Earl of Essex, N1

Into what was a very nice pub about a year ago they have crammed an ugly brew-kit behind the rear bar.Okay its a brew pub but a tad more thought could have went into the design side.Great range of beers and a few keg beers rarely seen in other craft bars.Earls brewery beers are a bit hit and miss as yet but overall(if you discount the elephant in the room)a good pub.Nice rear beer garden as well.

Official site of the Earl of Essex - www.earlofessex.net

The Earl of Essex is a new brewpub/ craft beer bar just a five minute walk from Angel tube station and close to the Regents canal. The layout is very straightforward, with a single bare boarded room, painted in what I am now terming ‘craft beer grey’, served by a compact island bar. Some spectacularly uncomfortable looking benches run around the perimeter of the room under a number of scrubbed tables, but seating options quickly run out in such a small room, so I found myself perched on a stool at the bar. The walls have been brightened up by some rather quirky artwork including some Soviet style propaganda posters. The reviews below suggest that this place has been through its fair share of reinventions over the years, but the old Watney’s bar back remains, complete with backlit red barrels. There are a couple of benches on the pavement outside and there is also a small patio area at the back of the pub. Perhaps the most striking feature of the pub is the enormous wooden beer board which takes up a vast section of the left hand wall and very clearly lists the cask and keg offerings and their respective strengths and prices. Reference must be made to this board as all six hand pumps and fourteen keg taps are unclipped, despite a fairly large pump clip collection stuck to either side of the servery. The cask offerings on my visit were Crate Golden, Tiny Rebel Full Nelson, Ilkley Dinner Ale, Arbor Hunny Beer, Devilfish Golden and Sandford’s Devon Mist Cider, all priced at £3.80. The fourteen keg taps included the likes of Camden Hells Lager and Ink Stout, Old Dominion Fest and Moor Nor’Hop alongside a range of ‘craft’ brews from Europe and the US, with prices ranging from £4.00-6.00. Fridges are full of the sort of unusual bottled beers you would expect from such a venture and can be explored through one of the beer menus provided. This is still a fairly new guise for this pub and so I would hope that some of the teething problems get ironed out over time. I’d be keen to return again at a later date, especially once they have got their own brewery up and running.

The Earl of Essex has recently reopened after another reinvention, this time as a brew-pub (although the planned Earls Brewery doesn't seem to be in production just yet). Mind you, that doesn't matter too much since there are currently six handpumps plus 14 keg taps in operation, with all the beers and ciders listed on a large board to one side of the semi-island bar. Prices range from £3.80 for the hoppy Buxton Target (3.8%) up to £7.50 for Stone Arrogant Bastard Ale (7.2%). The fridges behind the bar is also full of bottled goodies. Dark interior in a gastro-pub type style, with plain furniture and decor and a few patio tables out front. Overall, it gave a very good first impression and is a welcome addition to the area.

Official site of the Earl of Essex - www.earlofessex.net

The Earl of Essex himself lost his head in 1601and the change to the pub that bears his name is almost as drastic. My previous memory was of a tatty and tired looking local’s pub with fading Arsenal memorabelia, karaoke machine, big screen, pool table and no ales. It certainly wasn’t a place that I would hurry back to. Press the fast forward button and we now find a pub that has been completely overhauled and transformed into the kind of place that sits quite comfortably among the Islington demography. The basic layout is still the same, an island bar with a few stools and seating around the edges. The décor is much fresher as one would expect and given that the pub has only been re-opened for less than 2 months, it still has that whiff of fresh paint about it. The floors are bare and the walls quite plain with a few pictures and musical instruments but it does look a bit bare in places. The rear bar has an upright piano on top of which is an old wind up gramophone and the walled beer garden is quite small but quite attractive given that there probably isn’t much scope to do much with it. There are just 2 ales, Deuchars and Courage Directors (the latter being off on my visit) along with a few standard lagers and a keg cider (I think it was Symonds). The pub is a lot more geared for food with pizzas (around £10) seemingly the main attraction, cooked in a modern open kiln oven at the end of the rear bar. Other dishes are available (around £10-£13) but with the better known Duke of Cambridge just down the road, it faces some stiff competition at that end of the market. Some may lament the passing of an old “traditional” local’s pub for yet another gastro style place but for me this is a big improvement on the old and is now a place I would comfortably re-visit. I do get the impression that this is still a work in progress and it will take time to find its feet. At the present time it doesn’t compete with it neighbours enough on the ale front which is the main issue for me and time will tell whether the selection is expanded. Unless you plan to eat here it is probably best looked at as part of a crawl with some of the other lesser visited Islington pubs in these back streets.