The Kings Arms, Bethnal Green, E2

Just off the Bethnal Green Road, the Kings Arms is another addition to East London's rapidly expanding craft beer scene. The sister pub to Islington's Earl of Essex, this place is set up in a similar fashion, with a traditional back street pub given the craft beer bar makeover and a daunting range of craft keg and cask ales available at premium prices. This place effectively has a single room layout, broken up only by the island servery which has no bar back, therefore giving you clear sightlines from one side of the pub to the other. The whole place is bare boarded with dark green wood panels on the walls and white tiled central pillars around the bar. The entrance porch has some nice etched glass which is probably the only original feature to survive the makeover. I found the seating options particularly uncomfortable, with lots of hard benches and chairs around all four sides of the room, making it difficult to settle down and the prospect of a lengthy session a whole lot less appealing. The front and left hand sides of the pub are quite bright thanks to the large windows here, but the rear, which appears to have once been a separate room, is considerably darker. To the right there is an Earl of Essex style beer board listing the cask and keg options with a drinking ledge and high stools beneath it. Elsewhere, the décor is made up of pump clips, old photographs and framed butterfly collections. Each table had a large wine style beer bottle on it, full of fresh flowers. An indie soundtrack played quietly throughout my stay, but this was drowned out by the noise coming from customers at the front of the pub, whose voices and laughter echoed loudly through a room devoid of any soft furnishings. A few clever folk had grabbed the tables outside the front of the pub, where a bit of relative peace could be enjoyed. The beer is a big draw for this place, so it was good to find an interesting selection available, comprising Sonnet 43 Steam Beer, Jones the Brewer Dennis Hopper, Tap East Coffee in the Morning and Windsor and Eton Red Rye. Three real ciders and thirteen craft keg beers made up the rest of the selection, with the cheapest cask ale priced at £3.90 and the cheapest keg at £4.00. I tried the Steam Beer, which was served by a disinterested barmaid in a dimpled pint pot. Unfortunately the beer was in pretty poor shape which didn't really help me to warm to this place. I had high hopes for this pub, given the praise this venture has received from the esteemed reviewers who preceded me, but I found the whole place pretty uninspiring, with poor beer, bland décor, surly service, uncomfortable seating and a loud, echoing environment. Clearly I've missed something here, so I'd happily give the place a second chance, but initial impressions aren't too favourable.

One month later and back in for a return visit, but this time during a mid-week evening, and pleased to report that we found the place quite busy and lively with most tables taken and there continued to be a steady stream of coming and going during the couple of hours we were here, showing that enough of the mostly young professionals and occasional beer tickers are managing to venture past the chicken shops on the High road to search this place out. Same good knowledge and service from the couple of hipsters working the bar and the Keg taps that went off were replaced quickly. And fortunately this time they had a couple of brews from the Earl of Essex so got to try the Earls, broken biscuits brown ale, and jolly good it was too. So good to find a good vibe and a good crowd on a mid-week evening which justifies an upping of my initial rating.

Entering the Kings Arms, one is faced with a line of 6 unclipped handpumps and 14 unbranded taps. Help is at hand on the wall behind the bar in the form of a large board listing the beers on offer, both cask & keg. This certainly assists in choosing the various delights, but doesn't help in identifying the style. Fortunately, there is also a beer list printed on some pretty heavyweight paper, copies of which are dotted around the island bar. The craft keg is, as usual, more expensive than the cask - in most cases considerably more so, although somewhat more reasonable than some of London's other, ahem, craft beer companies. Quality seemed to be good throughout the range and I can confirm that the Italians are completely up-to-speed with the craft beer revolution - at least 3 examples from Birra del Borgo featured and the 'Hoppy Cat' was quite splendid. So, if you're pub-crawling in the vaguely Bethnal Green area, or just fancy a good range of ales, you can't go far wrong here.