Tower Bridge Arms, Bermondsey, SE1

Located just along from tower bridge. A basic bare boarded interior with split levels. 4 real ales and “craft keg” served.

This is one of the ever expanding Draft House chain of pubs. Having visited a couple of their pubs in the same afternoon I was able to detect a common theme of brashness and noisiness, neither of which I regard as endearing qualities. The main room is a barren open space (but with some high shelving and tall stools in the centre of the room) with standard seating around the sides. Everything seems to be painted a boring brown/grey colour. There are a handful of prints on the walls - I noted one of the late David Bowie getting out of a car. There's a separate room to the left, which seemed to be a bit quieter, and with some more comfortable looking booths. There were however three ales on - Sambrook Wandle (£3.60 a pint); Burning Sky Plateau (£3.85 a pint) and Siren Broken Dream (6.5% and £4.95 a pint). They were clearly serving food when we dropped in on a Friday lunchtime, but I didn't see a menu. There were a couple of large groups (12 or so punters in each) all enjoying themselves and obviously making a fair bit of noise; there was overly loud music playing for no good reason other than making everyone in there having to shout louder; and the retractable windows were open on a warm day allowing the traffic noise to compete with the noise from the pub.