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The Bull, Highgate, N6

13 North Hill
N6
N6 4AB
Phone: 02083410510

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Reviews (Current Rating Average: 7 of 10) Add Review see review guidelines


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


Bucking Fastard left this review about The Bull

Brewhouse and tap for the Gorgeous Brewery ,the pub has a large front terrace and an open plan interior with two wings either side of the front door,with the left side having an open kitchen at the rear while the right side has the bar,two curved banquettes and a table in a bay window and felt more like the drinking area.There is an upstairs function room which was hosting a noisy childrens party on my Saturday afternoon visit.Food doesn't dominate,while the 6 handpumps were drawing Gorgeous Gravedigger (decent vanilla stout 5% £4),Glowfly,Geek Hunter and Greedy Guts with 2 pumps unused.There are also 10 keg taps split over two ends of the bar with some national brands but also some respected craft keg.The flatscreen were off ,and the pub atmosphere would tempt another visit if I wanted to tick off some Gorgeous brews but I found the pub functional without being exceptional.

On 7th January 2018 - rating: 6
[User has posted 2709 recommendations about 2709 pubs]


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


Moby Duck left this review about The Bull

Decent looking Gastro pub with the advantage of having an in house micro brewery. Most of the floorspace was given over to tables dining in mind ,but there are areas around the bar you can happily perch up for a beer, of which there were five of their own,the Gorgeous Geek Hunter, extra pale ale at £ 3.90 was a decent first pint of the day, There was also a cider on handpump, Rosies Pig Hogfather, not as such a trad pub but it's certainly worth stopping off here.

On 4th April 2017 - rating: 7
[User has posted 1868 recommendations about 1841 pubs]


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Quinno _ left this review about The Bull

An uphill yomp from the tube but worthwhile for the homebrew ale (London Brewing Co) available. In a hilly part of the capital, this building sits above the street level and the steps up might finish off the less fit pub-goer. The interior is pretty unremarkable, a knocked-through place. Left side is more for dining with the right more for drinking, though I suspect that later in the evening you might struggle to get a seat. Restrained gastro décor with a wood boarded floor, scrubbed tables, white and maroon colour scheme etc though the bay windows are pretty impressive and a nice place in which to sit. There is also a dining area upstairs. Worth checking out the nice front patio seating. Four ales on; Truman Rio Gold, three homebrews – Vista, Bitter (good nick) and IPA (excellent). Also Orchard Pig Philospher cider. Not bad in here, and worth a visit - beer quality rounds it up. 7.5

On 24th October 2016 - rating: 8
[User has posted 5043 recommendations about 5026 pubs]


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Tris C left this review about The Bull

Largely as described below, I've only been in here once before about 6 years ago with no joy. The music was loud and the barman couldn't speak English. I now seems much improved with a friendly barmaid who could speak English and a wide selection of ales, most if not all from the on-site London Brewing Co: Beer Street, American Amber, Stateside Pacific Ale, Highrise Pale Ale, a blank clip and Never Mind The Kent Hops. Price forgotten it was probably high though my half was good. Unfortunately it was served in a wine glass.

This is a good pub despite the slightly corporate gastropub feel and beer served in wine glasses. Worth a visit.

On 6th April 2016 - rating: 6
[User has posted 1956 recommendations about 1923 pubs]


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Rex Rattus left this review about The Bull

This pub is unchanged since the previous reviewer's visit last year. Furnishings are still mainly recycled dining room tables with normal chairs, and the beams are still festooned with dried hop vines. When I was in at around 6.0 PM on a Wednesday evening most of the tables had reserved signs on them, but thoughtfully with times on them, so I could choose a table with a sufficiently long "free" time.

There were four ales on when I visited, plus Heck's cider, and one handpump unused. There were a couple of ales from the the house brewery, the London Brewing Co - Vista Red Ale and Beer Street (£3.40 a pint) - Grain Brewery 3.1.6, and Weird Beard Dark Hopper. I was thoughtfully offered a choice between a jug or straight glass. This is a decent selection, with nothing from the usual suspects. Single sheet menus have main courses over £11, and I had the Bull Burger (including chips, bacon and cheese) for £11.95.

I don't normally go for these overly gentrified and corporate gastropubs, but I liked this one. I felt comfortable in here, but I didn't stay late enough to conflict with the reservations. I can see that if you pop in later in the evening there's not likely to be anywhere to sit, and the small bar counter isn't really conducive to propping up the bar. But apparently there's an upstairs bar and dining room, but I didn't investigate. The presence of beers from microbreweries, including very reasonably priced ones from their own microbrewery, is a massive plus. I would be very happy to visit here again.

On 29th August 2015 - rating: 7
[User has posted 2606 recommendations about 2520 pubs]


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Pub SignMan left this review about The Bull

The Bull is a nicely set out gastro style pub and home to the unimaginatively titled London Brewing Co. The pub is raised from the street level, with steps taking you up to a decent front patio area before you enter the pub itself. You find yourself in a bare boarded room with the servery on the rear wall, slightly to the right. I found that the room had a nice homely feel to it, despite clearly having been refurbished when the pub was last taken over. There are a number of high tables and stools opposite the servery with button backed banquettes and standard chairs serving large round tables positioned in the numerous bay windows. Over to the left, the seating is a bit more functional with predominantly standard tables and chairs plus some padded benches around a small fireplace, making this the area favoured mostly by diners. The whole room has a modest amount of enamel brewery signs and other such breweriana dotted around the place, as well as some large potted plants, a section of wall adorned with handled beer glasses and a textured ceiling lined with hops in a nod to the brewing operation. A TV screen on one wall was turned off during my visit and I noticed a big stack of board games with at least one couple enjoying a competitive game of something or other. The window sills had various bits of CAMRA literature in them as well as some jars which seemed to hold various varieties of hops. Large blackboards are just about everywhere you look and detail bar snacks, keg beers, upcoming events and, in the case of one huge board to the left, the entire brewing process. You can see this for real via a central corridor next to the servery, which is lined with pump clips and leads to the aforementioned in-house brewery. There is also apparently a second bar and function room upstairs, but I didn't get round to exploring.
There were no less than four house beers available on this visit - NZ Hop, Black and Blue Blueberry and Maple Mild, Beer Street Bitter and Vista, plus Weston's Rosie's Pig Cider. As the afternoon wore on, another house beer was put on which had been brewed using locally sourced hops. I tried the Mild, which was very good and the NZ Hop which was a little tired. The keg range was pretty good too, including brews from Camden, Fourpure and Brains plus a few US and German options.
I really warmed to this fine little brewpub and enjoyed trying a few of their own beers in comfortable surroundings. I certainly didn't feel out of place drinking here without ordering food and would suggest that this is one of the best pubs in the area. I will most certainly be heading straight back here the next time I'm in Highgate.

On 19th October 2014 - rating: 8
[User has posted 3102 recommendations about 3102 pubs]


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John Bonser left this review about The Bull

Date of visit - August 2013

On the main road out of Highgate, a shortish stroll down from The Red Lion and Sun, is The Bull.

To a certain extent, externally it resembles a private house with its white painted frontage and a set of bow fronted windows either side of a set of large conservatory style double doors. At the front is a largish concrete slabbed terrace with a mixture of chrome and wooden seating

The interior features a white painted, lowish ceiling with hops hanging from several beams. It’s a rather unremarkable interior, but with that upmarket modern dining pub feel that one might expect. There’s the usual absence of TV’s, music and fruit machines. Several old undated photos adorning the walls show the pub in olden days as a Highbury Brewery Co pub.

The small bar server is on the right hand side. At the back on the left hand side, and not immediately noticeable, is the open kitchen. By the side of the bar, an on site microbrewery is partly visible down a small passageway, but this is not part of the public area of the pub. An upstairs function room available to groups is advertised. Rather naffly, toilets are denoted as “Bulls” and “Cows”.

Despite its gastro pub leanings, the pub is clearly trying to attract a wide range of punters and advertised activities include Quiz Night on Mondays and a Knitting Group (!) on Tuesday. Several shelves contain an extensive collection of board games. Inside the front door on a table are a number of large glass bottles containing various sweets on sale for kids.

Beer is evidently taken seriously here with Beer Academy Courses based at the pub being prominently advertised, as is the new CAMRA London Pub Walks book poster .By the side of the open kitchen, a large blackboard depicts the various stages in the brewing process.

The large beer menu on the tables tells us that the in house microbrewery started production in September 2011. On my August visit, 4 different on site brews were available from the 6 pumps with, notably, no other brewery beers being available on the pumps, although the drinks range is supplemented by an extensive bottled and keg beer selection ( eg – Camden ).

This is the pub where, on the face of it, non dining drinkers might often feel not particularly welcome, but, presumably largely because of the existence of the on site microbrewery, this would certainly not appear to be the case here.

Probably best avoided at weekends – as suggested by the CAMRA London Pub Walks book- but, at all other times, you should certainly make the effort to call in if the opportunity presents itself.

Finally, do take the opportunity to look at the information board on the pavement outside shows the varying architectural styles along North Hill

On 1st November 2013 - rating: 7
[User has posted 560 recommendations about 560 pubs]


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john gray left this review about The Bull

A food led pub but with its in -house brewery London Brewing.The house beers are very good and they bring out new ones regularly.Good but expensive range of foreign beers as well.Typical Gastro pub layout with more seating for diners than drinkers.Feels comfortable to me so I rate it highly.

On 16th September 2013 - rating: 8
[User has posted 1023 recommendations about 1009 pubs]


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Will Larter left this review about The Bull

Someone has enjoyed a little joke with the pub sign, which has been replaced with the silhouettes of a bison, a giraffe and a deer, presumably all three are meant to be male and therefore bulls, of a sort - though surely a male deer is a stag? There's a smart new patio in front of the pub, which is set back slightly from the road.

Inside it's also very smart, and there's a variety of chairs and tables of various ages and designs, some possibly genuinely old, most probably modern reproductions (happy to be corrected by any experts reading this). There wasn't a lot on the walls by way of decoration, though I spotted a few memorabilia from American breweries.

When I called in here on a Friday afternoon recently there were three ales and a cider on the five hand pumps: all three beers were pale and hoppy, varying from Oakham Citra (4.2%) through Dark Star APA (4.7%) to Thornbridge Jaipur (5.9%). The music was at a level that was compatible with conversation.

Returning on the following evening, the hand pumps, all now in use, featured a couple of London Brewing Co beers, of which I drank one and failed to make a note of the name of the other. The one I drank was called Beer Street (4.0%) and was initially extremely bitter but seemed to settle down after a while and ended up being well balanced. An unusual performance.

The music, on the other hand, which was tolerable at first was suddenly turned up a notch at 9.30 and made conversation impossible, so we went across the road to the Victoria. The atmosphere in the Bull was pleasant and the staff friendly, but if I return it will have to be afternoon and early evening only.

On 8th February 2012 - rating: 6
[User has posted 3699 recommendations about 3440 pubs]


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Steve of N21 left this review about The Bull

After being shut for well over 18 months, The Bull reopened in August as a brewpub and the home of the fledgling London Brewery company and is now under the management of Mr Dan fox, the former manager of the White Horse in Parsons Green.
I presume now decorated throughout with bit of a Gastro pub feel with the usual sterile clean interiors, wood flooring throughout the large internal space, half bright white walls and white ceilings and not a lot of wall decor to give the place a great deal of character.
But, in saying that, better this guise than the previously boarded up pub, especially as the central bar area has six handpumps dispensing four guests along with the berweries own 'Beer Street' and 'Nervous Energy' brews. The seasonal Dark Star Hylder Blonde and the Beer Street were both good pints, so first impressions were that this is a very good start and one to be watched.
I didn't eat, but plenty were and the menu looked extensive allbeit a bit pricey for a normal pub fare.
And there is a decent sized secluded outdoor area as well..
Good stuff, another one saved.

On 16th October 2011 - rating: 8
[User has posted 2094 recommendations about 1985 pubs]