Clubhouse, Fulham, SW6

Visited 05/08/26 No cask. Keg offering of Guinness, Madri, Pravha, Aspall, Coors, Doom Bar, Alpacalypse. L shaped, with extra space beyond, sports bar opposite Fulham Broadway station. Bare boarded with the bar counter following the internal shape of the venue. There is some tall stool seating at the bar counter. Tall tables at the front which was opened to the busy road outside and served by tall stools, a leather sofa in the middle of the frontage facing the road and a corner leather studded banquette in the front left-hand corner. The longer part stretching to the rear is up a couple of steps on the right-hand side and has some of the same leather studded banquettes running along the right-hand wall. The rear of this side was closed off on my early evening visit after spotting the venue was open on my way elsewhere. There is a lot of red and black backlit wall panels on the right-hand side and above the corner banquette in the from left hand corner and so it felt like in busier times the venue pushes for a party vibe. There were quite a few screens showing Sky Sports News on my visit with commentary and so no background music. The left-hand edge of the bar counter takes you to a snug area behind the ground floor bar with some of the same leather banquettes and then up a couple of steps at the back of that to another seating area with its own bar counter, closed on my visit, and which connects up to the area at the rear of the right-hand side, also closed on my visit. There is a first-floor seating area with its own bar area overlooking the main road outside. Again, this area was closed on my visit. Not much for beer fans, but nice to see it open and I suspect rather busier when Chelsea are playing!

As the Swan, this was the eponymous brewery tap next door and by the mid-19th century. Now, it’s some sort of Irish themed place, with a thoroughly modernised interior with raised areas, much wood including planking to the walls, pressed metal ceiling and weird lighting schemes, which gives the place a slight feeling of being in a strip joint; not a shamrock or Guinness leprechaun’s hat in site. But there are trees and music videos played on TV, broadcast by MTV or similar. Customers though few in number, were mixed. There’s no ale of course, but a wide variety of spirits, including Muff vodka, with Guinness at £2.75 a half and fine, served by an Italian barman. This definitely is not my type of thing at all.