The Haggerston, E8

A small corner pub with a single and basic square room, no real ale but some interesting continental beers along with some craft on tap.

The Haggerston is a corner pub that is painted black outside. Once inside there is a smallish oblong shaped room which is bare boarded,the bar is on the right side,the seating is normal tables and chairs,there was a TV to the front which was showing Euro football. There were no real ales on the bar,i had a drink of keg Tiny Rebel Fubar which was a decent enough drink,the other keg bitter i noted was Tiny Rebel GHTBH,not sure what that means. I was happy enough having a drink in here and it kept me dry for a short while. Pub visited 11/6/2016

Renamed The Haggerston in 2008, this is quite a grand corner pub, formerly known as The Swan. This is probably the darkest and most gloomy pub I've ever been in and is clearly geared towards the 18-25 nightclub brigade with its 3.00 am licence, bare brick interior, tiled bar back, marble bar top, chandeliers and copper-clad tables. There are a few knick-knacks to add character because character is what is missing. Furniture comes courtesy of French café stools and chairs. Ales: no real ale so I opted for a half of the Chapel Down's Curious IPA which set me back £2.50. And this is Hackney. Naturally it was fizzy, tasteless and freezing cold. We knocked back our drinks and headed off into the night, which oddly was less gloomy than the pub's interior. Not surprisingly, I've no plans to return to this place in its current guise.

Ugly dull looking pub with gloomy interior.Exposed brick etc.No cask beer and 2nd division line up of keg beers.Also like last reviewer plumped for the Long Hammer ipa.Dull.

A friend recently sent me one of those ‘best of’ lists that newspapers occasionally publish, entitled ‘London’s Top 10 craft beer pubs’. There were no real surprises in there, except for the inclusion of the Haggerston – a pub I was completely unfamiliar with. Imagine my surprise when, just a couple of days later, I find myself walking past the pub in the middle of a crawl – I obviously had to go inside to see what it’s all about. The place seems pretty basic, with a decent sized single room set-up which sees the servery run down the right hand wall with a white tile bar back which sports a set of antlers and a large ‘Last Supper’ painting, whilst the counter is nicely curved and has a marble top. The room is bare boarded and has exposed brick walls, with visual distraction in the shape of a large pull-down TV screen showing a live football fixture and an eclectic range of art prints to the rear, over a DJ booth. There are standard tables and chairs to the front and running down through the middle of the room, whilst pew formed booths create a slightly more intimate seating option to the left. Surprisingly there was no music playing, with the football commentary just about audible behind the general chatter created by a decent Sunday late afternoon crowd. A passage to the rear leads out to a garden area and there are separate doors for the Gents and Ladies toilets, although unusually they both lead into the same washroom, divided by a row of sinks before further doors lead into separate toilets. The bar has three handpulls, but disappointingly they were all unclipped, so I ended up choosing from the vaguely interesting keg line up that seemed to include quite a few German Brews. I ended up with a half of the Long Hammer IPA which set me back an upsetting £3.50. It was a decent enough drop, but certainly not worth such an extortionate price. Local beers seemed to be rather thin on the ground and a cursory glance through the fridges suggested that the bottle range isn’t as extensive as you might expect from an aspiring ‘Top 10 craft beer pub’. I found this place to be a bit of a let down, especially as it had been sold to me as being in the same bracket as the likes of Craft Beer Co, Euston Tap and the like. The place might be more appealing if cask ale was reintroduced, but they seem happy to let the nearby Fox lead on that front whilst they peddle overpriced keg imports.