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Beer of the Week (w/e 27th April 2025) with Thuck Phat
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Detail Pages
Craft Beer Co, EC1
EC1
EC1N 7TR
Reviews (Current Rating Average: 8 of 10) see review guidelines
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Gill Smith left this review about Craft Beer Co.
Cought a number 55 bus to this pub as I had read reviews and wanted to try it. I have been to Cask Pub & Kitchen before and agree this one feels more of a pub. Great choice of beers and quality of those we had was good. A bit pricey, but will be a welcome pub for those wanting to experiment with beers from around the world. We were quite happy with the real ales on tap, and although I fancied trying one from the fonts, I'm afraid the prices of around £4 a half put me off. Thornbridge Seaforth and Fyne Hurricane Jack were our beers of choice, and others available on tap were the house beer from Kent brewery, a few from Dark Star, Thornbridge, and Fyne plus Crouch Vale, Arbor and Raw.
On 4th September 2011
- rating: 8
[User has posted 1339 recommendations about 1222 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
john mcgraw left this review about Craft Beer Co.
If like me you drink mainly real ale then this is the pub for you.A very plain pub that serves up to 15 real ales and the Curious from Magic Rock that I tried yesterday was one of the best beers I have ever tried but then again that could change tomorrow as the beers always seem to change day by day.There is one cider on tap plus a large range of keg beers for those who dont want to try real ales or those who want to try something different.The only food seems to be the good old pub standard of pork pies and scotch eggs which is a very welcome change from the pubs that put food before beer.This pub is for beer drinkers.Go and enjoy.Now at last I have a new local.
On 18th August 2011
- rating: 10
[User has posted 2044 recommendations about 2025 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Pub SignMan left this review about Craft Beer Co.
This new bar, located inside a former Greene King pub, has been set up to provide a wide variety of interesting and rare beers from the UK and beyond. There are 16 hand pumps and 21 taps for keg beers, all of which seem to be in use at any given time. The hand pumps focus mainly on British micro breweries with the likes of Dark Star, Redemption, Naylor’s, Crouch Vale, Ilkley, Fyne, Magic Rock and Bristol Beer Factory prominent on my visits. A house ale, Clerkenwell Pale from the Kent Brewery, is always available. These ales are priced by strength, with most coming in around the £3.40 - 3.70 mark, although some of the stronger ones can cost as much as £4.50. The keg fonts supply 'craft' beers from the US, Japan, Scandinavia and the Benelux, including another house beer - Clerkenwell Lager from Mikkeler, but prices here are much steeper due to the high abv's and presumably the cost of importing them in the first place. £3.00-£4.00 for a half pint seems to be the average. An extensive bottled selection is detailed in nicely presented beer menus. The bottles are even more expensive, with some priced as high as £50 - presumably there are people out there who are prepared to pay such prices, so I suppose it makes sense to cater for them. There are also lengthy and well thought out wine and spirit menus, whilst food is restricted to handmade pork pies which are £4.50 each. I've tried many of the cask ales over a number of visits and have found them all to be in excellent condition. The bar staff are, as you would expect, all very knowledgeable about the beer range and tasters are happily provided to help you ensure your hard earned cash is spent on the right beer.
Unlike its sister pub, the Cask Pub and Kitchen in Pimlico, the Craft Beer Co has the feel of a proper pub to it. There are bare floorboards and high banquette seating in the main bar, with a drinking shelf and high stools under the windows on one side, and a small fireplace with a huge Charringtons mirror above it at the other end of the room. The highlight though is the wonderful mirrored ceiling with a clock face on it, which was inherited from the pub's previous incarnation as the Clock House. A lounge bar is located upstairs and is a rather small and basic area divided into two by a partitioning wall. There is extra seating up there, but no actual bar.
The pub seems to have found its own identity and everything within is branded with the pub logo - the glasses, staff clothes, beer mats, fridges, even the wallpaper - but thankfully it doesn't come across as grimly corporate as it might sound.
I think this is an excellent addition to the London drinking scene and it compliments other similar bars such as the Euston Tap, Rake and Cask. I have already enjoyed a lot of new beers in this place, including my first sighting of the new magic Rock Brewery from Huddersfield, and I think it's safe to say that I'll enjoy many more here in the future.
On 30th July 2011
- rating: 9
[User has posted 3350 recommendations about 3350 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Just a quick pint, then I'm off left this review about Craft Beer Co.
The former Clock House has been transformed into the Craft Beer Co. (which might sound more like a wholsesaler rather than a pub) and generated a great deal of interest in the process. Not surprising really, given that they have 16 real ales on handpump (ranging from the 'house' pale from Kent Brewery to offerings from Dark Star, Thornbridge, etc.) and 21 unusual keg beers on tap (including the 'house' lager from Mikkeler) plus 150 different products in bottled form. My excellent pint of Gadds Festiv'Ale was £3.40, but I noted that some of strong imported beers were priced upto £4.50 for a half - be warned! The main bar area is sparsely decorated and furnished, with most people standing either inside or out. There is also another room upstairs (not yet visited). Well staffed, but slow service due to the extraordinary number of people asking for a Fosters (or whatever) and needing to have the concept of craft beer explained to them... Still a novelty, but deserves to be a roaring success.
On 25th July 2011
- rating: 8
[User has posted 8679 recommendations about 8678 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Alan Winfield left this review about The Clock House
The Clock House is a small corner pub serving the leather lane street market.
This pub is only one street away from hatton gardens but it seems more East end than city,it was fairly busy inside with market traders as they had packed up for the day,the pub was quite small and it is a Greene King tied house there were two real ales on the bar i had a drink of GK IPA and this was a decent drink the other beer was Abbot.
Pub visited 21/8/2008
On 21st August 2008
- rating: 7
[User has posted 6113 recommendations about 6113 pubs]