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.

Get brewing

Fancy your skills with the mash tun and sparging arm? Then you could do a lot worse than get something suitable ready for the Craft Brewers Association's National Homebrew Festival, to be held in Sutton in deepest South London on November 13. That's only five months away, which, unless you're planning a Russian Imperial Ale or something equally heavyweight, should just about give you time to get your best beer cooked and matured in time to try your luck against the meanest hop-and-grain wizards in the game.

Having attended last year's event and entered a kit beer on behalf of The Times to see what happened, I can recommend the occasion as a low-intensity but very high-value celebration of what can be done in the humblest home with a little bit of equipment and a whole lot of love. The overall standard of beers last year was truly excellent, with the best being spectacular. The place was filled with enthusiastic brewers from all parts of the country, of all shapes, sizes and genders, and with all kinds of day jobs. I can guarantee an excellent day, and that you'll come away safe in the knowledge that the future of craft beers is very healthy indeed.

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.