more levels of delight than a blogpost has space to describe.

But, after 16 years of doing the world a very big service, the owners of the Wenlock have decided they've done their bit and are selling up. And hats off to them. But the question is what happens now. The pub sits in a corner of London that, being close to the centre of things and graced with a network of canals, has undergone intense development in recent times. Things have slowed a little in the last couple of years, but the Wenlock is a site that must have developers licking their chops.

Whether the Wenlock remains a pub or not appears to be up in the air, and some concerned locals have valiantly begun a campaign to try and ensure that it does. Whichever way it goes, it's worth heading down there sharpish for a taste of this genuinely unique place. It may be your last chance, and if it's not, it's an opportunity to tell future punters how you remember it in the old days, and that's always worth taking.

Pull of gravity

Entering a pub and finding an absence of beer pumps on the bar can be an edgy moment. The thought crosses your mind that this might be a benighted place where the skill and effort involved in keeping and serving beer from a cask has finally been abandoned completely, and if you want a drink you'll take it from a bottle or can, and asking why will make you no friends.

That was my initial response when I entered the Royal Oak in Wineham, at the foot of the South Downs in West Sussex, and faced a bare wooden bar without even a soggy beermat to offer hope. But then, through a doorway behind the bar I spotted the reason: a row of casks lined up with their taps ready for service, and little dishes underneath the catch the drips.

Beer poured directly from the cask, with nothing but gravity to mess with its integrity, is the Holy Grail of many beer purists, and the sight was a welcome one. And not just any beers, but beers from the excellent Harveys of Lewes and Dark Star, a mere two miles down the road. Add a lovely old building with low wooden beams, brick floors, fireplaces, friendly staff and loads of room outside for sun-soaking, and there could be nowhere better to settle down and overcome that initial shock.

Down and out South Ken style

For all their fine dining options and pricey ornament shops, areas of persistent affluence are for some reason as rarely blessed with great pubs as the most deprived parts of town, and sometimes even less so. So if you're on the lookout for a good pub in London, you're probably unlikely to head to South Kensington. But you'd be making a mistake, because down one very expensive residential street a few minutes' walk from the tube station is a prime example of good pubness. The Anglesea Arms is a lively, humming place, airy and open, offering good beers, kept running by skillful, friendly staff and crammed with well heeled punters who seem happily unaffected by these interesting economic times. Unless, that is, they've all just traded down for the duration from the endless cocktail bars that litter the area. In which case, they're living proof that hard times do you no harm at all.

Tooting star

Until not very long ago Tooting in South London had a limited range of attractions. There was the magnificent 3,000-seat Granada Cinema, a superb Art Deco bauble built in 1931 that featured gigs by the likes of Frank Sinatra and Carmen Miranda and that is kept healthy today as a branch of Gala Bingo. There was the chance to visit the settings of the slightly cultish late-70s sitcom, Citizen Smith, relating the adventures of the revolutionary Tooting Popular Front. And, best of all, there was one of the finest collections of curryhouses on the planet.

But now a new feature can be added to the list of reasons to visit Tooting if you're not there already. The Antelope, handy for Tooting Broadway tube station, is one of a growing chain of mainly South London pubs that includes the legendary Dogstar in Brixton, but don't let that put you off. The beers are excellent and varied, the food is great, the decor welcoming, the clientele as mixed and interesting as the area itself, and the atmosphere is that sublime combination of energy and calm, sociability and tranquility that can really only be found in pubs, and even then only in the very best. Being one of the best pubs in Tooting might not be a huge claim, but the Antelope is one of the best in London.

Wheel ale

Picking Britain's best cycling pubs is a fraught business that could have the most devoted pedal-pushers haggling when they should be out feeling the wind and the shape of the road. Anyone who claims to have the definitive list of the best pubs for cyclists is clearly a fraud who doesn't respect the nebulous nature of the subject, but here are a few brief suggestions anyway.

Town meets country

You expect some things in the country. Arriving at a pub deep in the wilds, with mud on your boots or your Lycra or at the very least your hubcabs, it's fair to expect certain conditions. A shortage of cutting-edge fashion, for example. Perhaps a hint of grudging resentment towards city folk. Unspectacular food. What you don't expect from a pub in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by crops and livestock, is the sense of arriving in a bar in Fulham, only with better food. And that's what you get at the Beckford Arms, on the Fonthill Estate deep in the bowels of rural Wiltshire. A haunt for the beautiful people, whether local or just taking the country air, the Beckford has a rare combination of metropolitan glamour, excellent food and great beers from the Butcombe, Hopback and Keystone breweries. It's even worth leaving town for.

Cider insider

Ah, cider. It's a word that for many of us brings up painful memories of ill-judged adolescent adventures into the mysteries of alcohol, usually in car parks and luckily in the days before Asbos. Alistair Darling's decision to increase duty on cider by 10 per cent in last week's budget will have brought many a sense of gratitude that we now have access to more grown-up drinks.

But cider is far from simply the drink of kids who wouldn't know better and people who spend all day in the park shouting. Like beer, wine and pretty much every drink worth discussing, cider is a very broad church, with bland but heavily marketed concoctions at one end and the highly complex creations of small artisanal producers at the other. Here's a round-up of the best and the most forgettable but familiar.

Incidentally, if you're looking for the delectable Rosie's Triple D, mentioned in that article, it's a drink you really have to work for, making it even more appealing. It's available only at the excellent Blue Bell Inn in Halkyn, Flintshire, and then only when Steve's been in. Available or not, it's well worth the journey .

Down and dirty in Tottenham Court Road

If you spend any time in London at all, odds are that at some point you'll be expected to meet someone at  Tottenham Court Road tube station or thereabouts. But where? Lurking around the turnstiles loses its appeal surprisingly soon, and waiting by the grim crossroads above is not as uplifting an experience as you might expect at the heart of the big city.

Which is why Bradleys Spanish Bar on Hanway Street, just a few yards from that very crossroads and station entrance, is a sheer delight. This is a fabulous little place in its own right, but being next to such a key rendezvous point makes it even more precious. It's hard to say where the key to its appeal lies. It's very small, you tend to have to move around a lot to accommodate extra punters and their stuff, the furniture's ancient and battered and the upholstery's torn, the beer choice is strictly lagers and the toilets feel like they might collapse around your ears. But there's a superb jukebox constantly playing loud tunes from a range of yesteryears on trusty vinyl, a variety of quirky regulars and a lively, good-natured, addictive atmosphere that can keep you there all night although you only meant to meet for a swifty. Scruffy, noisy and unpretentious, this is the real thing.

Spark of life in Mayfair

For all its wealth, Mayfair is in one vital area a lot worse off  than cheaper properties around the Monopoly board. Once, the festival from which the area took its name made it a very lively part of London indeed, but, like the fair itself, most of the taverns were booted out in the eighteenth century to make way for grand houses for the gentry, and an institution as democratic and populist as the pub felt very out of place amid all that exclusivity.

So the recent attempt by some Mayfair residents to have Guy Ritchie's Punch Bowl closed was strictly in accordance with local tradition. And the fact that it has failed, with the pub's management ordered only to submit to a few not-very-onerous conditions, is very good news for the pub-friendly, because it's a fine little place in an area that is pitifully short of the best things in life.

Seasonal specialists

When pubs were invented, it could easily have been with Christmas in mind. As the cold draws in, the days dwindle and the streets are crammed with shoppers working wearily through lists of presents that lengthen every year, a good pub is more of a sanctuary than ever.

For the common complaint that Christmas has become starkly commercial and lacking in human heart, those moments spent in good pubs are the best cure. Cosy, welcoming and warmly lit, the pub is a little lantern of fellow feeling and communal cheer, where the commercial element is kept to what's necessary, and the focus is instead on human company and relishing the moment.

And some pubs are so ideally Christmassy it's hard not to think they've been built specially, just for the season. Take the delightful Bull by the Thames at Sonning in Berkshire. A rambling 16th-century inn with open fires and splendid Fuller's beers, it's a perfect place in which to get the genuinely festive feeling. A walk along the misty river with a loved one or two, a couple of pints at the Bull, and an even mistier walk back - I'm not sure Christmas can get much better. Besides all the food and presents, that is.

Soggy beer mat to silver screen

For film-makers, the pub is the perfect backdrop. It's indoors, it's dry, the refreshments are excellent and it comes with an authentic, ready-made coating of atmosphere and rich human interaction that the location scouts could spend months trying to find. From American werewolves in Effingham to local heroics at the delightful Ship Inn in Banff, the pub is as good a dream factory as Hollywood ever was.

Knur and spell, anyone?

You might fancy yourself a reasonable hand with the arrows and very comfortable with a pool cue, but how's your nipsy? Had any games of daddlums lately, tried your luck at bat and trap, or rolled your sleeves up for a hard-fought round of knur and spell?

Only a handful of games are played widely in the pubs of Britain today, but this is a very recent trend, because not long ago if you wanted a game of any kind the best place to find it was at the local. Cards, dominoes, throwing games, ring games, cue games, pushing and shoving games, and games based on the ability to twist and spin could be found all over the country, with ample regional variation thrown in to baffle the standardisers.

Many have disappeared under the impact of TV and Xboxes, but there are still plenty to be found if you know where to look, and a good place to start is Played at the Pub by Arthur Taylor (English Heritage, £14.99), a superb new book documenting the history and details of these games, and providing pointers for where to find them still. You could begin with the once-ubiquitous game of skittles, still in rude health in some areas, including at the thatched, Grade II-listed Shave Cross Inn in Dorset, as good a spot as any in which to get the cheese among the pins.

The complete education

University offers no end of opportunities. There's the great sum of human knowledge to dive into, career-founding achievements to get under your belt,  lifelong contacts to make and all kinds of misbehaviour to indulge in. But beyond the lecture halls, libraries and dorms, a large chunk of the educational possibilities of university are to be found in the pub, a ready-made informal academy that provides all manner of vital skills, not least knowing a great drink from a rubbish one. Many students are obliged to go off-campus for this full learning experience, but not the lucky inmates of Leeds University, where the Old Bar brings everything that's best about pubs bang-smack into their midst.

There's no place like home, except one

One of the perennial delights of a good pub is that it is, in effect, an extension of your home, only with slightly less flexible opening hours. It's a role pubs have played for a long time and, when there was no such thing as central heating and refrigeration, going to the pub was even more of an improvement on staying home than it is today.

Some pubs take their domestic role very seriously indeed, none more so than the Sun Inn in Leintwardine, Herefordshire, where one of the bars was for 74 years also the living room of the landlady, Florence Lane, and a very welcoming place too. When she died earlier this year, the shadow of redevelopment hung over the Sun until a group of heroic locals bought it with the intention of keeping it going as it ever was.

The Sun is not alone in its down-home appeal. The lounge of Scanlon's pub in Brigg, North Lincolnshire, was so comfortably homey that more than one hopeful visitor passed by thinking it was someone's place, before being redirected. The Star Inn in Netherton, Northumberland, is another where it feels as if your very own lounge has suddenly sprouted a bit of extra company and some very good beers. Society is becoming atomised, they say, with individuals spending more and more time in their own boxes, away from the rest of the world. It may be true, but with pubs like these, there's really no excuse.

Essential skills

It's a strange world we live in. Working as a banker can earn you large amounts of cash and a reputation for deep wisdom, despite oceans of evidence to the contrary, while working behind a bar produces slim pickings and is often regarded as something you do until you get a proper job.

If social utility were taken into account, it would definitely be the other way around. Bartending is an essential and venerable profession, requiring a vast array of delicate skills, that can bring happiness and comfort to a lot of people, and that's something few bankers can claim to have done lately. And when the bar staff know what they're doing, as at the excellent Harp in Covent Garden, a good pub becomes a great one.

Intelligent design

There's something for everyone in pub design. From the quietest, humblest hutch that feels like somebody's kitchen and probably is, to the grandest jewelled emporium built for extravagant display and general big-noting, a pub somewhere provides the right environment for any mood that happens to take you. And some, such as the fine Three Pigeons in Halifax, are simply very good-looking, just for the sake of it.

Women's business

In some dark parts of the world, like Australia, the presence of women in pubs was until fairly recently about as acceptable as the idea of men eating salad. But not round here. Contrary to myths that it was different in the old days, women have been a central part of British pubs for at least a hundred years and probably a lot longer. And they show no sign of changing their ways.

Local difficulty

To find the best locals, you need to look hard. City or country, the pubs that really capture the essence of local are rarely found on the high street or at the busy crossroads, brightly lit and shouting for trade, but need to be sniffed out down murky lanes and silent streets inhabited by cats and old shopping bags. It takes work, but when you do find one, like the Sultan in the dark depths of South London, you know why you bothered.