Paneer Pies & Portobello Porter

It was the week before Christmas, under drizzle and grey skies, when I decided to hop aboard the London bus to undertake a route around a varying bunch of the capital's hostelries.

Alighting at Victoria Station, I was within a short walk of one of the 'Famous Five' - the quintet of pubs which have appeared in every edition of the Good Beer Guide to date.

Buckingham Arms (62 Petty France, SW1H 9EU - web)
Just gone midday I was the first customer in - unfashionably early...again...but it didn't take long for a few solo drinkers, be-suited office workers, and tourists to follow me in.

The Buckingham is run by Youngs, with three of their ales on the hand pumps, plus St Austell 'Tribute' and 'Stiff Upper Lip', from south-west London brewery By the Horns.
I picked the latter of those and grabbed the green leather cushioned seating by the window.  Great seat - just don't examine the collection of crumbs and detritus gathered in the buttons too closely.

The current building dates back to 1898 and retains a bit of an historic feel to it with wood panels, sweeping bar counter and small stained glass screens.
I'd always assumed I'd been here before but, on reflection, it wasn't ringing any bells.  A pleasant Westminster pub that I'll come back to another time to see what it's a bit busier.

Time to move on, I made a short walk down Buckingham Gate, past the street food stalls on Strutton Ground market and onto Great Peter Street. This little corner of Westminster used to be one of the cities most notorious slums called the Devil's Acre. You have to search quite hard now to find evidence of a sleazy past - it's looking as smart as anywhere else in the centre and the pubs aren't afraid to charge you upwards of £6 a pint.

The Speaker (48 Great Peter Street, SW1P 2HA - web)

This is a marvelous small street corner pub of the type central London does rather well.  Serving drinks only and not messing around with food, there are a lot of high stools and shelves to pop your pint glass on, a couple of regular tables at either end of the bar, and a precarious staircase to the loos on the first floor where there is also a small function room.

On the bar were no less than three Christmas beers from Falstaff, Mighty Oak and Tring, with Doom Bar and Landlord for those shunning the festive season.

Leaving the Speaker, having enjoyed a very tasty half of Mighty Oak, I walked ten minutes to Westminster, where I ventured down the escalators to the Jubilee Line.
A couple of stops to Lambeth and right outside the station is another beer guide entry...

The Ring (72 Blackfriers Road, SE1 8HA - web)
'Busier than usual' Google informed me. (Is there anything Google doesn't know?!)
And that was all down to a group who I'd guess were enjoying their office lunchtime festive drinks - taking up most of the tables, making plenty of noise, and sporting too many Christmas jumpers for my liking.
I've gotta admit that I contemplated giving this pub a miss, but was tempted to stay on the basis of a Plum Porter and the chance to procure one of their own beer mats to add to my growing collection.

The Ring is named due to the one-time boxing ring which once stood directly across the road.  The walls are busy with an impressive collection of pictures of boxers from days gone by, which I couldn't get past the Christmas party gang to examine and which wouldn't have meant anything to me anyway as I don't know the first thing about boxing.

One quick, and very tasty, pint of Plum Porter later and I was navigating the back streets towards Southwark.

My destination was The Gladstone, a desi pub hidden down a side street.  Lant Street was somewhere that Charles Dickens lodged at one time, the pub earning a mention in the Pickwick Papers.
(If I'd appreciated how full of pubs the Pickwick Papers was at the age of 16, I'd have read more than 40-pages before attempting - and making a complete pigs-ear of - an A-level English presentation on it).

The Gladstone Arms (64 Lant Street, SE1 1QN - web)
The Glad was destined for demolition in 2015, developers relishing the chance to build another apartment block in its place.  A campaign was successful in thwarting the wrecking ball, although it was still boarded up and empty for a period of time after an astronomic rent rise dampened the celebrations.
The pub reopened in 2017 with the current owners giving it a comfy, welcoming feel, bringing in murky craft beer and a menu of Anglo-Indian food.
Like the paneer pie, which was quite superb...

My food was accompanied by a Two Tribes 'Coal Drops Yard Stout' which seemed to be the most interesting of the craft keg selection.  There were three hand pumps on the bar, with a turned around Sambrooks shaped pump clip on one, but no cask on my visit.
Not that I was in need of a cask ale - a comfortable pub with some brilliant food were more than enough to keep me happy.

There's a CAMRA book by David Jesudason due out next Spring about desi pubs that I'll look forward to reading, as well as visiting some of the entries within it in 2023.

With a contented full stomach, my plan was to travel to New Cross next.
The lesson learnt on this London trip was: don't just jump onto the first bus you see with the right destination displayed on the front of it. 
I should have been on a service that made the London Bridge to New Cross journey in 20-minutes, but instead ended up on an unwanted Peckham excursion.

Darkness was encroaching and I was thoroughly grumpy, feeling like I'd been on the bus for hours, as I trudged down the street to the Shirkers Rest... 

The Shirker's Rest (9 Lewisham Way, New Cross, SE14 6PP - web)
This micro opened in June 2022 in a site that what was once a solicitors office. It's a joint venture between Shark micropubs, three chaps who'd previously planned to open a pub in  Camberwell, and South London bloggers/podcasters and authors Deserter.

There was a mix of high and low tables, pictures on the wall of abandoned furniture, Johnny Cash on the stereo, an impressive display of crisps, and plenty of choice of keg or cask ales.
Of course I picked the wrong one - going all Christmassy with the Cloudwater Cranberry and Orange session pale ale.
A beer-description-fail by Cloudwater as this was very much a sour and never a session pale.  That'll teach me to turn down the taster I was offered.

I made my way through New Cross to the Royal Albert as a final pub of the day (well, unless the train happens to take me to Cannon Street and I end up in the Spoons on the platform (of course I did)).

Royal Albert (460 New Cross Road, New Cross, SE14 6TJ - web)
A pub with a grand frontage and a patio elevated slightly above the busy New Cross Road, it's run by Portobello Brewery and was clearly going to be busy later in the evening with 7" singles acting as reserved signs on each table.
It was all a bit too moodily lit and modernised for my taste, but the Portobello 'Market Porter' was a fine pint in good condition.

Micro pub, desi pub, boxing pub, famed beer guide pub...I felt I'd covered a good variety of places on this day out in the capital.
All that was left now was to travel to Cannon Street, divert into Spoons, order my beer, and exclaim "How Much?!"