London - Old Banks, Railway Arches and Beer Guide Ticks

At a bit of a loose-end, I decided to make a recent weekend trip to London with a vague idea of visiting a few places from the 2026 Good Beer Guide.
A quick check revealed no high-profile football clashes, no dubious reclaim the flag events, no big protest marches or anything else to make central London a place to avoid.  Although I did later discover I was only 10-minutes away from BRAPA at one point.

I travelled on the Circle Line from Paddington, alighting at Monument.

Just a few minutes up the road was a Wetherspoons pub, which I figured would make an ideal start to the day.
Early opening guaranteed - the chance for a late breakfast - and prices that would ease me into City of London beer tarrifs.

The Crosse Keys (9 Gracechurch Street, City of London, EC3V 0DR)
Wow!  This is a bit of a Spoons Stunner.
The building used to be the home of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, designed by W. Campbell Jones and opened for business in 1913.  At the time the ground floor was one of the largest single spaces in the City devoted to banking.  It may now be lined with purple and mustard coloured fabric chairs at tables covered in Wetherspoon's promo clutter, but this is a majestic room that you easily imagine being full of economic hustle and bustle.

Marble pillars line the walk from the front door to the island bar.  There's a nifty cross keys carpet (the name being derived from a 15th century inn that stood nearby). 

The cask range wasn't the most exciting - Spoons staples, plus Pride or Purity.  I was pleased to see the Norfolk interloper - 'Sirius Dog', a wickedly dark malty red ale which scored a SIBA Champion Cask award in 2018. 

I took this to the high tables in the far corner from where I could take in the whole moodily lit room.
I imagine this would attract a fairly different crowd on a weekday in the City, but it's relatively quiet with a gentle hum of conversation pre-noon at the weekend.

Checking what else was nearby, I spotted I was 0.0 miles from another GBG entry.  So with a quick stop alongside a gaggle of tourists to marvel at Leadenhall Market, I rounded the corner to visit the Counting House.

The Counting House (50 Cornhill, Gracechurch Street, London, EC3V 3PD)
Yep...I was on a roll with bank conversions and perhaps should have kept this going as a theme for the day.
In this case the building dates back to 1893 and was once Prescott's Bank, later becoming part of the Nat West empire in 1970, then a pub in 1997.
It has a wow factor as soon as you step in through the front door. High ceiling with a domed skylight, murals on the wall, marble pillars, decorative mosaic floors, shiny wood...

Cask ales on offer were Gales 'Seafarers', Fullers 'London Pride' or 'Red Fox', and a St Austell 'Proper Job'.  Feeling autumnal, I picked the red fox, not cheap at £3.45 for a half, but on top form.

Out of curiosity, I climbed the stairs to the mezanine level on which the tables were all set for dining with wine glasses and exceptionally shiny cutlery - not somewhere they'd appreciate a scruff like me plonking himself, I suspect.  I ended up on a high stool to one side of the ground floor, marvelling the skylight and the big safe incorporated into the island bar counter.

Okay, so it was a little too smart for my liking and I'd probably detest the place if I visited when the Friday steak & malbec night was in full swing.  But I was quite content on a quiet Saturday lunchtime, Noel Gallagher crooning  'Easy Now' through the speakers.  Then Sam Smith came on which was my cue to leave.

I set off on a wander eastwards, the modern Lloyd's of London and Leadenhall Buildings stretching towards the grey sky on either side of me, St Andrew's Undershaft harking from a different era with the gherkin looming behind it.

Right on the edge of the City was my destination...a new entry to the 2026 Good Beer Guide down a side street - a pub of two halves...

The White Swan (21 Alie Street, Goodmans, London, E1 8DE)

Hmmm...making up the obligatory central London Shepherd Neame quota, I suspect.
They may be the oldest brewery in the country but I'm rarely pumping the air in excitement when I encounter the Spitfire pump clip.
Just a half pint for me here (£3.45).  Not that I had much choice..

Fair play to the White Swan for actually being open at the weekends, although the lunchtime trade justifies all the pubs in this area that aren't.  It was just me and a couple of boisterous chunky blokes, bizarrely deciding to stand and holler at each other over a barrel despite having the choice of every single seat in the pub.
I hid away on the bench in the older half of the pub, with bare boards floor and wooden panels rising half way up the wall.  It certainly looks like a proper city centre pub...

...even if it was completely lacking the customers to have the atmosphere of one.
The funky soundtrack of Prince, Sister Sledge, and Kool and the Gang did nothing to lift my spirits.  The 'Spitfire' couldn't quite raise itself to a NBSS 3.

Drinking up and returning my glass to one very bored staff member, I headed southwards on foot, joining the tourist masses once I reached the Tower of London and Tower Bridge.
On the southern side of the Thames, on a complete whim, I scrapped the theme of GBG'26 pubs today and strode into the Brewdog boozer.

The Tower Bridge Arms (206-208 Tower Bridge Road, London, SE1 2UP)
This is somewhere that I have visited before back in the days that it was called The Draft House.  That was back when Siren were brand new and I was showing off my brewery knowledge telling the staff the brewery was in Burkshire, duly corrected to Barkshire.
Siren aren't new-fangled any more.  And I moved to Reading the following year and learnt to pronouce the county name properly.  Brewdog's empire has expanded and then diminished...the fact that the Oxford branch is now shuttered with a 'To Let' sign on it playing a part in tempting me to call in here.

This is Brewdog with a difference.  No giant back-lit white beer board above the bar (they've got a big wooden one around the corner instead).  Being as this is a Brewdog pub rather than bar they have hand pumps serving Adnams and Mad Squirrel on cask.
Neither of which I tried, due to being stood in front of a keg advertising Mackie's of Scotland's 'Two Scoops' honeycomb ice cream stout.

"Probably wise going for the half," opined the friendly bar staff pouring my beer.  "And not just because it's 7%" (which actually seemed a pretty good reason to me - as did the fact that the pint would cost over the £11 mark). He actually declared it too sweet for a larger measure, even for someone with a sweet tooth, and he was absolutely right.
But by 'eck, it was a lovely pudding of a beer.

Moving onwards, I trekked down to the London Bridge line railway arches and the beginning of the Bermondsey Beer Mile.

Southwark Brewing Co. Tap Room (46 Druid Street, Bermondsey-West, London, SE1 2EZ)
This is located at the western end of the Beer Mile, Southwark being one of the earlier arrivals in these railway arches, opening here in 2014.

Unusual amonsgt their neighbouring bars, they're dedicated to cask ale which has won them a place in the Good Beer Guide for the past couple of years.
There was a fine choice across six hand pumps, from which I picked the single hop 'Galena' pale ale.

I sat on the trestle tables underneath a row of display boards recounting the history of brewing in Southwark which a surprising number of folk actually took the time to read.  The trains rumbled overhead on their way into and out of London Bridge.  The lederhosen clad Oktoberfest gang made some cheery noise.  And I got a little bit tempted to spend the rest of the day in railway arch tap rooms.

Okay...one more destination on this side of the river.
A pub in Borough that has appeared in the 2026 Good Beer Guide, just at the point that I thought I'd surely been to them in this neck of the woods.

The Trinity (202-206 Borough High Street, Borough, London, SE1 1JX)
The Trinity looks great from outside - a nice symetrical mock tudor design, which has elbowed its way in between the dull brick shoebox buildings.  Signage in Wetherspoon's blue, proudly displaying its most recent name, having spent most of its pubby existance as the Hole in the Wall.
Fullers have been in charge here since a 2020 refurbishment, making for a familiar beer range.  They get a thumbs-up from me for their very neat luggage tag descriptions.

I'd have plumped for the rich, "creamy, toasted" Ale of the Week had I not already had the 'Red Fox' a few hours earlier in the Counting House.  So I picked the Dark Star 'Hophead' - on super form on this occasion.

Billy Ocean sang 'Love Really Hurts' and football pundits tried to make the forthcoming afternoon's fixtures sound exciting on ample TV screens.
With only a handful of early afternoon punters, I grabbed the choice leather cushioned bench seating under the front window, frowning at the ample plastic plant collection, whilst the music continued to deliver all your pop favourites from Dee-Lite to the Beatmasters.

I finished my beer and returned the glass to the bar.  The Trinity had proved similar to everywhere I'd visited during this afternoon - a pleasant enough place with top quality cask ale but short on early Saturday custom.  Only the tap room could be described as reasonably busy whilst the biggest crowd I'd seen by far was in a caffeine pitstop at the quite superb Fuckoffee on Bermondsey Street (motto: "Come Happy...Leave Edgy").

But I'd discover that pub customers do come out in force later in the day.  To find them, I needed to descent into the undergound at Southwark and make my way northbound...