The Water Poet, Shoreditch, E1

A pretty backstreet pub, with a London-wide reputation but due to close imminently (redevelopment). The main bar is a fairly open L space with bare stripped board flooring and a slightly odd red maroon and gold colour scheme, bordello-esque. There's some quasi gothic stylings off on the side wall – barque mirrors and that sort of garb. A couple of rooms for dining branch off behind so it's actually a deceptively large place. A bank of four handpumps as you enter with another two hoiked away off left which I didn't see until after I ordered. Three ales on despite it being the penultimate day of trading; Sharps Doom Bar, Redemption Fellowship and Purity Mad Goose (NBSS 2) which tasted fusty. It's an average pub, just a bit dressed up in stylings to appeal to the first wave of hipsters and city suits who think they’re a bit edgy. 5.5

Large,rambling pub close to Liverpool Street Station.Would probably be pleasant out of hours, but by five thirty on a warm June Saturday it was packed and deafening.My notes said "hell hole", a touch unfairly. Our group all agreed that the cask ales-Siren Craft Liquid Mistress and Thornbridge Jaipur IPA were on the warm side.Other cask beers included ones from Redemption and Truman's.

Clearly a very trendy place in which to be seen. Unfortunately the place was rammed and service was nigh-on unavailable so we left. Visited autumn 2016.

First opened in 1992 as the tongue-twisting Pewter Platter Tavern, this is a large, multiple room pub set down a side street between Liverpool Street and Shoreditch High Street stations. You enter into an open main bar area which offers plenty of standing room in an L-shaped space with the servery to the rear right. The bar has a dark wood counter and bar back with some retro bubble lamps shades suspended above. Large windows along the front and right hand walls allow a bit of light in from the narrow street outside and a row of high tables and stools run underneath with several button backed sofas and standard chairs over to the left under some elaborately framed mirrors and a TV screen showing live football. Further back there are some tub chairs, a fireplace with a fancy mirror above and a skeleton sat in a chair under a top hat which has been pinned to the wall. A door to the left leads into a games room - a narrow, wood panelled space with two pool tables and limited seating options. A passage to the rear of the main room has a single sofa next to a kitchen serving hatch and a nice relief artwork and leads to a dining room to the right with bar access and some formally arranged tables ideal for those wanting food. Both the games room and dining room had their own TV screens showing the same football fixture. Further back, you emerge into a covered garden with long rows of picnic benches and thousands of fairly lights, which created a nice effect when lit during the hours of darkness. An uber-hip soundtrack played throughout the pub and there was a good mid-week, post-work buzz about the place, which was mainly frequented by a younger crowd, with a conspicuous absence of suits. There were six ales available on handpull - Truman's Swift and Zephyr, Sharps Doom Bar, Thornbridge Jaipur, Purity Mad Goose and Dark Star Partridge. I hadn't tried Jaipur for a good year or two, so decided to have a pint, which was in good condition but didn't seem to pack the same kind of punch I recall from drinking it in the past. Reasonable bottle and keg beer options were also available. I didn't really have any expectations for this place, which I only visited because I passed an A-board they'd left on the main road which reminded me of the pub's existence. However, it turned out to be a pretty good venue, with a nice atmosphere, separate areas to suit different customer groups and good beer. For all of Shoreditch's trendy reputation, I still find it tricky getting hold of good cask ale in the area, so this place is definitely somewhere I'll refer back to in the future.

It's difficult to know where to start with this pub - so let's start with the beer. They had on Doom Bar; the Truman's pairing of Zephyr and Swift; Purity Mad Goose; Redemption Urban Dusk; and Thornbridge Jaipur. There should be something there for most people's taste. They obviously do food, and although I didn't see a menu I spotted a chalkboard offering "small plates" - a half pint of unshelled prawns was £6. The pub itself is larger than it appears from the outside, although it's apparently now been extended into three properties. The main bar area as you enter (the one with the full range of ales) has a couple of tall tables/tall stools, plus a bit of unusual decor in the form of an industrial size weighing machine. The pool room is still there on the left; and as you walk back to the left past the servery there's an area with sofas and armchairs; and off to the right behind the servery is another fairly large room with a fair number of normal tables and chairs. One of my companions was somewhat intrigued by the models of cherubs on the wall by the entrance to this room, as this is apparently not the sort of thing you see in pubs where he lives. This room also has its own small bar counter, but the couple of real ales available here were repeats of those to be found in the main bar. At the back behind this area was a large outside area - mostly covered but with an uncovered area that would no doubt be used by smokers. I found this to be an intriguing pub. The ale selection is very good, and the Mad Goose I had was on fine form. We were in there early evening before it got too busy, and when it was easy to get a table in the back room, but I'm sure that it's the sort of place that would get very busy later on. But I would happily visit this one again.

A large sprawling kind of pub with two main bars plus some covered areas leading to the beer garden,beers I noted were Trumans Zephyr, Purity Mad Goose, Doom Bar.Redemption Big Chief as well as something from Hackney Brewery. Very busy with city workers as you would expect but a decent stop off all the same.

Nice pub and nice staff with a good selection of real ales but at an eye watering £4.60 a pint I Do not think I will be returning again.