The Alma, N1

The Alma was in complete contrast to the other pubs we visited in central London yesterday. This very much had the feel of a locals' pub with a much more down-to-earth clientele. With customers spilling out onto tables in the street, it was also much busier than any other pub we had visited. It's another local pub that has dispensed of real ales. But it is now owned by One Mile End and did have a couple of their keg beers - Juicy 4PM and Snake Charmer. Although most customers were drinking bog standard lagers. The barmaid was either in a very bad mood, or naturally very grumpy, to the point that she was quite amusing to watch. Football was about to be shown on the TV screen. Certainly a lively pub at the centre of the Market, but not my kind of place.

This is a compact market trader’s pub which has been given a clean, contemporary makeover to appeal to a younger, more moneyed demographic. Large windows run down two sides of this pub, allowing plenty of light in, making the interior a bright open space, disjointed only by a single large pillar in the centre of the room. The pub is bare boarded with curved banquettes in the front corner and standard tables and chairs in three rows through the rest of the room. The servery is on the back wall and has a modern panelled counter and uniform bar back. A few quirky bits of art have been used to brighten up the wall space, including a rather odd picture of an upside-down cat. Blackboards listing the various beer and food options take up much of the remaining wall space. A fridge near the bar has been well stocked with various bottled and canned beers and several TV screens around the room were showing some muted ITV tripe for no reason whatsoever whilst a chilled soundtrack played away in the background. There’s a small area beyond the far end of the bar with just about enough space for another banquette serving a couple more tables, with a TV screen above, turned off. There are four handpulls on the bar but only two of these were in action on this visit, dispensing Purity Mad Goose and Gold. The emphasis here is most definitely on the keg range, with sixteen lines serving up a mix of mainstream brands and small batch stuff. Five of the kegs beers were from the One Mile End brewery and I was under the impression that they might be running this pub, although I was unable to confirm this. My pint of Gold cost £4.00 and was in good shape. I quite liked this place which I felt had been given a contemporary look without entirely alienating its core customer base (although I did overhear a couple of old boys bemoaning the prices). A slightly more interesting ale range would mark this out as a potential destination pub, but as it is, this is a decent place that wouldn’t look out of place on a crawl of the areas better pubs.

Very quiet on Sunday evening. No real ale, just craft and lagers, etc. Won't be returning.

As described below, this is definitely a pub that attracts odd characters and people who have been on the sauce; or perhaps they are just a bit more odd. TVs showing sport, a rather glum experience and with better pubs close at hand, I can't see any viable reason to return though my half of something from One Mile End Brewery was very decent.

According to the exterior signage, this is the brewery tap (or perhaps one of them) for the One Mile End Brewery. As such one might expect it to showcase their ales, but although there were five handpumps on the bar counter two were unclipped, a further two had reversed clips, leaving the sole ale of One Mile End Snakecatcher IPA. But it was great value at £1.50 for a half of a lovely 5.7% hop bomb. There were also 16 keg fonts with only a couple dispensing lagers from the ranks of the usual suspects. It doesn't look as if they do food (apart from nuts, crisps and the like), but I spotted a small chalkboard saying that you could bring in your own food as long as you bought a drink to go with it. That's more than fair enough. It has a no nonsense interior. It's bare-boarded with just a bunch of normal tables and chairs in the way of furnishings, plus TVs on the walls of course, and a few prints around the place. There's little more to say about this pub. It appears to be the straightforward market but it's always been, even if One Mile end Brewery have tarted it up a bit.

Official site of The Alma - thealma.london

Official site of The Alma - thealma.london