The Preston, Preston Road, Wembley

A classic North London 'circus' pub which has at least avoided being turned into a supermarket but now houses an Ember Inn, furnished in their standard style with an emphasis on food. All was not well however and something had seriously gone wrong in the cellar with Adnams, Hophead, London Pride and even Old Rosie off, rapidly joined by the Ember Pale as soon as I had tasted it. I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt, but uncleared tables and a flooded gents hit the final nails in the lid. Get it together and it could be a nice pub, but not on this showing.

Five pumps with four beers, decent selection but the pint I had was good bit lifeless. I do admire Ember for stocking a good selection of ales though.

This pub occupies a large high street corner site plot, and being such a large pub it’s something of a rabbit warren inside. This is an Ember Inns pub, so expect to see all the trademark features of this chain, such as open see-through fireplaces, burnished copper hoods and surrounds to the fireplaces, space dividing shelving with plenty off oddly shaped modernistic jars and vases, and tons of logs as decorative features all over the place. But the fact that all Ember Inns pubs share similar interior decor shouldn’t detract from the fact that they are invariably clean and reasonably comfortable. I’m not a great fan of these rambling and largely characterless pubs, but they do provide a service that many clearly appreciate, as The Preston was doing a very good trade when I was in there on Friday afternoon. There were three ales on – Brain’s SA Gold, Hobgoblin, and Young’s Bitter (£2.60 a pint). They were advertising a beer festival, but it clearly hadn’t got off the ground. They advertised one extra beer a week (which hardly counts as a festival in my book), but when I found the pump for last week’s beer – Cropton Project Green – it sported a “coming soon” clip. Food’s available all day of course, with general pub grub stuff on the menu, at pubco prices. I have to say that there are worse things to be doing on a Friday afternoon than sitting in a pub in a comfortable chair drinking a pint of Young’s Bitter at £2.60 a pint.