Choosing our Pubs

Penny says we need a battle plan for hitting the pubs as none of the Nicholson's pubs were in Chelsea or Fulham.  I have scoped out some pubs in the area around the apartment and there are a few that might be worth a visit.

Hollywood Arms is a couple of blocks away from the apartment and is part of Young & Co's pubs.  It isn't your typical historic looking pub but the food looks good, including the Sunday Roast.  Young & Co. has other pubs in West London (Chelsea and Fulham) and they all offer Sunday Roast and they all look sparkly clean, more like afternoon tea establishments than bars.  Perhaps they are "gastropubs" instead of the traditional pub.  Another of their pubs that is fairly close by is the King's Arms, located about 4 blocks up Fulham Road.  They believe in "great British food" but most of all they "believe in burgers" (they are a Burger Shack).  What can I say?  That appears to be the most popular pub food these days, although to their credit they do offer a Dorset lamb burger with whipped goats curd, red onion, pickles, shredded lettuce, and fries.

And Penny, Young & Co. also offers a pub app for your phone to help you find their pubs.

Another pub that is around 5 blocks from the apartment is The Sporting Page, a gastropub from the Food and Fuel chain.  Gastropubs seem to specialize in wine and cocktails rather than ale so if we want an historic pub that serves real ale, we might have to go into town as Chelsea doesn't seem to be the best place for cask ales.

Cumberland Curl

For instance, when we go to the Victoria and Albert Museum, we could stop at the Elephant & Castle for lunch, which is a Nicholson's pub specializing in sausages and chops.   Or maybe we'd rather go to the Churchill Arms when we're up at the V & A, except their kitchen specializes in Thai food (who knows, we might be ready for that!).  It's part of the Fuller's pub chain which doesn't have any pubs in Chelsea or Fulham.

If we visit the Smithfield Meat Market we can stop at The Old Red Cow
which is supposed to have a good selection of many types of beer and offers a good Sunday Roast, but you have to make reservations for that (we can do that online so we don't have to worry about language difficulties).   If we go to the British Museum we can stop at The Lamb, which offers Wiltshire lamb rump, broad beans, onions & gravy (18£) for "brunch" (I think that's lunch since they only open the kitchen at noon).

When we go down to Borough Market on the south side of the Thames, we can stop by the historic George Inn, a historic coach inn owned by the National Trust and managed by the Greene King chain of pubs.

We are going to need a little help with our pub trail.  Are we looking for real cask ale? Historic interiors?  Good British food?  Here are a few "best pubs" articles to get us started.  Many of the historic pubs are very small with standing room only so they advise avoiding lunchtime and the post-work rush.  We can select the ones that appear on all the lists and then check their menus.

Cittie of York pub recommended by the Pocket Rough Guide to London.  A Samuel Smith pub.

• The Telegraph:  24 of London's most incredible historic pubs
• The Evening Standard Go London: The Best Pubs in London
• TimeOut: The Best Pubs in London features a wine bar on the first page...
• Fodor's: London's 15 Best Pubs
• Visit London: Best Traditional Pubs in London
• Food and Wine: 19 of London's Best Pubs
• CNN Travel: 10 of London's Oldest, Greatest Pubs

So the question is do we want a real pub, a boozer, or do we want a pub with good food?  And if the latter, does that mean we should stick to gastropubs?

Ales, Beers and Pubs

Before I go to England, I want to review my options in the realm of beer.  I like fizz and I think a lot of British beer is flat and not very strong.

Real Ale

But first we should find out what the difference is between ales, typical beers of Britain and Belgium,  and lagers (also pilsners), the typical clean and crisp beers of the United States and Central Europe.  Lagers are brewed with the yeast Saccharomyces pastorianus which works at colder temperatures than the ale yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae.  According to the Popular Science article, "What is the difference between a lager and an ale?", the lager yeast S. pastorianus, is a hybrid of S. cerevisiae and S. eubayanus, a wild yeast from Patagonia, and so understandably did not appear in Europe until the 1500s. The low-and-slow fermentation of lagers means that "lagers taste "clean" and lack the fruity esters characteristic of ales." S. pastorianus also cannot survive in a high alcohol environment and so the lagers are lower in alcohol than the ales, although British ales tend to be weaker than the Belgian ones.

According to Wikipedia, "England is known for its top fermented cask beer (also called real ale) which finishes maturing in the cellar of the pub rather than at the brewery and is served with only natural carbonation."  The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) began in the 1970s as a reaction against the homogenization of beer and its monopoly by big global conglomerates.  To help you find a pub that serves Real Ale, CAMRA has developed What Pub?, an online searchable directory of pubs in Great Britain, featuring 35,904 real ale pubs.  They also have a directory of pubs with historic interiors that you can search at Pub Heritage.

The Blackfriar

Apparently many of the pubs, even if historic, belong to chains like Wetherspoon, Fuller's, Slug and Lettuce, Nicholson's, Samuel Smith, Young & Co., Green King.  Like choosing a wine by its picturesque label, we can choose pubs by their picturesque names:   The Coal Hole (a 'song and supper club' where Gilbert and Sullivan performed regularly), The Blackfriar (a 'specialty sausage and chops house' with a wonderful interior), The Magpie (a specialty pie house), The Mudlark (named for scavengers who made a living in the Thames mud), The Porcupine (another specialty pie house), and The Moon Under Water (named after George Orwell's favorite fictional pub).  Then there are the pubs with "Arms" in their names which may refer to heraldic coats of arms or nearby alms houses, like the Harwood Arms and the Hollywood Arms which are near the apartment.

Nicholson's Ale & Gin Establishments has neighborhood Ale & Gin Trails that you can follow in London and you can also check out their seasonal Ale Library, with ales from various breweries in Ireland, England, and Scotland.  The majority of the spring ales are pale but they have some lovely names like Stiff Upper Lip, Light Brigade, Mad Goose, Fat Sprat, Pigs Ear, Juniper Rising, and Moonstone.  The most alcoholic is Yorkshire Dales Pale Ale at 6.5% so we shouldn't get drunk, just fat.  And if Penny would rather have gin, Nicholson's has a Gin Library too where she can pick out ones that are 'juniper heavy & robust',  'light & citrusy', 'floral & modern', 'sweet & fruity', 'savoury & dry', or 'something a little bit different' like rhubarb gin or sloe and mulberry gin.

I don't see that Nicholson's offers flights of ale or gin that would let you try a variety.  That would be nice.  Some of their pubs are "specialty pie houses" and offer an interesting menu of meat and non-meat pies.  Others are 'specialty sausage and chop houses' where you can get different kinds of sausages and toad in the hole as well as lamb chops.  Nicholson's also has specialty fish houses like the White Swan in Covent Garden that offers a special seafood menu.