The Phoenix, Bank, EC2

Steve of N21 left this review about The Phoenix

Haven’t been in this one since it became under the Metropolitan Pub Co. Stable, the arm of Green King which has much more freedom on the beers it sells. The pub itself is unchanged and still as described in PSM’s detailed review below. It’s a pub largely lacking in any character and is primarily aimed at sucking in crowds from the nearby office blocks, initially at lunchtime and then mainly from 5.00pm onwards. This it was doing very successfully last night as, post Covid with increased working from home, Thursday is the new Friday in the City and this place was packed. The downside of this is that when the Phoenix is very busy it’s also extremely noisy and basically turns into a shouty barn where civil conversation between friends becomes difficult at a sensible audio level. Fortunately the predicted rain held off and we were able to take our beers outside as the pavement to the front of the pub and the alleyway to the back provided solace from the clamour.
On the ale front, three of the five hand pumps on the bar were in operation with By the Horns Hopadelic Session IPA, Southwark Brewing Mayflower Session IPA and the usual Green King House beer brew which was badged in here as Phoenix Feather Premium House Bitter.
As we were here for the evening we tried staying on the two session IPA’s and the Mayflower was very good to start with until it ran out. We then had one round of the Hopadelic until this ran out and we had to move onto the GK brew. This really is a sickly overcaramelised brown mush, especially compared to hopped IPA’s, but fortunately we only had to suffer one of these before the Hopadelic was back on.
This is a better pub to visit since it moved to under the Metropolitan umbrella but the building itself doesn’t really have much character and only really functions as a city workers drinking barn. Therefore still cannot recommend to go out of your way for.

On 2^nd September 2023 - rating: 6
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