BrewDog Camden, Camden Town, NW1

Its a craft bar and they are what they are love em or hate em. I love their beers and don't mind their places, this one is a small single room as described by Tris below, there is also some downstairs seating but this was roped off on my lunchtime visit. There were around 8 BrewDog beers on tap plus around four guests, i stayed Dog and tried Dead Pony Club and Jet Black Heart, both to my taste if not a little pricey, but this was expected. I would have no problem calling in again, but unlikely to be in this neck of the woods too often.

I came here once with a friend in the late 1980s when this was trading under its original pub name of The Laurel Tree - we didn't go in as the customers looked a bit scary. Today, it's not the hipster customers who are scary, rather it's the area itself; this isn't exactly the Camden Town of Allen Bennett or Jonathan Miller. The split level interior's very faux industrial with industrial lamps, filament bulbs, bare brick, lighting ducts and metal chequerplate flooring. Furniture comprises booths or stupid little high tables and beer is advertised on a cinema-style illuminated board above the bar. Muted music played over the gramophone, Verve's ubiquitous Bitter Sweet Symphony. Ales: as with all craft beer ventures of this nature, I couldn't decipher the departure board so plumped for a half of Live Dead Pony Club craft at a blistering £2.50. It was ok and so it should be at that price. We knew this wouldn't be our thing but at least I finally got to tick The Laurel Tree off my list, in one way or another.

This is the first London outlet for craft keg merchants BrewDog, which opened at the end of 2010. Located in a Camden side-street on the premises of a former restaurant, it’s a fairly small two-floor operation. The basement was closed when I visited due to a reservation-only tasting session, so the irregular evening punters were squeezed in upstairs (the basement, I am told has its own bar and a load of board games). The ground floor area is decorated in a fairly minimalist manner with a mixture of grey painted, exposed stone and wood-covered walls. Of interest was the large solid granite bar top, a nod to the brewery’s home in northern Scotland. At the bar were a load of black unbranded keg taps (no cask here of course). You have to look up to a blackboard to see what’s actually on, which is an irritation especially on a cold day when my glasses were too steamed up to be able to see properly. I eventually worked out that there were around 10 tap beers available, a number of BrewDog’s own plus a few from various small ‘craft’ breweries from the UK and beyond. ABV’s were generally well-above 5% and, as stated elsewhere, measures were far from uniform so you need to do a double mental calculation to work out whether you were getting a half, two-thirds or (gasp) a pint for your money and how that actually works out per mouthful, if you will. Prices were fairly steep for many of the beers which, whilst I wouldn’t begrudge for imported stuff, struck me as rather excessive for the UK beers that, after all, are pasteurised and kegged which gives it a much longer shelf life (weeks) than cask (about 3-4 days) and therefore a larger margin per barrel? There were also quite a number of bottled products available, with US heavily featured. Branding is quite evident, despite the ‘anti-corporate’ ramblings emanating from BrewDog HQ with ‘manifestos’ on each table; indeed I overheard someone asking a barman if they could leave some leaflets for an event only to be told that the pub doesn’t allow anything that isn’t ‘ours’. The staff were at least less obviously snotty than I anticipated given the venue and location. I tried a Beavertown 8 Ball Rye which was, inevitably, very cold but tasted OK after a few minutes of hand-warming (chilblains notwithstanding). I managed to grab a high stool at a crowded table which made for a fairly unrelaxing beer and I was disinclined to stay for another, lest I return and find my perch gone. I noted that food was offered (burgers, pizzas etc) and that, in a rare fit of humour, there was a note pinned to wall asking customers to be quiet on leaving as the neighbours “can get violent”. To be honest this isn’t really one I’d rush back to as I think the ‘Craft’ pubco brand are generally more enjoyable places to try the adventurous world of high abv/£££ keg beer in the capital.

This was the first Brewdog pub in London and celebrated its 1st birthday on 8th December 2012. Its fairly small on the main level so can get pretty crowded if the basement area isn't open. Done in a similar style to their first pubs in Scotland using old sports hall timber flooring for some of the walls and school lab tables and chairs with tungsten lamps hanging from the ceiling. The all keg dispensed beers are very similar to that as found in the USA small craft brewery bars. Today, we had the 10.1% brewdog Choc+coffee stout and it was superb but the strength and price meant we took it easy having just a half pint! They also have guest beers on with some from the USA craft brewers. If you like alternative and strog beers then this is a great place to go but if you want more traditional cask ales then you won't appreciate is quite so much.

This is the latest venue opened by Brewdog and I believe their first outside Scotland. The premises used to be a restaurant, but are now set up to showcase Brewdog's 'craft' beers, as well as a selection of rarities from the US and beyond. The thing that struck me when perusing the large blackboards above the bar, trying to decide what to order, was that almost all the beers on offer were 5% or stronger, with only Blitz and 77 Lager at lower abv's. The rest of the range included 5am Saint, Punk IPA, Hops Kill Nazis, Riptide, Hardcore IPA and a collaborative brew called Lost Dog, all of which were keg products, with no handpulls visible. I gave the 5am Saint a try, but found it was served far too cold to enjoy what I've come to know as a lovely flavoursome beer. Another problem seems to be the way the beers are priced. The blackboard lists prices for all the beers, but they are not all for the same measure, with the three or four weakest beers priced as pints, most of the others priced as halves and the Lost Dog priced as a third of a pint (£4.50). This seemingly gives them a bit of leeway to play around with their margins, as my half of 5am Saint cost me £2.10, whilst a pint was priced at just £3.95. The pub itself is a two floor set up, with some decent seating on the ground floor, including some comfy looking sofas, plus a huge selection of board games. The basement has its own, cash only bar, but with a limited range. It was showcasing four beers from the Lagunitas Brewing Company of Petaluma, California. High metal tables and stools plus a few more sofas made up the seating options. The whole place is decorated in a drab gun metal grey with some exposed brickwork and wood block sections of wall. The whole effect was pretty uninteresting and if this is what is considered to be 'punk' in this day in age then I think the word needs redefining. There was however, a good crowd in for a Sunday evening, so at least there was a bit of atmosphere. I'd been looking forward to visiting this place and testing out the keg versions of beers that I know and like. However, I found the whole thing pretty average at best, with the beer so cold as to make it tasteless, the pricing expensive and confusing and the decor drab and depressing. I think I would give this place another try, at least because there aren't many better alternatives in this part of town, but when compared to some of London's other 'craft' beer venues, Brewdog are lagging some way behind.

Official pages of BrewDog Camden - www.brewdog.com

Brewdog opens daily at noon and closes at 23:30 Monday to Thursday, Midnight Friday and Saturday and 22:30 on Sunday. This isn’t the best location tucked from the main drag and a scribbled note on the wall by the door asks customers to keep the noise down when leaving as “our neighbours can get violent”, I’m sure they can! This isn’t a very big venue, but thankfully it wasn’t very busy during my Wednesday lunchtime visit last week. Some of the seating was reserved for a group who came in just after me, but I grabbed a table by the window to sup on my pint of 4.9% 77 lager. To be honest I wasn’t that impressed with it and thought it expensive at £4 a pint. There is an extensive list of other beers that I did not try up on the chalkboard and the bar supports eight draught dispensing posts. There was some low background music playing and some board games are available. Burgers, pizzas and bar snacks are available and apparently Masterchef winner Tim Anderson designed the menu. As it was lunchtime I decided to have the £5 cheeseburger which was nothing to write home about. Take away is available in 2.2 litre growlers that cost £6 before the beer is put in. T shirts, Hoodies and glasses are available to purchase from this company that tries to distance itself from commercial breweries. As a bar this place is good with a range of beers not found anywhere else in the area, but I prefer a good old solid boozer. I doubt that I will return.