Queens Head, Shoreditch, E1

The Queens Head is a big and long venue with high seating either side of the front entrance and up the right-hand wall opposite the serving counter up the left. More high tables are found at the rear end of the bar where steps ascend to a large open plan seating area. Premium and craft keg were available, but it took me a while to be served when there were more staff than customers. The toilets are located downstairs adjacent to the Perivale Bar which includes shuffleboard and the draught option of Asahi, although I think this area is for private hire. This place is fine for an afterwork drink, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to revisit.

Official site of Queens Head - www.queensheadshoreditch.com

Official site of Queens Head - www.queensheadshoreditch.com

The Goose Island Brewpub is situated a few doors up from the Crown & Shuttle. I have always thought of Goose Island as being all about craft beers. But lo and behold, they actually had a couple of cask ales on - Goose Best & Siren Broken Dreams. Of the two guys behind the bar, one seemed fairly disinterested, whilst another was somewhat more helpful. But it wasn't too long before I was served. Seating is on bench seating, stretching back to brewing equipment at the rear. The bar is on the left-hand side near the entrance. I sat at one of the vacant tables near the entrance, but soon realised why those nearest the entrance were free. The wide open front doors were creating one hell of a draught and it wasn't the mildest of evenings. As expected, the craft beer selection was much wider than the real ales - Goose Island Goose Today's Haze, Orange Line, Hex Nut Brown, Island Haze, Shoreditch Porter, Sour Cherry & Tonka Bean Porter, Restrictor & Barley Wine 2021, Beak Hi! & Pilot Philly Cherry Sour. There was no sign of the doormen mentioned in the previous post on my Monday evening visit. Overall, I was suitably impressed by this place and may well be back if in the vicinity.

Smartly done up inside and out in 2018, a small fortune must have been lavished here. The interior decor is classic upmarket hipster post-industrial with stripped boards, brick walls crudely painted off-white with black stars and a load of old posters collaged. Of genuine interest is the rather fetching long curved bar featuring black and white lined tiling, as well as the brew kit at the rear. 'Merch' available but at 25 sheets for a tee and 40 for a hoodie you'd have to be a proper Shoreditch Trustafarian. Plenty of keg at the usual silly keg prices, especially so here given they brew a load of them a few feet away. However there are four cask taps, doubled up on my visit with Wild Beer Millionaire and Yeastie Boys Captain Planet which weighed in at a perhaps surprisingly OK £2.50 a half. It was excellently kept, NBSS 4. Fairly pleasant background music played on my stay. It's alright here, better than I was expecting, and certainly the ale quality helped.

Decent brew-pub, with a rectangular bar at the front and a small slightly raised seating / dining area at the back with the brew-plant behind a glass screen at the rear. Semi-modern furniture and decor (of the BrewDog variety) throughout. It looked like there were eight craft beers brewed on site, plus the regular and Midway IPAs, available from the keg taps, and two Siren guest ales - Liquid Mistress and Suspended in Olicana (£5.20) - being dispensed from the pair of handpumps at each end of the counter.