The Kings Stores, E1

Nice pub with a good choice of ales including Hogs Back TEA, Redemption Hopspur, Rock The Kazbek and Trumans Zephyr. I went for the latter and it was the best pint I had all day. Very friendly service. Well worth a visit.

Official site of The Kings Stores - www.kingsstores.co.uk

Official site of The Kings Stores - www.kingsstores.co.uk

Large open plan pub, beer heavy, lots of space for standing rather than seating, probably suits its location on the edge of the city

Neat and tidy plain pub close to Liverpool Street Station. At my noontime visit on a warm June Saturday it was quiet:doubtless if I'd arrived later in the day I'd have found it differently.An excellent pint of Bedlam Benchmark was taken.

This rather gloomy Greene King pub was notably quieter than many of the other pubs in the vicinity on my recent Sunday evening visit. The pub is decked out in plenty of dark wood, with a central corridor splitting the room into two distinct areas – a formal seating area to the left with lots of standard tables and chairs ideal for diners and a more open plan bar area to the right with the servery on the back wall. Both areas were notably devoid of any particular decorative touches, except for a few black and white photos on the bare brick walls, and the spacious nature of the bar area with its minimal seating options meant that it all felt rather soulless on such a quiet evening. Stairs in the middle of the pub lead up to a first floor restaurant which I didn’t get round to exploring, but I didn’t see anyone heading up there throughout my stay – indeed, it may have been closed on a Sunday. There were four beers on handpull, including an IPA from a London microbrewery which I decided to order a pint of. Unfortunately, my request for a pint of IPA was a little too unspecific, as the barman went off and duly poured me a pint of the Greene King IPA instead! I only realised what was happening at the point he was topping my pint up, so I regrettably had to put up with this uninspiring brew, which was at least in reasonably good condition. To make matters worse, after five minutes or so I discovered that the stage times of the gig I was going to in Camden that night had been brought forward, so I had to pretty much down the pint before rushing off for the tube. I thought this was a fairly unremarkable pub that certainly didn’t come across in the best light on an unusually quiet evening. The whole circumstances of my visit didn’t help matters either, but I saw enough to realise that one visit was enough for me. If you want to try a Greene King pub in this part of town, the nearby Williams Ale House is a far better bet.