Williams Ale & Cider House, Bishopsgate, E1

Despite being a street level, this place has something of a cellar feel to it, with much bare brick and dim lighting. Not unpleasant however and more of a local feel than most in the area. The front bar has a splendid selection of 7 casks and 9 decent keg beers (or thereabouts), while the rear part of the bar has 7 handpumped ciders and perries. Breweries represented included By the Horns, New River, Trumans and Old Dairy as well as a couple of GK. At the back are a couple of dartboards and the odd sports TV.

All decent enough - nice decor, plenty of ale choice - all interesting. Quiet on a monday night at 9pm - I guess the target audience of after work drinkers had braved the trains. Photos at my blog - http://bit.ly/2dB9wGI

This pub is unchanged since previous reviewers' visits. The ale choice here really is superb - when I visited on Thursday evening they had on GK IPA (well it is a Greene King pub), Spitalfields Brew (also GK I believe), something called Winter Gold, Windsor & Eton Tree Tops Stout, Bedlam Brewery Pilgrim, St Austell Proper Job, and Old Dairy Gold Top. These were on a bank of pumps at the corner of the counter as you enter, but there were more pumps along the bar counter, perhaps for the ciders. They did serve food with extra adjectives - British gammon, hens' eggs, and skin on chips (i.e. ham, egg & chips) is £10.50. Beer battered north sea haddock, etc, etc, is £11.50. There are essentially a couple of rooms here, with a second room reached via exposed brickwork arches on the right. It's comfortable enough in here, and the ale selection makes it a winner. It's definitely one of the better places in the area to get a decent pint.

Actually amazed Greene King have produced something like this, a fine, dark pub with brick arches to booth seating on one side, lots of draft beers & ciders and all round good place near Liverpool Street station. Ok, it plays to recent trends but it makes for a lovely place. The beer quality wasn't perfect (though it was good) and I would like to go back to see if this is a one off, but still enough here to make a really good pub.

You enter to a reasonably sized main room with lots of exposed brickwork, the bar is along the left hand side wall and is split by a bulkhead wall with a street sign affixed above "Whitechapel E1". The handpulled ales feature in the front part of the bar and the ciders through into the rear section. There is another side room accessed via arched openings in the wall. There are a multitude of old framed brewery advertisements plus an old road map of North London, I also spotted a mounted guitar towards the rear and there was a upright piano painted sky blue with clouds. There were a stack of games on a shelf under a brick arched window. Quite a bit of Truman's memorabilia about, perhaps once one of theirs, although now Greene King have it. It is part of GK's Metropolitan branch which means their own beers do not major leaving the pub open to serve a real variety. Ales were Spitalfields Brew (GK I'd guess), Portabello Autumn Red, Sambrook's Battersea Rye, Redemption Trinity, ELB Nightwatchman, Aylesbury Brewing Co Curiousity and Triple fff Team Spirit (£4.00). A clear non-dimpled jug appears to be the default vessel. Snacks offered were scotch eggs, sausage rolls and home made scratchings, proper pub staples. Most of the five or so ciders to the rear had hand written clips so I am unsure as to their provenance, all however are "proper", no Strongbow etc here. One was 8.4%. Seating was mixed, high tables and drinking shelves to the front bar area, proper tables in the side room and a couple of banquettes at the far end. A wall mounted case looked like it might contain a dartboard but it wouldn't be usable. There are a couple of TVs, the rugby was advertised so sports are shown but not sure if regularly. This is an excellent pub, there are some good choices around Liverpool St station, this one is right up there.