Craft Beer In Islington - A Beginner's Guide

Craft beer is a term you hear a lot these days. Way back in the dim, distant days of .. ooh, 2011? .. most of us had barely heard of "craft beer". Quite a few people of the "I preferred their first album" variety were already very familiar with it, and had been following the progress of the American-influenced revival of craft brewing for the previous few years. But there is no doubt that craft beer, or real ale, or whatever you wish to call it (and I won't go into the tedious discussions of what "craft beer" means ... I'll just assume if you're reading this you understand English), has exploded in London over the past couple of years, with a growth in craft-oriented pubs, breweries, enthusiasts, restaurant beer menus, pop-ups and events that is astonishing. This expansion has been too much for the mainstream media, who are woefully behind with the whole thing - beer bloggers, and applications like the supremely useful Craft Beer London app, or user-driven nerd-magnets like Untappd, have taken their place. Newspapers and even London publications like Time Out seem to be blissfully unaware of one of the best things to happen in London, and the UK in general, for ages - something which is improving the sum of human happiness at a time when our malicious rulers appear hell-bent on turning everything else to shit. As Bob Dylan might say, something is happening here, but they don't know what it is.

OK, rant over. Here in Islington, the past two years has seen us go from relative destitution in terms of places to get an interesting range of craft beers, to an embarrassment of riches. This post is intended as a survey for the uninitiated of the treasures on our doorstep. The vast majority of the places I will mention have opened their doors in the last couple of years. Perhaps because I think only of others, and never of myself, I have been diligently researching pubs, restaurants, and shops and seeking out the best craft beer in the borough for all of this time, so that I can share it with you.

The Craft Beer Co weren't the first company to open a craft beer pub in London, but there is no denying that the opening of their first branch in Leather Lane was an event. The Islington branch in White Lion Street, behind Chapel Market, has a similarly impressive range to the original, and is particularly strong in offering keg versions of Scandinavian beers from the likes of Mikkeller, Evil Twin, and Haand. The interior has been done in a more traditional style, with carpets and velvet curtains, and it is a very pleasant place indeed to have a drink. One of the great things about craft beer pubs is that you are guaranteed to get something you have never had before, and the staff in Craft are always knowledgeable.

The Earl of Essex on Danbury Street has a terrific range, displayed on a board rather than by pump-clip. American beers are particularly well represented, and as a brew-pub the Earl also has the distinction of being, to-date, the only brewery in Islington. It is up there with the best pubs in London in my opinion. The Exmouth Arms on Exmouth Market and The North Pole in New North Road - both the subject of previous posts on this blog - have similarly excellent ranges and also do very decent pub food. All nice places to hang out for an afternoon, or even an evening. The Hops & Glory on Essex Road, formerly the George Orwell, is the latest pub to get a thorough craft beer overhaul, and likewise has an excellent and changing range of beers.

Old Fountain Ales, close to Old Street station, is a bit different from the others in that it is not solely a craft-beer oriented pub, but rather is an ordinary pub with the standard range - Fosters, Guinness etc. - which happens to have a load of great beers from Magic Rock, Marble, Kernel and the like on tap as well. Definitely something for everyone here. There are local retirees meeting for a glass of wine alongside youngsters from abroad on beer pilgrimages. Old Fountain feels very like the way a pub should be to me. Old-school pub food is on offer as well. The Wenlock Arms is another unique pub, with a unique clientele and a fine range of traditional ales which has recently received a refurbishment fully respectful of its heritage and history. More than worth a visit, if you can find it.

The Real Ale Tap Room is an interesting pop-up that has popped up on Upper Street, serving high quality ales directly from casks, without the need for a pub cellar. The focus is on quality over quantity and prices are very reasonable. Definitely worth a visit. The place is basic, with benches and so on, but hey, it's a pop-up. The very fact that it is there is representative of a step forward for Upper Street and for human civilisation. The Lamb on Holloway Road is on the site of the old brewpub the Flounder and Firkin. The Firkin mini-chain of brewpubs suffered from a) being ahead of their time, and b) not making very good beer. The Lamb now has a solid and improving range of beers available, constrained slightly by a shortage of cask pumps, and is definitely the pub to recommend for anyone attending an Arsenal match who doesn't want to drink Carlsberg.

The Dove Tail in Jerusalem Passage specialises in Belgian beers, like the now-defunct Bierodrome on Upper Street, which perhaps came along about ten years too early and has now turned into a Karaoke joint. Not wanting to drag the pub survey out overly we'll now cut to the honourable mentions, which go to the Wenlock & Essex, The Barnsbury, The George Shillibeer, and, for any Clerkenwell trendies and babes, The Slaughtered Lamb. I'm sure there are others I have missed. It's getting better all the time.

If you would like to eat delicious food while quaffing craft beer, there are quite a few places to recommend. The Charles Lamb, just around the corner from the Earl of Essex, has a decent beer range (the likes of Dark Star Hophead on cask, Kernel in the fridge) and has long been known as an excellent gastro-pub with a short daily-changing menu. Great if a quiet lunch is what you are after. If you are a sprightly young thing you might prefer John Salt on Upper Street, which has hosted a succession of excellent young and happening chefs while offering a solid range of craft beers in bottle and keg. I'd recommend John Salt for a group of friends, perhaps to eat in the bar rather than the restaurant. The Longroom, just near St John restaurant on St John St, is worth a mention - they offer stuff like salt beef sandwiches, cheese toasties, and sharing platters, which went down pretty well with a Lagunitas IPA on my last research visit.

The Pig & Butcher, as any fool knows by now, is a terrific gastro-pub which does its own butchery for its meat-oriented menu. The food is excellent, the beer range is solid, with the usual likes of Kernel and Brewdog in bottle, and a few changing casks including the lovely Big Chief from Redemption on my last visit. Particularly recommended for Sunday lunch. In fact I would say that the Pig & Butcher's is about the best roast I have had outside a family home (it needs love and care to do a good roast, and so many places fall short of both). The owners of the Pig & Butcher are currently teaming up with Neil Rankin (formerly of Pitt Cue and John Salt) to open the Smokehouse on Canonbury Road (on the site that was 'The House' gastropub), which looks to have an even better beer range. I can't wait to try it when it opens. While we are talking food, an honourable mention should go to the excellent burger chain Byron, which has a hard-to-miss branch on Islington Green, and by far the best beer menu of all of the modern breed of gourmet burger joints (with the possible exception of the Lucky Chip residency at the Sebright Arms). Byron is a great option for people with kids who want to slurp a bit of quality beer while on duty.

In terms of buying bottles of craft beer to take home, outlets are not as numerous as they should be in a civilised society, but they are steadily growing. Probably the best in the borough is the legendary Kris Wines, tucked at the top end of York Way and boasting an incredible array of bottles. Range can come at the expense of freshness ocassionally here, particularly with imports, so it's best to check the bottling dates before buying. Elsewhere, Highbury Vintners has a quality beer range to match it's excellent wine selection. There are a growing number of very ordinary looking off-licenses and corner shops that now stock good craft beer ranges - examples I know of include Arsenal Wines on Blackstock Road, Jacks on Stroud Green Road, and the unglamorously named Handy Mini-Market on Mountgrove Road. It's worth checking the fridges of any random shops you happen to live close to. Some pubs such as the North Pole also do "off-sales" of hard-to-find bottles at reduced prices.

If in doubt, the Craft Beer London app will tell you where to get your nearest fix, wherever you happen to be. I know that's the second time I have plugged it but it really is about the most useful iPhone app out there, along with that one that tells you how to get home, should you have ordered one half of 7.3% IPA too many.





Old Fountain Ales 
3 Baldwin Street 
London EC1V 9NU











The Earl of Essex
25 Danbury Street
London N1 8LE










The Exmouth Arms
23 Exmouth Market
London EC1R 4QL










The Craft Beer Co.
55 White Lion Street
London N1 9PP








The North Pole
188-190 New North Road
London N1 7BJ

The Hops & Glory
382 Essex Road
London N1 3PF 

Praise Butty - The Fish & Chip Shop

If you have ever worked in a soul-destroying corporate job, you may have come across the term "praise sandwich", which refers to a trick played on an employee in a performance review. The boss starts by praising the employee, then slags them off for a bit, then finishes with more praise. This is supposed, by the moronic boss and corporation, to leave the employee highly motivated while conveying the necessary criticism. Both the concept and the term are, needless to say, idiotic, particularly as a "praise sandwich" would imply praise in the middle, not the reverse. You don't call a ham sandwich a bread sandwich. Anyway, I digress. Here at Foodie Islington towers we pride ourselves on supportive, constructive criticism as opposed to vindictive hatchet jobs on people trying to start or run a business, so let's consider this a constructive criticism sandwich. If anyone is reading. 

While I've always felt slightly ambivalent about places that posh up working-class food - for many years the Upper Street Fish shop, just over the road from here, still spoken if with misty-eyed nostalgia by many old-time Islingtonians, with its red & white checked table cloths, slightly smug proto-Fromagerie staff and atmosphere, and fish cooked to order, seemed to embody an unspoken but uncomfortable class consciousness, the English disease in restaurant form - the first thing to say about this new venture is that it is a more than welcome addition to the area and is clearly well-intended with a focus on quality. It feels classy but more democratic than its predecessor.

The most important dish on the menu - battered fish - is great; perfectly cooked, with a delicious and impeccably crispy batter which has real flavour. At nine quid, it should be good, but a restaurant has to make it's money and when something is properly good, you can't argue with a price like that. 

Now for a few constructive criticisms:

1. Lobster. When you advertise Lobster Rolls and include them on your permanent menu, you will have to expect some gutted customers when you tell them "no lobster" once they have rocked up salivating over the prospect of a lobster roll. Hopefully a one-off experience for this unlucky punter. 

2. Chips. Sort it out, please. For a start, portions are too stingy for fish & chips, and for the price (£2.50). Secondly, call me old-fashioned, but for me, chips means thick and chunky in this context. These are more like Freedom Fries. When the restaurant has 'Chip' as part of its name, said chips should be triple-cooked, quadruple-cooked or whatever it takes to make them memorable. Room for improvement here. 

3. £1 plus service charge for two small pickled onions is ridiculous. They need to be better than what you get from a supermarket jar at that price. 

OK, back to the positives. I applaud anywhere that tries to have decent beer on the menu so we'll forget about the dodgy menu descriptions (OK, I'll mention them - Brooklyn Brown Ale described as "Brooklyn Brown Sugar", Beavertown 8-Ball described as "Indian IPA"). You can get good beer with your fish & chips here - I would request while they are at it they add a lower ABV Pale Ale such as Kernel Table Beer, but I'm being pedantic now. 

Starters of oysters, pea fritters, and scallops were delicious, as was a delightfully bouncy, sweet and shrimpy shrimp burger. Music was brilliant on our visit, including Brenton Wood's 'Gimme Little Sign', The Velvet Underground, Dusty Springfield, John Lee Hooker, and the Rolling Stones. A better class of chippy music. The place itself is lovely and has plenty of two of my favourite things, bar seats (for couples and solo diners), and booths. Hooray for booths. 

Some of the gripes above may well be due to first-week syndrome, but I couldn't wait to check the place out. My fault really. The positives are such that I'll definitely be back before too long, and I'm looking forward to it as well. Might phone ahead though, to make sure they have lobster in. 

Next!

The Fish & Chip Shop

189 Upper Street

London N1 1RQ

http://www.thefishandchipshop.uk.com

Pub Time - The North Pole

Is it OK to do another pub yet? We did the sushi thing, the supper club thing, the foraging thing ... it’s pub time, right? Cool. Thanks.

If you are pressed for time or can't be bothered to read the whole of this review of the refurbished North Pole pub on New North Road, I will be nice and shorten it for you. I bloody love this place - great beer, great food, nice decor, charming staff, good value. That's the short version. And I've done the conclusion already. If you want more detail and some mild beer-erotica, read on.

OK, first things first, the most important thing in a pub, the beer. This isn't just one of those places that has one or two slightly dull choices of country ale and a couple of Kernels in the fridge for the 'discerning' (i.e. people who don't like homogenous mass-produced alcoholic cold fizz that is often not even cold or fizzy, or very alcoholic). This place has a stone-cold proper range of cask and keg beers on a par with meccas like Craft in Leather Lane and The Jolly Butchers in Stoke Newington. Six cask ales at a very reasonable £3.20 a pint, four cask ciders for apple heads, and I counted eleven keg beers including the great American classics Flying Dog ‘Doggie-Style’ Pale Ale (a desert-island beer for me) and Brooklyn Lager, as well as the eye-watering, too-strong-for-this-guy ‘Human Canonball’ from the magnificent Huddersfield brewery Magic Rock. (Magic Rock are apparently so-named because they used to sell crystals and what-not to the New Age community. I'm glad they quit the rat race and took up brewing.)

I sampled a suitably sour and farmyard-y Dark Star Saison (Saisons are definitely not for everyone but I was trying to show the bar staff I was serious) and a very nice ‘Sleepless’ American Amber Ale, from Redwillow Brewery in Macclesfield, while perusing the lunch menu. Halves, mind.

It is one of those menus where you want everything on offer. This is exquisite torture for the gastro-gnome. It's good and it's bad. But mainly good. A burger is always tempting in these situations. It certainly looks good in the picture on their website. Then there is the mac & cheese which has been tweeted about enthusiastically by a trusted American source. There are tempting 'snacks' like pints of prawns and chicken wings. Ribs though. Y'know, ribs. For grown-ups. The lady behind the bar recommends jerk chicken. Ribs it is. They have pork (baby back) and beef. I am warned off the beef ribs as difficult to eat, so I order the beef ribs.

The ribs are indeed hardcore and some kind of magic has been done on them; they easily rival those at nearby Dukes Brew & Que, which is a dedicated barbecue joint, and an excellent one at that. The inner parts especially are deliciously moist and beefy, as beefy and satisfying as a good steak to my mind. Not for the faint-hearted though ... put it this way: if you like the St John bone-marrow dish, or if you like bone-marrow in general, you'll love it; if you have any meat-related food fads, you won't. The kind of dish you just cannot eat without alcohol to cut it. Which is OK. This is a pub.

The place itself has some nice nooks and crannies, a garden area, and a games room. I must come back when it is buzzing and full of happy young things. Or maybe not. The older I get, the more I see pubs as a daytime thing. Of all the great stolen pleasures to be had in life, going into an empty pub before midday has to be up there.

The North Pole is a pub that has modernised and cranked up the quality on all fronts without being too, how can I put this ... middle-class about it. It does not feel exclusive in any way. It is not a Gastro-pub, but it does have great food. The food is pub food, which tries to be as good as pub food can be, and largely succeeds. The word 'rocket' does appear on the menu, but only as part of a pulled pork sandwich. So it remains very much a pub in both emphasis and atmosphere. I might have said this before, but my only gripe with this place is that it's not nearer to my house. Or maybe that’s a good thing.




The North Pole
188-190 New North Road
London N1 7BJ
http://thenorthpolepub.co.uk

Medcalf – Please Move To My Street

A delightful restaurant in Islington serving modern British food at fair prices, Medcalf is a seductive sort of place that draws you in as you go through your meal, until you leave thinking yeah, lunch, I really need to do this more often, like actually sitting down and eating lunch with a knife and fork. Maybe even a bit of pud. So why isn’t there more talk about it?

Never having worked in the restaurant trade I’m not sure how these things work, but I can’t help thinking that this place suffers from its location, and specifically its proximity to the mighty Moro, the undisputed Daddy (or should that be Mummy & Daddy) of Exmouth Market dining, and the equally charming Morito. If this restaurant was in, say, Hornsey Road or Tufnell Park, I dare say you would never hear the end of people talking about it. Witness the paroxysms of rapture (mixed metaphors? Whatevs) with which local foodies greeted the arrival of, say, Season Kitchen on Stroud Green Road and Trullo on St Pauls’ Road. Both of those are very good restaurants, but they benefit in reputation and general noise-level from being oases in the middle of relative culinary deserts.

In years to come we may well  look back and laugh or sneer at the whole “small plates” thing as a hilarious and outdated fad of our current era, and in fact there may be advanced, in-the-know foodies out there who have already started the backlash. But I have to say I dig it. I really dig it. I hope it’s here to stay. One of the first things I want in a restaurant is an appetising menu. Any time I find myself in a decent restaurant, I usually want everything on the menu, in fact that’s often one of the measures of what I consider a good restaurant. So to be able to order everything on the menu that takes my fancy is really just the ticket. This place has a kind of British take on the small-plates thing, less out-there and St John-ish than St John Bread & Wine, perhaps more Simon Hopkinson-y in tone if they will forgive me that comparison, which is intended as a compliment. There are a few larger 'mains' on the menu as well.

Those like me who are applauding the wresting of the brewing industry back from the corporate clutches of those who destroyed it (a fancy way of saying “people who like drinking nice beer”) are always cheered to see a decent beer range on offer, and Medcalf has a nicely balanced drinks menu with good wine and beer selections. The inclusion of real ale seems particularly appropriate given the British, hearty style of the food. A Kernel Porter was a perfect match for a plate of oysters on my last visit.

This is a great spot for a spot of lunch. Or dinner. The people involved may be happy to continue to quietly do their thing with skill and style. But I wish they’d move to my street.

Medcalf
40 Exmouth Market
London EC1R 4QE

Sliders At The Exmouth Arms

As a fan of the burgeoning craft beer revolution – with its variety, discoveries, delicious beers, and anti-corporate undertones – I can only applaud when a transformation such as the recent Exmouth Arms revamp occurs. While a part of me is sad to see the old ‘Postman’s Pub’ go the way of so many old boozers, the new version is a wonderful pub, with nice unpretentious decor, an excellent beer selection and high quality pub food. Islington has too few such places, but they are growing. I will blog more extensively on the subject of craft beer and real ale in Islington as time and my liver allow. This little post is all about the food.

The food offering here is based around sliders, which, for those who don’t know, are small hamburgers. I must say I'm not really a convert to the whole slider thing. I suppose the advantage is variety - it's like a burger tasting menu. My objection to sliders as a concept is the same as my problem with tasting menus in fancy restaurants - when I taste something really good I want more than a slider's worth, or more than is generally on offer in a tasting menu. These caveats aside the sliders at the Exmouth Arms are very good, better for example than those at nearby Giant Robot. They have a pleasing egg-wash glaze on the buns and so are photogenic enough for passing food bloggers. The menu descriptions are enticing and a selection of 3 for £5.95 is good value. Breakfast sliders are also available, of which more later (in my forthcoming post on pub breakfasts - someone's got to do it). Sliders, despite my slightly disparaging comments, are nice beer snacks for sharing and also make excellent meals for children. I have visited at lunchtime with kids in tow, enjoyed a cheeky beer while doing my parental duty by the little blighters at the same time, all sat in the sunshine outside and watching the trendy Exmouth Market err .. people .. go by.

For the serious foodie (or plain greedy bastard) 'James's Pulled Pork Burger' is the better option - not just pulled pork but a regular burger, nicely bunned up, with pulled pork on top and some kind of ‘special sauce’ inside. Incredibly messy to eat, which is always a good sign. If you are never seen with meat juices and condiments dribbling down your chin then I'm not sure I want to be in your company. Beer-wise, as noted, there is an excellent selection of craft/real/insert-preferred-term ale available for the discerning on cask, keg and bottle, including a few Nogne Ø in bottles for scandophiles like me. The quality beers really do go well with the food. The pulled pork burger went excellently with a pleasing pint of Oakham Ales' cutely named 'Water of Forgetfulness'. In all this place is a superb addition to Exmouth Market and a lovely option for a pint or a bite to eat.

The Exmouth Arms
23 Exmouth Market
London EC1R 4QL

@ExmouthArms