The Bridge Tap, SE1

This large, modern pub close to London Bridge station and Borough Market, occupies a former branch of the Slug & Lettuce chain and has a good-sized, single room interior with attractive polished parquet flooring, large windows around three sides with massive blinds partly drawn to balance out the lighting, and plain painted walls. Seating is nicely varied throughout, with high tables and stools dominating the back wall, benches through the centre and tables and chairs elsewhere, plus some banquette booths next to the bar. The servery is to the right and has an unusual multi-coloured counter with a smart top and a part bare brick, part timbered bar back. A mural detailing the brewing process has been stencilled across the top, although I’m not aware of this place being affiliated with any particular brewer, and some small beer tanks can also be found back here, as well as a neon sign declaring that “Craft Is King”. TV screens dominate the room, most of them showing live cricket on my visit, with some barely audible music playing somewhere in the background. Decor is otherwise quite limited, with a couple of display cabinets housing beer bottles and other such breweriana being about as exciting as it gets. Four handpulls were dispensing three cask ales – Fullers London Pride, Sharps Solar Wave and Southwark Bankside Blonde – with the final pump unclipped. I was served by a comically rude barman who gave an enormous amount of good-natured grief to a poor punter who accidentally walked off with his pint before paying. Thankfully he was more forgiving to me and served up a reasonably good drop of the Bankside Blonde, which I enjoyed drinking whilst watching the cricket. I thought this was a pretty good example of a modern, city centre bar that seems to have wide appeal if the good midweek crowd was anything to go by. It’s not really a challenger to some of the areas top alehouses and craft beer bars, but it definitely makes a nice alternative and I can only presume it’s a significant upgrade on the Slug & Lettuce that went before it. Date of visit – 1st August 2023

Warm,busy and cavernous with Christmas music bouncing off the hard surfaces making it anything but comfy.Large tv,s dominate.Three cask beers Duechers,Doom and Pride so common I don't need to mention the brewers.10 keg beers and Beavertown-neck oil didn't disappoint.Leave it to the young ones.

This place has definitely shifted up a notch or two since its Slug & Lettuce days (not that I visited then, but I'm sure I'm not wrong!). There were four real ales on - Doom Bar, Gales Seafarers, Wantsum Bridge Tap, and Bermondsey Best (£4.40). Not cheap, but par for the area I guess. There were menus on all the tables, with offerings mainly of the "fast food" variety such as burgers and pizze - a clasic burger with chips is £9. There are some booths on the left, some tall tables/tall stools near the bar counter, and some normal tables and chairs crammed in nearer to the front. There was no carpet on the floor to soak up any superflous noise - of which there was a lot - but the floor was an attractive herringbone parquet. Customers looked to be of a transient nature, with several seemingly unaware of how food and drinks are obtained in UK pubs, and with most looking as if they were grabbing a quick bite and a drink before heading off for somewhere. It was busy, noisy and frenetic on the Saturday afternoon when I visited. There were four large TV screens mounted on the walls and as far as I could see no-one was paying them any attention. The bar counter front consists of brightly coloured wooden blocks; behind the servery there was a depiction of the brewing process on the wall, as well as a bright neon sign proclaiming that "craft is king". This is a bright and modern sort of place, but clearly too crowded and too noisy to be comfortable spending any length of time - well, I wouldn't want to anyway. It's not my sort of place, but the introduction of real ale is certainly an improvement on its former incarnation.

Official site of The Bridge Tap - www.craft-pubs.co.uk

Official site of The Bridge Tap - www.craft-pubs.co.uk