The Blue Anchor, Bermondsey, SE16

This place dates from the late 18th century, rebuilt in 1895 with a Courage sign bracket remaining, its golden cockerel having flown, for reasons I was about to find out. This is one of two Craft Union pubs along Southwark Park Road, being by far the ‘livelier’ of the two and the Queen Victoria is hardly sedate. There’s patterned wallpaper along with games machines, darts, sport with the sound off, eclectic mixed framed prints and a modern white tiled bar back. What wasn’t so predictable was the near nightclub experience at 9.20pm on a Friday evening, with pounding music and flashing lights; it was like being in a noisy pub on New Year’s Eve, customers being young with some women in skimpy dresses. There was real ale in the form of Pride and a reversed Doom clip, me going for a half of Stella, served by a rather surly landlady, payment made via a single, fixed terminal behind four deep at the other side of the bar. Once I’d managed to negotiate my way round through the horde, I could just about reach it, outstretched card in hand, only to find out that I’d been charged for a pint at £4.45 and as it was simply too difficult to deal with the all the noise and the throng, I thought I’d let it go. Not feeling comfortable from the outset, this is a poor pub, easily the worst of my five-hole Bermondsey crawl.

Official site of The Blue Anchor - www.craftunionpubs.com

Official site of The Blue Anchor - www.craftunionpubs.com

Real ale was advertised on a board on the wall outside the pub, but all four handpumps had Courage Best clips reversed, leaving keg John Smiths (£2.50 a pint) as the only bitter option. There was no sign of food or menus on Wednesday afternoon. This is a large-ish single room pub, with a central peninsular bar. Seating is mainly normal tables and chairs, but there were a couple of sofas lurking by one of the side walls. At the back on the left is a blue (of course) baize covered pool table, and of course a couple of the walls are painted blue. There were a handful of black and white prints scattered around the walls, but what really got my attention here (I really had no choice in this) were the three large TVs on walls showing the snooker with the volume turned up to an inordinately high level. I can’t see any reason to want to re-visit this pub.