Old Fountain, Old Street, EC1

Bigger than it looks from the outside, its very normal inside, and lookks a little tired. All wood chairs and tables and soft bench seating. What does appeal here is the friendly, efficient service and the excellent real ales, 6 intersting and well kept.

There’s always a changing selection of ales available - they had several decent ales on when I was in there at lunchtime earlier this week – Dark Star Old Chestnut; Meantime Pale Ale; Mauldon Simply the Best; something from Otley (at 4.2%) and Pontypridd (at 5.5%), as well as London Pride. The pub doesn’t look like much from the outside if you approach it from the Peerless St entrance; in fact it doesn’t really look open, but once inside it opens up into a fairly large and welcoming pub. The clientele comprised mainly of office workers, as far as I could tell. There’s an old-fashioned food counter at the back of the lower bar where you can see the food on offer. They specialise in reasonably priced pub grub. I had an excellent ham sandwich at £2.75, and the most expensive thing on offer was Cumberland Sausages, mash and onion gravy at £5.95. There was a TV, but it was not switched on; a fish tank; and carpeted throughout, with only normal tables and chairs. Luckily this pub remains unchanged every time I visit it – which is a very, very good thing. It quite rightly features as one of the capital’s finest real ale pubs. So, a comfortable and welcoming pub with good beer and good food. That’ll do it for me. Highly recommended.

Randomness Guide to London - Old Fountain entry

Randomness Guide to London - Old Fountain entry

Not too far from Old Street station, this is one of the capital's best ale houses. The split level bar has eight hand pumps and a recent visit saw Dark Star Over the Moon, London Pride, Crouch Vale Amarillo and Sovereign, Otley 01, Mighty Oak Oscar Wilde, Adnams May Day and something from Walton’s available alongside a good bottled selection of Otley beers. I tried a pint of the Amarillo which was absolutely fantastic and indicative of the excellent quality maintained here. The larger room has plenty of seating and most of the regulars were sat along the bar at this end. The smaller, lower room had a food service area (Mains £5, Pizza menu £6) and a few more tables. The decor was fairly bland except for a colourful fish tank whilst a dartboard was visible, but unplayable due to the table layout. An outstanding ale destination pub and one that I'm keen to return to next time I'm in town.