The White Horse, SW6

This pub has a nice location at the Northern corner of Parsons Green, just a couple of minutes from the District line tube station. Widely credited as one of London's pioneering pubs in terms of marrying excellent beer choice with restaurant quality food, this fine looking corner-site pub can get very busy, with its affluent customer base out in force on my recent visit. The interior comprises of what is now essentially one large U-shaped room, with a similarly shaped servery. At the left hand end of the bar, there are signs of previous partitioning, but the room is essentially a wide, wooden floored strip with lots of dark wood and glass on display, including some nice etched glasswork behind the imposing servery. Seating comes in the form of large scrubbed tables which seemed to have either standard chairs or sofas around them and lend themselves to larger groups, with lone drinkers and couples finding they have to either share tables with others or prop up the bar. As the room bends round past the right hand end of the bar, there is a large fireplace and access to what appeared to be a formal dining room with exposed brickwork which had been painted red. I didn't get to see a menu but some of the food I saw making its way from the kitchen looked very good. A lot of punters were sat outside under some large umbrellas on the well kept terrace at the front of the pub which looks out towards the Green. The beer selection was very healthy with a choice of Roosters Oakey Creamy, Lewes Castle Brown Ale, Harvey's Best, Moorhouse Black Witch, Downton Dark Delight and Oakham Inferno on handpull and an extensive range of mostly foreign speciality beers on tap (St Peters Organic Ale was also available in keg format). Lots of customers seemed to be trying out stuff from the bottled range, but I didn't get a good view of the fridges and couldn't find a beer menu to see the extent of the selection. Perhaps the nicest surprise was the cost of my pint of Black Witch. I was fully prepared for the worst but the barmaid confirmed that my pint would set me back a mere £3.15, which must be a record for this part of town. Some of the keg beers seemed to be considerably more expensive though and one of the pub's great irritations is that almost all of the customers pay by card, which can make service interminably slow. On the whole, I thought this was a good pub and well worth revisiting, perhaps as part of a group, as it's not the sort of place where you can get chatting to the locals, or perhaps to try out some of the food. Either way, it certainly seems to merit the praise it often receives.

On the edge of Parsons Green, little more than a stone’s throw from the Tube Station, is The White Horse, for many years now one of London’s most well known real ale free houses. It’s an imposing looking late Victorian building which was first licensed in 1688. The original building dates back to 1882 and was expanded into the property next door in 1894. The exterior features large lamps, some attractive plasterwork lion heads by the corner entrance and, high up in an alcove in the brickwork, a model of a white horse. The interior has obviously been opened out from what was once a multi room pub and features a mixture of long scrubbed tables, some church pew style wooden benches, sofas and fixed upholstered seating. A few vestiges of its Victorian past remain in the form of etched glass in one of the entrance lobbies and also behind the bar, but, for the most part it’s a fairly typically renovated and stripped out former Victorian pub now featuring tall plain glass windows and high moulded ceilings. The floor area extends back past both sides of the bar counter. In an area on the left on the walls are a number of items of brewery memorabilia – mirrors, framed posters, enamel signs etc – of both British and foreign breweries. Of particular note is a large Bass mirror and several old photos of the brewing process taken inside the brewery premises at Burton on Trent. A large framed board has information on, and a few photographs of, people hop picking in Kent in the early 1900’s. In this part of the pub are the gents and ladies toilets, rather naffly signposted as “Pistols” and “Dolls” respectively. There’s a popular sun trap terraced area out at the front where barbeques are often held on summer weekends. Reflecting the area, there’s something of an upmarket ambience – not without good reason is the pub known as The Sloaney Pony – and, on my recent Sunday lunchtime visit, people of that ilk were very much in evidence. Most of the tables had “reserved” notices on them and the pub quickly filled up with youngish seemingly professional types enjoying the highly regarded but pricey food and the excellent range of drinks. The menu makes suggestions for matching drinks with food ( eg Adnams Broadside with Cumberland sausages, mash , buttered cabbage and onion gravy, Harveys Sussex Best with beer battered Cornish haddock, home cut chips and jalopena Tartare sauce). Prices are on the high side – eg traditional Sunday roast - £ 14.25p, seared tuna steak with vegetables and rice - £ 16.50p ) . The usual gaggle of foreign waitresses hover around eagerly waiting to take orders at your table. Unbeknown to me in advance, my visit last Sunday lunchtime coincided with a Belgian beer festival running from Friday, August 26th to Thursday, September 1st and posters advertising the festival told us that, during the festival, Belgian style beers from Sharps, Dark Star, Cottage and Brodies would be available. A long banner covering the front of the bar counter sported pink elephant logos and we learnt that a beer called Delirium Tremens had been “elected as best beer in the world” although, perhaps predictably, I didn’t see anything telling me who exactly had elected it as such. A good number of Belgian beers were on tap, sharing the bar counter with the real ale handpumps. Perhaps rather fittingly, a TV in one corner was showing the Belgian Grand Prix without sound. On the real ale front, beers on the pumps included Moorhouses Black Cat, Fyne Ales Hurricane Jack, Harveys Best and Redemption Belgian Porter. Also on draught were two strong ales from Sharps – Honey Spice Tripel 2010 and Abbey Ale 2009 at ABV’s of 9% and 8.5% respectively. Beer pricing seemed slightly unusual – for instance Harveys Best ( ABV -4%) was a very reasonable £ 3.10p, whereas the Moorhouses Black Cat ( ABV – 3.4% ) was £ 3.25p. All beers sampled were in fine condition – the Fyne Ales Hurricane Jack at £ 3.60p being especially good. The pub is a CAMRA Good Beer Guide regular and sports a number of award certificates behind the bar. In marked contrast to earlier visits – admittedly many years ago – staff seemed reasonably keen and enthusiastic and pints were voluntarily served as full measures. Unless you’ve a particular aversion to the Chelsea set, you should try and get here sometime if you haven’t already.