The Pigeon, Camberwell, SE5

An Anspach & Hobday owned craft bar, it's a long shop conversion divided into two rooms,the bar area is at the front with stools and drinking shelves as seating options. Theres ten wall mounted keg taps behind the bar of which eight were operational during my visit, two from A & H, a Cider and a Lager the remaining four were from Exale Brewing, the remnants of a tap takeover a couple of days earlier. There are also four fridges with craft cans, continental bottles as well as wine. The rear room had plenty of standard tables and chairs for more relaxed seating, there was also a dartboard in here. It's an OK sort of place but not outstanding, I would look in again though.

This is a small shop-converted bar opened by the Anspach and Hobday Brewery – a proper bar, unlike their two taproom bars in Bermondsey and Croydon. There is a very simple two-room set-up in operation, with a front bar and sales area and a rear seating space. The front bar has a modern quarry stone floor with whitewashed walls and a pretty ugly chipboard bar counter to the rear right. Seating is limited to high stools along a couple of drinking ledges – one down the left-hand wall and another in an L-shape under the front window. The right wall also has space for some fridges packed full of bottle and can options available to either drink in or take out, as well as a display of various spirits and another showcasing items of brewery merchandise. The walls have been decorated with beer mats, pump clips and small shelves holding single beer bottles or potted plants. Things narrow considerably once you’ve passed the bar, though a kind of neutral space before opening out again into the rear seating area where most customers could be found. Standard tables and chairs have been arranged down both sides of the room and the bare bricks walls are decorated with framed pictures and a potentially unplayable dartboard. Both rooms have a large TV screen which lists the full draught selection and there were decent indie tunes playing quietly in the background. One additional bench with an upturned barrel table has been put out on the pavement and seemed surprisingly popular with passing cyclists, with no less than three stopping off in succession for a quick drink there whilst I was enjoying my pint in the much warmer surrounds of the front bar. Eight Anspach and Hobday beers were available on keg dispense along with a guest from The Kernel and a cider from Hogans. I tried the A&H Pale Ale, which was £4.95 for a pint and pretty tasty – this had been one of my go-to beers in the early part of lockdown, so it was nice to try some out in the wild, so to speak. The barman, who had already turned me away from the pub earlier in the evening due to it being full, turned out to be very friendly, offering me a seat in the front window which was free for the next 30 minutes and then later popping over to advise me that the table was no longer needed and that I could take as long as I liked. This is a fairly basic shop-converted craft beer bar that I thought worked well as part of a mini-crawl around Camberwell, but perhaps doesn’t quite stand up fully on its own merits. The back room seemed comfortable enough and I quite like some of A&H’s beer, but others may well find that their mileage varies.

This is owned by Ansbach and Hobday brewery.Long rectangular basic bar.Temperary feel about it with lots of unfinished plywood.Couple of dart boards for the sporty types.Hated the poncy 1/3 glasses.Mouldy toilets.9 keg beers on from A+H and guest beers from Wicklow Wolf.Reasonable prices.

Official site of The Pigeon - www.anspachandhobday.com

Official site of The Pigeon - www.anspachandhobday.com