London Pub Tour 18 - Vauxhall: Nine Elms Tavern, Riverside, Royal Oak and The Beehive

I was back south of the river again (just) for my next London Pub Tour, taking in some of the pubs in the Vauxhall area. I started by heading slightly down Nine Elms road to one of the newest pubs in the area, Nine Elms Tavern (SW8 5BP). This pub is in the new US embassy district and no doubt once the place opens up later this year, this pub will become busy every evening after work. At present the few occasions I've popped in this place has been empty and this time was no different.

The pub, like most new pubs, is underneath some Thames side flats, facing the river. Upon walking through the doors the bar is directly in front, with all the remainder of the pub accessed by turning right. There is an upstairs with quite a bit of seating, and from this area the design of the pub feels slightly ship based, with the supporting beams feeling like a ships mast. The downstairs has large round booths, with large tables in the middle, allowing big groups of 8 people to sit and drink in comfort. This is by all means a very modern bar in design but it pulls it off well and due to not being noisy/busy is easy to relax in having a quite chat with a friend or reading a book over a pint.

On offer were 3 ales: Winter Warmer, London Gold and Young's Bitter. The lagers offered up included Hells, Peroni, Estrella, London IPA, Guiness, 1664 and Fosters. I surveyed their bottle beer range and selected one of their Briton beers, Atlantic APA. The bottle was 330ml and 5.4% in ABV. I also had a packet of crisps to accompany from the Tyrells range, and the total came to £6.80. The beer was very floral but easy tasting and the hops were not overpowering, which is just the way I like it. There were only about 3 others in the pub, though some did start to arrive as I was finishing off my bottle.

I retraced my route to the Nine Elms tavern, back to Vauxhall and into another Young's Thames pub - Riverside (SW8 2LE). I'm quite familiar with Riverside as when it opened it was the local pub near where my work was based. Much like most of the Young's (Rams) Pub estate the outside hanging sign has been updated to just displaying the initial letter of the pub name, fitting into a scenery that matches. I do appreciate the design work that goes into these signs, but I feel they're less distinct and at a quick glance all you see is a letter, making all the Young's look very similar. I see they continue to update signs in their estate and assume these will happen for all their pubs, just wonder what their doing with the old ones?

Riverside offers a better view of the Thames than the Nine Elms, particularly with the outside heated seating. This wasn't in use today due to it being January, so everyone was inside. It's hard to tell which is the main entrance for this pub, but I walked in the doors from where the seating area is and the bar is at the far side. Along the window facing out to the Thames are lots of comfy seats and smaller tables. On the left there are more seats near an open modern gas fire. Directly opposite and running parallel to the bar is some high cushion seating. To the left of the bar is the dinning area and toilets. The bar is a large oval bar, though the rear is not used for service, and the area behind the bar had single seater booths. These are my preferred seats on busy days as you can seat with a mate with your own table and comfy seat and chat. Sadly the keg and pump selection offered at Riverside was exactly the same as the Nine Elms, except for the addition of a New Year Ale from Young's. I resisted and went for a pint of the London IPA. At £5.30 it's not worth the price, but it at least tasted better than the last pint of it I'd had.

The pub was starting to get busy with after work drinks crowd, so I moved onwards to my next pub the Royal Oak (SE11 5QY) which is a short walk from vauxhall train station heading towards Kennington. This is an Irish style bar, not the Irish theme bar of the 90s but an old school Irish boozer. The pub is not that wide, with the bar on the left and red booth style seating opposite on the right. At the end of the pub is an open  area with table seating. This is where most of the punters were, seated down the end watching the horse racing and Trump's inauguration. On one wall at the end was an electronic advertising display board, near to this was a juke box, quiz machine and a wall with trophies and photos. The pub has a worn look about it, but felt comfortable. There is an outside area for smokers to go. Behind the bar were leprechaun teddies which would hopefully inform those not in the know, that this is a Irish pub.

There were two hand pumps offering either Doombar or Cornish Coaster. On Keg there was a standard offering of Guinness, Guinness Extra Cold, Stella, Fosters, 1664, Carling, Heineken, John Smith and Strongbow. Out of this selection I would normally go for Guinness, Stella, Heineken or Strongbow, which all depends on my mood and the weather. I went for stella and a pack of Tayto's, and was surprised the stella was only £4.30. I relaxed in one of the empty booths and caught a bit of the inauguration, which to be honest wasn't high on my interest agenda. After finishing my pint I made my way round the corner to the Beehive (SE11 5JA).

The Beehive resides on a busy road junction and stands out with its mock tudor beams. The outside of the pub is great to look out but the inside differs entirely from what you may be expecting. The inside is very modern and open plan. The horseshoe bar is right in the centre of the pub, with some sparse sofa seating around the edges. This leaves large spaces around the bar area, which makes sense when you think that this pub is right next to Oval cricket ground. Considering the three pubs I had walked into already I was even more shocked to see that the Beehive was rammed packed with standing room only. On tap the selection was the lowest out of all the pubs today offering Heineken, 1664, Amstel, Fosters, Symmonds and Strongbow Cloudy. On cask there was Pride and Doombar. I selected a pint of Heineken and luckily found a drink resting space in the pub.

Looking around it seemed to be a few different work gatherings, and it's the first time I've seen the Beehive this busy outside of Cricket days. There is a small outside garden through the glass doors for the smokers to gather in. There was some awful club music playing trying to compete with the volume of the customers. After finishing up my pint I headed back to the Royal Oak for another pint of Stella in quieter (yet slightly busier than before) surroundings.

Not much beer choice on this pub tour but overall the pubs themselves were quite good, even if they were at the extremes of busy or quiet.

London Pub Tour 10 - Lower Edmonton: Stag & Hounds and Beehive

I only managed two pubs in my next pub tour, and they're away from the usual location of central London and actually out towards the suburbs, in particular Lower Edmonton.

The first pub was the Stag & Hounds (N9 9JW) which is an Ember Inns pub. The pub is in a huge building which you would only expect to see from an old pub in the suburbs. The outside is painted white and decorated with mock Tudor beams. There is a car park just to the side of the pub which is very useful as this is very much a pub geared towards dinning and families. There is an upstairs dinning area but the downstairs also offers dinning at all tables. The pub was much larger and spacious then I had expected from the outside. Upon walking through the two sets of doors you there's quite a large space before arriving at the bar which stretches down towards the bottom of the pub. The pub is carpeted throughout, and it seems a good hard wearing type. There was a family gathering happening at the bottom end of the pub, and a few drinkers scattered around the rest of the tables near the bar area.

The pub offered what I deem a standard London selection of keg beers with the likes of Stella, Peroni, Coors, Hop House 13 and Carling. Ember Inns also offer a good focus towards national ales band on this visit they had Brakspear and Purity Pure Gold on, alongside their house ale of Ember Inns Pale Ale. There was also a Christmas ale on Ember Inn Snow Place Like Home which was brewer by Black Sheep. I selected this as my drink because Black Sheep make some nice ales, and it was Christmas, why not. It was only £3.20 for a pint and CAMRA members get a 20p discount on a pint. The beer laced the glass well and was one of the better Christmas ales I've had this year.

For my next pint I opted for the house Ember Inns Pale Ale which is also brewed by Black Sheep. This wasn't as good as the Christmas ale but again at £3.20 it's a decent price. I noticed that there was a cask setup on the floor, with a hand pump attached to it. It wasn't in use but was there to advertise both the up coming ales board and that on Monday's they only charge £2.49 for any ale, which is a very competitive price. This seems to be an Ember Inns promotion for their whole estate and not specific to just the individual pub. My last drink at the Stag & Hounds was a bottle of the ever so wonderful Hiver The Honey Beer. The honey adds a sweetness to the beer which is not over powering. I would recommend the Honey Beer and their Honey Ale to people.

After my drinks at the Stag & Hounds I decided to wonder across the road to the Beehive (N9 9JZ). The Beehive is again a big pub that has plenty of frontage onto the road. There are benches outside for the better weather but today was more an inside affair. The Beehive is a Greene King pub, which I was well aware of before entering but which I was surprised to see was only serving Greene King IPA and the remainder of the ales were  from other national breweries. There were 5 ales on across the eight taps, with the remaining three acting as repeaters. I selected the excellent BoltMaker by Timothy Taylor. The pint was in excellent condition and retained its head.

The Beehive appears to have had a recent refurbishment turning one side into a gastro looking dinning area with wood flooring and cream chairs around tables whilst the bar area remained carpeted with casual seating. The refurb has made the pub very light throughout though loses that more warmth feel of the Stag & Hounds, which I feel you get from carpet. The pub wasn't too busy though some regulars and the landlord were sat opposite the bar discussing the spurs game they had come back from.

My last drink of the evening was a bottle of Mahou Cinco Estrellas by the San Miguel brewery. I've not come across this beer before in a pub so was certainly drawn to see what it tasted like. It wasn't outstanding but was drinkable. It just came across as a pale lager, whereas I was expecting something slightly more powerful like a reserve style beer due to the 5.5% abv.

If there was perhaps another pub nearby I would have popped in there for a final pint, but as nothing is within walking distance, I called it a night and made my way home. The two pubs were both imposing suburbia pubs that offered a good range in ales and lagers, and had their own style that would appeal to different clientele, and as expected of pubs in the suburbs were geared up for food.