The Perseverance, Bloomsbury, WC1

Official site of The Perseverance - www.theperseverance.co.uk

Official site of The Perseverance - www.theperseverance.co.uk

One room standard pub with no real ales of any strength and usual keg offerings. Nothing special.

Close to Great Ormond Street Hospital and a short walk from Russell Square tube station, this is a single room, bare boarded pub with its own on-site brewery. The servery is sited on the rear wall with a dark wood counter and bar back and some nice checked tiles around the floor. The room is half panelled with some pretty awful London-themed wallpaper above. Comfy banquettes run along the front and left walls under some partly obscured windows with the pub's name, 'Ales & Stouts' and 'Wines & Spirits' picked out. A row of standard tables and chairs runs through the centre of the room, opposite the bar, and on into the right hand section. Above there is a nice lincrusta ceiling with some decorative lamp fittings. Beers are listed on a board to the side of the bar, albeit the list was hopelessly out of date and didn't represent a single beer that was actually available, whilst the wine list is detailed on another board behind the bar. Music was playing throughout my visit, but this turned out to be another gentrified city pub with no soft furnishings to dampen down the noise, so the general hubbub became an almost deafening racket as a result. The pub opened its own microbrewery in the basement a couple of years ago and I was hopeful that I might get to sample a few of their own Bloomsbury beers. The blackboard raised my hopes, with three or four home brews listed, but the handpulls told a different story, with only one of the four actually in operation, offering Bloomsbury Spring. I tried a pint which was pretty terrible and I wasn't surprised to see this beer also taken off soon after. 12 keg taps offered a good, wide selection, which in hindsight might be preferable to enduring another home brew, and there was a strong bottled beer line-up as well. I was quite excited about visiting this brewpub and looked forward to drinking beers brewed on site, but not only was the range down to a single option, but it was also clearly well past its best. The place was fairly bland and the noise with a full Friday evening crowd made it even less appealing. I thought this place could do so much better and it was disappointing to find a pub that was well known in former days for its excellent ale, falling so far.

A genuine brewpub (Bloomsbury Brewery). Interior is a fairly bog standard L-shape, with original large arch windows alongside banquette seating. Look up to note the unusual ceiling with gold squares. There’s a working dumb waiter by the bar for the food deliveries. Four pumps, with three of theirs on; Best, Pale and Winter. Tasting thirds available but the paddles were all out, so I had a half of the Winter which was a decent brew in good nick. As noted below, a good keg selection – 2x Camden, 2x London Brewing Co, Sam Adams. Bar serviced by an overworked but professional lass. I thought it was decent enough in here and seems to have come on a bit since the majority of reviews were written back in the day.