Knowles of Norwood, West Norwood, SE27

At the risk of following the rather esteemed herd, I make this by some way my best pub of SE27 in terms of the well above average rating of 7! It is well described below but it really is a big venue and you would never guess how it stretches back off the rather busy main road outside the front. This is a Portobello Brewing establishment. There was a lager x2 and pale ale keg offering of their own making plus some other interesting keg options, including an “end of season” smoked beer from the By the Horns Brewing Co called 36 Barrels, as well as an array of more regular seen quaffs (but no Cruzcampo here). Cask wise they had their own Star and APA plus a standard choice from Five Points. The Star went down a treat. The name itself conjures up something a bit different and could imagine this place as a gentleman’s outfitters of yesteryear, with then a different type of serving staff roaming the floor with (imperial unit) measuring tapes around their necks, themselves in smart three piece attire. Suit you sir!

This is a large Antic pub on the main road through West Norwood, converted from a former shop unit in the typical, rough and ready Antic style. Initial impressions are mixed, with some tacky floor tiles, red lincrusta ceiling and tatty looking pillars through the centre of the room all looking pretty off-putting. Tables served by old school chairs run through the centre of the room with comfier options around the perimeter, including some nice wing-back chairs under the large floor-to-ceiling front windows. Despite being situated in a former 99p-style discount store, the pub’s name refers to an old hardware store that was located hereabouts, and the internal décor references this, with a large number of small drawers similar to those you might find in a hardware store, line much of the left hand wall, along with some displays behind glass screens, whilst buckets, watering cans and the like have been hung from the ceiling. The right side of the room is a bit more circumspect, with a drinking ledge and notice board giving way to the servery which has a nice curved bar counter with a padded front, a basic, featureless bar back and a portrait of the Queen as a young woman. The room’s centrepiece seems to be a large safe, which stands pride of place in the middle of the room but serves no obvious purpose as far as I can tell. Further back there are some bookshelves lined with fairy lights, mainly stocking old Lonely Planet guide books, whilst steps lead up to a banquette lined plain seating area, set in a fairly enclosed space. Continuing further along, you reach an area dominated by a pool table and eventually the door for the beer garden. Pop music was playing through the first half of my mid-week evening visit, eventually making way for the evening’s pub quiz. There were four cask ale options on this visit – Volden Session and Summer, Twickenham Redhead and a collaboration brew between Adnams and Cloudwater called So Many Different Worlds. I tried the latter and thought it was in pretty good shape although maybe not as exciting as I might have expected from such a pairing of fine brewers. This is another Antic venture that has landed in a part of London starved of decent pub options, helping to revive the local scene. I quite liked the pub’s theme and thought the ambiance and ale selection were both worthy of note. There’s a good mini-crawl to be had around this area and this place is arguably the pick of the bunch.

Large converted shop given the Antic treatment decor-wise, although the furniture is verging on the orderly (with various almost matching sets of tables and chairs). The wooden benches and planters out on the front patio area look surprisingly tidy too. The rectangular bar is partially sub-divided by bookshelf partitions; quite dark at the back but benefiting from full-height windows along the façade. Fairly modest selection of real ales from the four handpumps: Session (£3.30) and Pale from Volden, Dark Star Partridge and Naked Ladies from Twickenham.

Knowles of Norwood is a new pub that is situated on the busy shopping street. Once inside there is a large room with the bar to the mid right,the floor is tiled,the seating in the front area is mainly normal tables and chairs,there are lots of different objects hanging from the ceiling,there is another area to the rear which is bare boarded and has bench seating. There were three real ales on the bar,i had a drink of Volden Session Ale which went down well,the other beers were Volden Pale Ale and Brixton Low Voltage. The background music was decent and food was just staring to be served on my early Saturday dinner visit. This is not really my sort of pub,give me a grotty back street pub any day,but having said that the beer was nice and it seemed friendly enough. Pub visited 16/4/2016

Fairly upmarket by Antic standards in so far as the pub actually has a ceiling and there are no holes in the floor, this place is named after an erstwhile hardware store that existed in the area. To compliment this there are all sorts of tools, gauges, spanners, keys, radios and snuff tins on display while the ceiling has numerous dangling watering cans, buckets, oil cans etc. A sign above the bar states "Wattson Pier" , I have no idea what is referenced by this. Flooring is typically Antic, old vinyl tiles of several mixed generations. The bar also has a collection of meat mincing machines above the back. Food served at what looked to be reasonable prices these days, the beers on were Antic's own Volden Pale Ale plus Session Ale, Brixton Brewery Low Voltage Session IPA, Canopy Beer Co Brockwell IPA and Sharp's Coaster. One was reversed. I liked it in here, nice and buzzy inside despite it being where I watched my Grand National pick flounder dismally.

This is one of Antic's latest ventures in their rapidly expanding pub estate, having been open since November 2015. I remember this place from the 1950s when it used to be a Co-op store, with those old pulleys running across the ceiling to transport cash between the tills and the cashier. None of that's there now of course. Since its Co-op days it's also been a hardware store and in Antic's way they've put loads of old drills, chisels, keys(?), and that sort of stuff all over the place as decorations. There are buckets, pans and the like hanging from the ceiling, and to complete the absurdly retro picture they've also put a really old safe in the middle of the main room. The bar counter's on the right as you enter, with the main bar area in the front and to the left of it, furnished with Antic's usual cheap tables and chairs. The room stretches back past a few banquettes, a bookcase with more odds and ends on it to a further seating area at the back. The ales on were Purity UBU, and a couple of their house ales - Volden Pale Ale and Volden Porter. I had a pint of the latter and it was a cracking pint, and very welcome on a cold February day. And it was at a decent price as well, at £3.50 for a 5.2% beer. Single sheet menus are on all the tables. Small plates are £6 upwards. I swerved the red & white quinoa, and the Shetland Islands mussels in favour of something from the large plates list - the cheese and bacon burger plus chips for 10 (which turned out to be £10). This pub is typical Antic. They had a good number of people in on Saturday lunchtime, almost all with babies in buggies, or at least with sprogs in tow, so I guess you would have to regard it as a family friendly establishment. Three ales on isn't particularly good by Antic's standards (there were also three unclipped handpumps) but as there was one that I fancied I wasn't complaining. I actually quite like Antic pubs as they usually have on something that I like to drink, and their beer prices are quite reasonable by London standards. I would be happy to visit this one again.

Official site of Knowles of Norwood - knowlesofnorwood.com