The Old Ship, Hackney, E8

A surprisingly trendy place, accessed down an artily-decorated passageway off Mare Street which you could easily miss if not looking for it. Once inside, there is a largeish room with a central bar area, done up in a mixture of bare wood and tiles with further arty decorations. Although more of a restaurant feel than a pub, drinkers are welcomed by the attentive servers. Beers on offer at time of visit included two from Sambrooks and one from Wimbledon, as well as a cider on handpump. Far from a traditional pub but ok for a visit.

This rather trendy looking pub is accessed from Mare Street via a passageway decorated with all sorts of graffiti art, slogans and collages, making it quite a trippy experience just getting into the place. Once inside, you find yourself in a bare boarded room with a decorative tiled floor area to the right and the servery mid way along the same side. The bar has a white tiled counter front and bar back with various drinks drawn on it in cartoon fashion. The front part of the pub has a mix of cracked white tiling and exposed brick walls decorated with mural artwork, all under a nice skylight with a plasma screen to one side. Standard tables and chairs in four neat rows fill the space and there is a kitchen hatch on the front wall with a menu detailed on a board above. The area opposite the bar is painted a nice shade of maroon with white trim and sports various seafaring images on the maroon uppers, whilst spooky portraits and out-there artwork fills the gaps between. Button backed banquettes run around the angles opposite the bar before giving way to basic seating including a number of high stools along ledges and metal framed chairs around cheap tables in the opened out rear section of the pub. This space has a large blackboard on the right hand wall with another TV screen sunk into it and a dartboard. A note on the blackboard explained that the pub would be open until 2am the following evening, showing the General Election results. There was a good young crowd in on my midweek visit and a decent indie soundtrack played throughout my stay. Four handpulls were in operation on this visit, offering Hackney Kapowi, ELB Pale Ale, Old Dairy Summer Top and Trumans Runner. A friendly barman poured me a pint of the Summer Top, which was clearly a good beer, although suffering a little from the heat unfortunately. I didn’t eat here, but the menu listed reasonable value meals focussed mainly around burgers, chicken and salads. This is quite a nice place to escape the hustle and bustle of Central Hackney. Whilst the pub has a very contemporary makeover, including lots of ‘art’ that is likely to be off-putting to the pub traditionalist, I nevertheless thought the place was smart, comfortable and offered a good beer selection which is perhaps better sampled during weather more befitting of the English climate. Not the best pub in the local area, but a solid addition to any local pub crawl.

Official site of The Old Ship - www.oldshiphackney.com

This place is unchanged since previous reviewers' visits. The graffiti (or perhaps it's supposed to be art) still assaults the eye if you walk through the passage from the Mare St entrance, and all the arty stuff is still there on the walls in the bar area. But I did spot a dartboard next to the large screen TV at the back (or the front if you enter via the Sylvester Path entrance), and the room is still dominated by the central peninsular bar counter. There were four ales on - Windsor & Eton Boatman; West Berkshire Brewery Mister Swift's Pale ale; Caledonian Kick Off; and Old Dairy Summer Top (£4.25 a pint), and with one pump unclipped. The food menu was minimalist and straightforward - burgers are £7.50, rotisserie chicken is £6 for a quarter, wings, a couple of salads (£9 - £11), a few sides, and desserts and that's about it. It makes menu scrutiny a simple affair. All in all it's not a bad place, with a decent ale selection, although £4.25 for a pint of low ABV beer like Summer Top's not cheap, but that's Hackney for you these days. I'll probably end up in here again sometime.

Official site of The Old Ship - www.oldshiphackney.com

The entrance from the Mare St end is down the previously described scruffy alley with poor quality "artwork" and designer graffiti. Once inside however there is a pleasant boarded room with a central bar and a food servery on an end wall. There is another entrance here from the back road where there are also a few outdoor tables. Arty decor, distressed tiled bar front, anchor and mermaid themed murals, 12" LP records fixed to a pillar and a dartboard in a case but with a table in front. A 70s style piano sits against a wall. Six handpumps, one not clipped and two reversed, the three on were Truman's Runner plus Zephyr (£4.10) and ELB Foundation. Food seemed to be mostly burgers or rotisserie chickens. There is accommodation available, ten bedrooms upstairs, no idea about prices. Despite the offputting entrance this was actually quite a nice laid back pub, they do have Sky Sports but the TV was off on Saturday afternoon, I suspect they show rugby going by the posters.