Old Blue Last, Shoreditch, EC2

Imposing corner pub, featuring a tapered floor plan with a rounded point. Dominated by the former Truman, Hanbury, Buxton & Co's signage both on the exterior (for Entire, high above the main Saloon Bar doors) and within (for its range of ales and stouts, on the bar-back). Although hardly large, the bar feels somewhat cavernous due to the high ceiling, bare boards and seating limited to the peripheral benches with a few small tables alongside. Also has a compact lounge and the live music venue upstairs. Just Runner (£4.80, the modern-day Truman incarnation) and Doom Bar available from the four handpumps when I visited, together with the eponymous lager from Vice / AB InBev on the keg taps.

The exterior is very fine and the Truman ,Hanbury and Buxton sign at the top of the building is terrific.This theme carries on inside with a most attractive bar back with their insignia and I suppose the owners felt they had to have Truman's ales ,although there is nothing specials about their brews.There are several doors to the open plan interior hinting at a previous layout of seperate rooms,but at least the interior has a pleasing bench seat running around the periphery ,with traditional wooden furniture.There is a hidden rear snug with red leather seating but it's small and has no windows.There is an upstairs bar and "live "area unexplored by me.A flatscreen was off,and inoffensive muzak chuntered away. It's popular with local hipsters and the bar sports a lot of keg taps,but these were either multinational dross ,or multinations pretending to be craft beer purveyors having bought the likes of Camden,Goose Island and Blue Moon.The 4 handpumps were offering Doom Bar,Trumans FireStarter and Runner (doubled up).My Runner was in poor nick and was woefully short of a full pint,and in future I will leave this pub to the hipster audience,despite the interesting features.

I warmed to this one a bit more than previous reviewers but possibly because I had come here from the Merchants Tavern which was as far from a traditional pub than you can possibly get. Firstly, it is a fantastic grand Truman pub building from the outside which has been tastefully restored to its original prime and is well lit at night and the advertising hoarding referred to below was nowhere in evidence. Secondly, it’s got a great seedy back history as eluded to by Pub Sign man below. And thirdly all four beer pumps were in operation and alongside Sharps Doombar and Atlantic there was Truman’s Runner and Firestarter and the Runner was a well-kept pint. Yes, it is a fairly stripped out bare interior and the focussed on the pub being a music venue, but for my visit there was no banging music sound track and the Thursday evening before Christmas the pub was not too rammed to be uncomfortable.

The reviews below sum this pub up nicely as it is in effect a banging live music venue for crusties, attractive but ruined by being covered in a permanent advertising hoarding; how did they get planning permission for this??? Dark inside, even on a sunny evening with basic furniture, and very little of it; music was very loud. Ales: Sharp's Doom Bar and Atlantic which was fine but so it should be at an eye-watering £4.50 a pint. This definitely isn't my sort of place for so many reasons, so I won't be returning.

This pub had on three ales when I visited on Wednesday lunchtime – Truman’s Runner, the Adnam’s pair of Mosaic Pale and Fat Sprat. There was no sign of any food. This is a fairly basic pub, where comfort doesn’t seem to be regarded as a priority. It’s bare-boarded with grimy old boards, and furnished with round metal framed tables, small round stools, plus three banks of recycled theatre seats by the windows. The most notable feature, which dominates the room, is the enormous Truman, Hanbury and Buxton Brewery mirror behind the bar. There’s also some shelving alongside the mirror bearing models of (or possible even stuffed) animals, plus a couple of stags heads on the the wall. But the current raison d’etre of this pub is as a music venue. I saw a sign directing one upstairs for the “gigs/club nights”, but obviously I didn’t venture up there. I guess music being their forte is the reason why there was thumping music playing loudly in the bar area. It might be a great music venue, but as a pub it’s not really my kind of place.

This is a fairly grand looking pub, built by the Truman's Brewery back in 1876 on the site of an older pub called 'The Last'. The pub went through a dubious phase from the 1970's to 1990's, operating as an illegal strip bar and brothel before falling into total disrepair and closing. In 2004 it was bought by Vice magazine who have done a lot of work to bring it back into operation as a pub and live music venue. A lot of famous artists like Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, Florence and the Machine and the Arctic Monkeys (whose performance culminated in the ceiling collapsing) have played here on their rise to fame. The pub still maintains an impressive façade, best appreciated from the other side of the road, and there are still two sets of doors signed 'Saloon Bar', leading into the angular main bar. The room is bare boarded with the servery on the back wall and your eye is immediately caught by the huge Truman's mirror on the bar back - a great survivor from the pub's early days. The bar back also boasts a collection of stuffed and model birds and animals, whilst a shelf next to the bar held a stack of Vice magazines for customer's perusal. Low stool and padded bench seating runs around the perimeter of the room which boasts some nice high wood panelling lined with distracting World Cup flags. There were a few large TV screens dotted around the room which were turned off on my visit, in favour of music, although this was a rest day during the World Cup and I suspect the football would otherwise have been shown. A small side room to the right of the bar had some comfy seating serving a few tables in what felt a bit like a smoking room. Stairs lead up to a second bar, live music venue and nightclub, unexplored on this visit. There are four hand pumps on the bar, but one was unclipped when I arrived, leaving a choice of Adnams Fat Sprat, Truman's Runner and Five Points Pale. The latter turned out to be a fairly decent drink and I was served by one of the efficient bar staff who swiftly dealt with the pre-gig surge that materialised around the time I happened to arrive. I couldn't quite warm to this place, despite the nice building, decent beer and interesting history. I think the large open space makes it feel a bit bare and impersonal which is a shame as it's good to see that a lot of effort has gone into keeping this place open. It's worth a look in passing, but I expect a return visit would need to incorporate a gig rather than just a drink.

The Old Blue Last looks slightly odd standing alone with modern office blocks surrounding it. Once inside the pub was very basic and it is a music pub with live groups playing most nights as it was late afternoon the pub was empty. There were no real ales on here and the only bitter was John Smiths smooth crap so i had a Guinness. I saw this pub in a bad light as it was empty and no groups were playing it might have been a lot better later in the evening. Pub visited 21/8/2008

Official site of the Old Blue Last - www.theoldbluelast.com