Tower Bridge Arms, Bermondsey, SE1

This is one of the ever expanding Draft House chain of pubs. Having visited a couple of their pubs in the same afternoon I was able to detect a common theme of brashness and noisiness, neither of which I regard as endearing qualities. The main room is a barren open space (but with some high shelving and tall stools in the centre of the room) with standard seating around the sides. Everything seems to be painted a boring brown/grey colour. There are a handful of prints on the walls - I noted one of the late David Bowie getting out of a car. There's a separate room to the left, which seemed to be a bit quieter, and with some more comfortable looking booths. There were however three ales on - Sambrook Wandle (£3.60 a pint); Burning Sky Plateau (£3.85 a pint) and Siren Broken Dream (6.5% and £4.95 a pint). They were clearly serving food when we dropped in on a Friday lunchtime, but I didn't see a menu. There were a couple of large groups (12 or so punters in each) all enjoying themselves and obviously making a fair bit of noise; there was overly loud music playing for no good reason other than making everyone in there having to shout louder; and the retractable windows were open on a warm day allowing the traffic noise to compete with the noise from the pub.

Traditional corner pub that has been modernised & opened out with a contemporary result. Nice central raised seating area with stools. There are various musical artist pictures on the walls. Both top areas have some lurid green benches that distract slightly from the pubby feel. Nice all round pub. 4 real ales

Had been trying to get to this pub for a while, having driven past on a few occasions,I was though rather underwhelmed. It's rather canteen like in its set up inside,not really a layout I could warm to,on the walls are numerous framed photos ,mostly of various rock stars. There were four pumps on the bar, I chose Celt Experience Dark Age Mild which was decent but served a little too cold for my liking.Its far from the best the Draft House chain has to offer but I would give it another go here though if passing.

Dropped in on the back of various bits of hype to see what the fuss was about. Situated near Tower Bridge, this is a two-roomed place that opened in its current guise in 2011. The bar is situated in an opened-out room with bare boards and grey tinged utilitarian paint, though some retro music prints break things up a little. The rear room has an American diner feel with some green leatherette bench seating and is dominated by a large old-style backlit cinema-style sign proclaiming "beer cans and bacon" for some reason. Above the door frame between these two rooms is a red neon beer glass-design strip light. A selling point in the bar area is that on sunny days (as it was on Saturday) the doors can be folded inwards to create a drinking terrace atmosphere. Lots of tables in both rooms were reserved and as seems standard in London half of them were not taken by the supposed occupants despite the scribbled time of arrival having long passed, a practice I find extremely irritating. The increasingly loud music also started to grate. Felt sorry for the girl wafting around who was clearly told to try and get people to order food. In a hipsterish nod there is Ghostbusters wallpaper en route to the bogs. To the bar; four ales, two from Purple Moose plus Sambrook Wandle and Wharfe Bank Verbeia. I tried both the Purple Moose New Zealand and Wharfe Bank; neither were up to much, warm and somewhat lacklustre…similar to those I tried earlier in Simon the Tanner. As is to be expected, there was a good craft keg and bottle range and my companions Camden was a decent drop. Mention elsewhere of a CAMRA discount but I noted no outward proclamation at the bar. As a pub, this place is nowhere near as good as it thinks it is – the Dean Swift round the corner is a much better bet.