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Beer and pub news round up
Good Beer Guide listed Young's pub, the Three Cups (Sandland St, WC1), is set to close for a major refurbishment at the beginning of September. When the lease ends, ultimate owner Bradford Properties is taking both the pub and the next door snack bar into possession, with the intention of extending the pub into the snack bar. The upstairs meeting room, used by local groups, including CAMRA, will be lost and converted into flats. It is hoped that Young's will still run the pub in its new guise although it won't be John, the current landlord, in charge, as he's retiring when the pub closes. The snack bar will not return - lawyers from nearby Gray's Inn are bemoaning the loss of their favourite bacon sarnie outlet.
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Perhaps a bit late with the news but there's a new pub on Red Lion Square, WC1 – the Square Pig, on the corner with Procter St. At the time of visiting, the beers on sale were Courage Best, London Pride and Brakspear's Bitter. There's a bit of a wine bar feel about the place, with light wood, large tables, stone floor, a scattering of armchairs and big picture windows. Not a quiet pub but the background music was not too excessive.
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The ownership of the Yorkshire Grey on Theobalds Rd/Gray's Inn Rd is now settled, with Enterprise Inns picking up the pub as a part of a parcel from S&N. This Midlands based company was formed in 1991 and now owns some 3,000 pubs. According to the Good Beer Guide, they have a "good range of cask beers from all the major brewers as well as many regionals". Let's hope drinkers see some benefit from this as the current range of Courage Best and Theakston's Old Peculier needs pepping up.
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JD Wetherspoon have opened their 500th pub, the Picture Palace, in Ponders End, Middlesex. The name refers to the building's original use as a cinema, which is a bit of a theme with JD's, what with the Coliseum in Harlesden NW10 and The Capitol in Forest Hill, SE London.
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Wetherspoon have also announced that they intend to open a new pub on the Finchley Rd – it is to be in the new O2 centre (just up from Finchley Rd tube) which also houses restaurants, a multiplex cinema and a large supermarket. More news as it emerges.
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GBG listed, the Old Monk (Gray's Inn Rd, WC1) has brought out a new regular beer range – their standards will now be London Pride, Spitfire, Adnam's Bitter and Brakspear's Bitter. Guest beers will feature for a month and what's more you can buy these in jugs, four pints for the price of three. The August guest is Greene King Triumph.
John Cryne
Reproduced from the Full Pint, Issue 11.
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