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Beer of the Week (w/e 27th April 2025) with Thuck Phat
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The Perseverance, Bloomsbury, WC1
WC1
WC1N 3NB
Reviews (Current Rating Average: 5½ of 10) see review guidelines
Blue Scrumpy left this review about The Perseverance
Quite a decent corner pub that doesn't look too promising from the outside but is now in the latest Good Beer Guide. It has a single room with toilets tucked in the far corner. With windows all around, there is plenty of natural light.
Shortly after midday opening on our Saturday visit, it was quiet with just the barmaid and one other customer. Despite seeing a large group walking in, the barmaid was friendly and chatty.
At the bar, there were 4 handpulls clipped with 3 ales and a perry. The ales were Dark Star Hophead, Belleville Northcote Best & Small Beer Pale. The perry was Heck's Farmhouse Perry. Craft beers were Camden Pale, Beavertown Neck Oil & Hidden New England IPA.
In a short stroll around 5 Bloomsbury pubs, this was my second favourite, with the Craft Beer Co. being the pick of the bunch. It was better than I had expected.
On 15th November 2024
- rating: 6
[User has posted 3040 recommendations about 3038 pubs]
Graham Coombs left this review about The Perseverance
A little corner pub which has gone down the stripped-back route: bare boards and simple furnishings with little frippery. I don't know what the upstairs room is like though. Four handpumps with London Brewing 100 Oysters Stout, Wimbledon Gold Standard, Battersea Admiral's Best and an Umbrella cider. The barman was a bit inexperienced but very friendly - I quite liked this pub.
On 27th September 2024
- rating: 7
[User has posted 3641 recommendations about 3576 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Will Larter left this review about The Perseverance
Corner pub, originally having three doors but the corner one is no longer in use. There's an elegant pillar just in front of the bar, with a capital of acanthus leaves, at a guess. Four hand pumps on the bar, with one beer just gone off, leaving a blackcurrant cider and beers from By The Horns and Fauna, a new one for me. Bushy Tail Best Bitter 3.8% was a tremendous beer, well balanced and tasty, NBSS 4 and just £6.40/pint (ouch!).
On 11th January 2024
- rating: 7
[User has posted 4273 recommendations about 3935 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Bucking Fastard left this review about The Perseverance
There is a saying.."Never Go Back" but I was tempted to pay a visit to what used to be The Sun,a real ale mecca in the late 70's and 80's and a regular haunt on a crawl from the Princess Louise ending at The Lamb.Rarely did I enter or leave the pub sober.
These days this street corner pub has been smartened up,it still retains a good exterior with etched glass and two doors but the inside is smart and lacks any earthy charm.
There is bench seating running around most of the periphery,tables are large dining types apart from a rank of high tables opposite the modest bar.There are still fine iron columns supporting the dark coloured ceiling and with a first floor dining room ,that does means only drinking is fine although food will be served throughout.The gentle jazz was calming,but the wooden floor and decor has sanitised the interior and it's all a bit dull.There is at least a quiz and the food pricing is not a rip off.2 for 1 pizzas deals on Sundays and Mondays.
There is a modest keg selection and 4 handpumps drawing Hogs Back TEA,Southwark Bermondsey Best,Watneys Ray of Sunshine and Bloomsbury London IPA (brewed on the premises,clear but a poor malty brew £4.75).
Decent enough pub but towards the end of my pint two young professional couples with their new born offspring in buggies piled into the pub ordering soft drinks, tea,coffee and food with beer for the Dads and breast feeding for the babies.That would never have happened in The Sun.
On 21st October 2018
- rating: 6
[User has posted 2936 recommendations about 2936 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
custodian 42 left this review about The Perseverance
One room standard pub with no real ales of any strength and usual keg offerings. Nothing special.
On 25th January 2017
- rating: 4
[User has posted 1693 recommendations about 1691 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Pub SignMan left this review about The Perseverance
Close to Great Ormond Street Hospital and a short walk from Russell Square tube station, this is a single room, bare boarded pub with its own on-site brewery. The servery is sited on the rear wall with a dark wood counter and bar back and some nice checked tiles around the floor. The room is half panelled with some pretty awful London-themed wallpaper above. Comfy banquettes run along the front and left walls under some partly obscured windows with the pub's name, 'Ales & Stouts' and 'Wines & Spirits' picked out. A row of standard tables and chairs runs through the centre of the room, opposite the bar, and on into the right hand section. Above there is a nice lincrusta ceiling with some decorative lamp fittings. Beers are listed on a board to the side of the bar, albeit the list was hopelessly out of date and didn't represent a single beer that was actually available, whilst the wine list is detailed on another board behind the bar. Music was playing throughout my visit, but this turned out to be another gentrified city pub with no soft furnishings to dampen down the noise, so the general hubbub became an almost deafening racket as a result.
The pub opened its own microbrewery in the basement a couple of years ago and I was hopeful that I might get to sample a few of their own Bloomsbury beers. The blackboard raised my hopes, with three or four home brews listed, but the handpulls told a different story, with only one of the four actually in operation, offering Bloomsbury Spring. I tried a pint which was pretty terrible and I wasn't surprised to see this beer also taken off soon after. 12 keg taps offered a good, wide selection, which in hindsight might be preferable to enduring another home brew, and there was a strong bottled beer line-up as well.
I was quite excited about visiting this brewpub and looked forward to drinking beers brewed on site, but not only was the range down to a single option, but it was also clearly well past its best. The place was fairly bland and the noise with a full Friday evening crowd made it even less appealing. I thought this place could do so much better and it was disappointing to find a pub that was well known in former days for its excellent ale, falling so far.
On 23rd May 2016
- rating: 5
[User has posted 3350 recommendations about 3350 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Tris C left this review about The Perseverance
By no means off the beaten track, this is a stand-alone independent pub, which used to be a regular haunt for me and my friends until about 11 years ago, so we decided to pop back. The interior is attractive enough with an interesting panelled ceiling. I don't think it has changed a bit which is encouraging, though the lavs are still cramped and I'll bet it's still rammed on Fridays. I too don't understand why the name had to change from that of The Sun to The Perseverance. There's a log burning stove, but it isn't plumbed in - what's the point? We also weren't taken by the presence of dogs and the array of sauce bottles - Sarson's Malt Vinegar and Heinz tomato ketchup on each table - which lends a rather downmarket slant to the place.
Two ales on, both brewed on site: Bloomsbury Brewery's Best Bitter and Bloomsbury Spring, which at £4.20 a pint is about right for the area. It was also a very decent drop of ale.
Worth popping back, I think this is one of the best pubs in the area, but I'd give a higher rating if the dogs and sauce bottles were consigned to the history books.
On 9th May 2016
- rating: 5
[User has posted 2208 recommendations about 2165 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Quinno _ left this review about The Perseverance
A genuine brewpub (Bloomsbury Brewery). Interior is a fairly bog standard L-shape, with original large arch windows alongside banquette seating. Look up to note the unusual ceiling with gold squares. There’s a working dumb waiter by the bar for the food deliveries. Four pumps, with three of theirs on; Best, Pale and Winter. Tasting thirds available but the paddles were all out, so I had a half of the Winter which was a decent brew in good nick. As noted below, a good keg selection – 2x Camden, 2x London Brewing Co, Sam Adams. Bar serviced by an overworked but professional lass. I thought it was decent enough in here and seems to have come on a bit since the majority of reviews were written back in the day.
On 1st December 2015
- rating: 7
[User has posted 5552 recommendations about 5533 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Steve of N21 left this review about The Perseverance
Now an independently managed pub, the ‘Percy’ as it brands itself now leans towards a trendy gastro bar and the clientele were definitely more your young things when we made it the last stop on our Xmas pub crawl.
Fortunately part of the trendy package includes having a fairly decent Craft Keg beer range from local London breweries and the four real ale hand pumps still in situ are complemented by quite a few Keg taps.
For our visit the pubs own Bloomsbury Ales were off leaving only Doombar and Portobello White on the pumps, but the taps were dispensing a couple from Hammerton (N1 and N7), a couple from Hackney Fields on Keg and a couple from the Camden Town Brewery including the very passable Camden Ink Stout.
Probably need to visit this place during the day when it’s not quite as manic to get a true feel for it. It also looks like it’s got a decent food menu and an upstairs separate dining room which I didn’t explore.
On 23rd December 2014
- rating: 6
[User has posted 2236 recommendations about 2098 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
john gray left this review about The Perseverance
Nice corner pub and busy on a Sunday night.Dark traditional intererior.Friendly bar staff.They brew their own beer in the basement and had on Perseverance - bitter and Doombar.
On 27th October 2014
- rating: 6
[User has posted 1023 recommendations about 1009 pubs]