Katzenjammers, Borough Market, SE1

Buried underneath The Hop Exchange building, the Bierkeller and restaurant can be found under a low, barrel-vaulted, brick ceiling, with the Bierhall below open at certain times. The bar area is crammed with tables, but these were all either taken or reserved for those dining, so space was starting to become a problem for those just looking for a drink or waiting for the oom-pah fun to start downstairs... Very good selection of 11 German beers from the various traditional and modern founts along the counter, from which range I went for Paulaner's Hefe-Weißbier Dunkel (£5.60) for my brief stop.

As a frequent visitor to Munich on business, visiting a plastic Bavarian bierkeller in London has never really appealed. But got pulled in here the other night on a Borough crawl when I lost the vote on where to go next and I have to say they’ve done a good job here and it’s quite authentic. Very good range of German beers, lots of dark wood décor, long wooden tables mentioned below that you are expected to share with complete strangers in the real thing (less inhibitions these Germans), and the waft of sauerkraut and sausages pervading through the rooms. In fact the only areas that were not aligned to my experiences of the real thing were the beer prices, that sadly were significantly higher than what I pay for a dunkel weissbier in the bierkeller close to my firms Munich office, and the dressed up beer maids, who were far too petite and pretty compared to the real Bavarian serving wenches, and were struggling to carry two steins to a table. They wouldn’t last five minutes in the real thing where I’ve seen the female versions of Geoff Capes regularly carry six steins from the bar.

A great place if you want to try different German beers on draught that are a bit different to the usual ones found elsewhere in the UK. Service used to be at the table but in recent months the bar has been extended across the lenght of the back wall and normally service is now at the bar, although I have been in there when they will serve at the table on busy nights such as a Friday. There is often an Oompah band on Friday evenings. The sausage dishes are very nice but are dearer than your normal pub food. Shame you cant walk through to the Wheatsheaf next door as you could start off on a German session then migrate to the English ales(or vice versa) without having to go outside when its raining hard!

Official site of Katzenjammers, contains beer list and menu - www.katzenjammers.co.uk

Official site of Katzenjammers, contains beer list and menu - www.katzenjammers.co.uk