The Alma, N1

A pretty basic corner pub owned by the One Mile End Brewery, well attended on a rainy Saturday afternoon,The two beers on cask I remember were Hospital Porter and Dockers Delight,the latter although hazy tasted good.There were some craft offerings on keg as well as some interesting bottle selections.A sign written on a couple of the windows invites passers by and potential customers to bring their street food in to eat.All in all a decent enough pub worth popping into.

Nice clean and tidy but a bit dated.Locals pub with Sky sports. Three beers on cask from the One Mile End brewery-American Brown,Temperance and my choice Dockers delight which was good.

Very basic pub for the Chapel Market traders, etc. with the management feeling it necessary to erect notices stating "No buying or selling of stolen goods on premises". Having said that, it had quite a jovial atmosphere and the other customers seemed curious rather than hostile to see a random stranger pop in. Functional furniture and decor. Various sports TV screens. No real ale, so it was a quick pint of John Smiths Smooth (£2.80) and I was off.

Many years ago this used to be a relatively cosy place that warranted the occasional lunchtime stroll from my office at Kings Cross. These days it is a quite depressing featureless pub cum sports bar with a fairly down trodden ambience. The exterior is quite traditional with an extended frontage and a tall bay fronting part of the 2 upper floors with the pub name spelt out in prominent letters. Internally, the place is quite small, scruffy and featureless with life revolving around the 5 screens that penetrate every angle of the pub. There are a few theatre and concert posters amid the sporting pictures and a large Chivas Regal mirror but on the whole, there is little that comes across as homely or attractive. The beers are equally no thrills, the usual mass market kegs, lagers and Guinness and no Real ales although prices are very good (a pint of Strongbow set me back £3). Most of the punters are drawn from the lower end of the Islington social scale and seem to spend all day at their spot in front of the TV watching the horse racing whilst making the occasional foray to the conveniently placed bookies the other side of the road. If arsenal are on the box you can expect a good crowd. Whilst it has little attraction beyond its regulars, it does present an opportunity to sample the antithetis of the general Islington pub/bar scene and if nothing else, you won’t get ripped off.