Pelt Trader, Cannon Street, EC4

Strongers last line below sums it up. With so much history and beautiful buildings to drink in, I'm not sure even the lure of interesting cask could lure me here regularly. Some outside seating. Impressive choice.... settled on a Kernel Mosiac IPA after a 10 minute study of the boards.

The frontage of the Pelt Trader looks like the entrance to an office, but a couple of steps down from street level and one could be mistaken for thinking this is a cellar bar. The thirteen keg and six real ales are drawn from the back bar. There are a few high tables, but space is mostly reserved for vertical drinking. The television was switched off with no live sports signs, which wasn’t surprising! There was some niche background music playing through a very basic sound system. This place is more for lovers of beer than lovers of pubs.

You step down into this large one room venue, with a square shaped bar area positioned along the back wall. All their beers and ciders are dispensed from a tap wall along the rear wall. Along with the numerous keg options, they had a choice of five cask ales and one cider. The interior was quite dark, apart from strip lighting, positioned around the bar front and the beer wall illumination. The main features in here was a pelt traders canoe hanging from the ceiling, along with numerous black foam cubes hanging down from the ceiling, obviously to soak up noise and some pictures around the walls of pelt traders. We went for the Five Points Pale, which really hit the spot and priced at £4.20, which was reasonable for the city.

Different. Unwelcoming modern exterior leads to what feels like an underground cellar, modern fillings and underlit square bar. Good beer.