Williams Ale & Cider House, Bishopsgate, E1

All decent enough - nice decor, plenty of ale choice - all interesting. Quiet on a monday night at 9pm - I guess the target audience of after work drinkers had braved the trains. Photos at my blog - http://bit.ly/2dB9wGI

This pub is unchanged since previous reviewers' visits. The ale choice here really is superb - when I visited on Thursday evening they had on GK IPA (well it is a Greene King pub), Spitalfields Brew (also GK I believe), something called Winter Gold, Windsor & Eton Tree Tops Stout, Bedlam Brewery Pilgrim, St Austell Proper Job, and Old Dairy Gold Top. These were on a bank of pumps at the corner of the counter as you enter, but there were more pumps along the bar counter, perhaps for the ciders. They did serve food with extra adjectives - British gammon, hens' eggs, and skin on chips (i.e. ham, egg & chips) is £10.50. Beer battered north sea haddock, etc, etc, is £11.50. There are essentially a couple of rooms here, with a second room reached via exposed brickwork arches on the right. It's comfortable enough in here, and the ale selection makes it a winner. It's definitely one of the better places in the area to get a decent pint.

Actually amazed Greene King have produced something like this, a fine, dark pub with brick arches to booth seating on one side, lots of draft beers & ciders and all round good place near Liverpool Street station. Ok, it plays to recent trends but it makes for a lovely place. The beer quality wasn't perfect (though it was good) and I would like to go back to see if this is a one off, but still enough here to make a really good pub.

You enter to a reasonably sized main room with lots of exposed brickwork, the bar is along the left hand side wall and is split by a bulkhead wall with a street sign affixed above "Whitechapel E1". The handpulled ales feature in the front part of the bar and the ciders through into the rear section. There is another side room accessed via arched openings in the wall. There are a multitude of old framed brewery advertisements plus an old road map of North London, I also spotted a mounted guitar towards the rear and there was a upright piano painted sky blue with clouds. There were a stack of games on a shelf under a brick arched window. Quite a bit of Truman's memorabilia about, perhaps once one of theirs, although now Greene King have it. It is part of GK's Metropolitan branch which means their own beers do not major leaving the pub open to serve a real variety. Ales were Spitalfields Brew (GK I'd guess), Portabello Autumn Red, Sambrook's Battersea Rye, Redemption Trinity, ELB Nightwatchman, Aylesbury Brewing Co Curiousity and Triple fff Team Spirit (£4.00). A clear non-dimpled jug appears to be the default vessel. Snacks offered were scotch eggs, sausage rolls and home made scratchings, proper pub staples. Most of the five or so ciders to the rear had hand written clips so I am unsure as to their provenance, all however are "proper", no Strongbow etc here. One was 8.4%. Seating was mixed, high tables and drinking shelves to the front bar area, proper tables in the side room and a couple of banquettes at the far end. A wall mounted case looked like it might contain a dartboard but it wouldn't be usable. There are a couple of TVs, the rugby was advertised so sports are shown but not sure if regularly. This is an excellent pub, there are some good choices around Liverpool St station, this one is right up there.

An old style pub , handy for Liverpool street Station:three main drinking areas, ably described by previous scribes. Late afternoon on a windy August Saturday. Fairly quiet.I'd hoped to spot some hipsters with ironic beards, but everyone was cleanshaven. I’d also, more importantly, hoped to find some exciting beers from some of the new London micros that we country bumpkins hear so much of. Unfortunately the beers that I’d tried (from London Fields and Trumans) were rather lacklustre. Date visited :16th August 2014

Tucked away down a narrow side street close to Liverpool Street station and Spitalfields Market, this place has transformed itself in recent years from a basic Greene King pub to arguably the best ale house in this part of London. As the slightly expanded name now suggests, ale and cider is the main driver for this pub and a recent mid-week visit certainly found plenty for the discerning drinker to choose from. Two banks of hand pulls either side of a partitioning wall that divides the servery in two, were dispensing Ha’penny London Particular and Brinx Gold, Jo C’s Bitter Old Bustard, Adnams Lighthouse, Sambrooks No 5 Barley Wine, London Fields Harvest Ale, Head in a Hat Tommy, Trumans Swift and a house beer, presumably from Greene King, called Spitalfields Brew. Weston’s Old Rosie and Thatchers Heritage Cider took up the final pumps. There were also three of those ‘in vogue’ keg taps on the bar back, which had Lagunitas IPA and two other exotic options to compliment a strong range on the bar counter keg taps. It’s a fairly bewildering choice, especially when you have to move between bars to figure out the entire range, but I ended up with a pretty good pint of the London Particular. The pub itself is a fairly smart affair split across three clearly demarcated areas, each with similar décor and furnishings. You enter into the bare boarded main room with the servery midway down the left hand wall. There is a large mirror, a Finnegan’s Wake clock, some old black and white photos and various bits of framed breweriana on show alongside a nice “Whitechapel E1” sign and several blackboards. Seating here is confined to the perimeter, mostly in the shape of high tables and stools and some drinking ledges, with plenty of vertical drinking space in the centre. The right hand wall has exposed brickwork formed into a series of arches which lead through to a seating area made cosier by low level lighting and lit candles on each table. Some padded bench booths can be found in the rear right corner, with standard tables and chairs elsewhere and a large TV screen was mounted to the rear, but turned off in favour of a pretty funky soundtrack. The final section can be found by passing along the bar into the rear of the pub where you’ll find some button backed banquettes, another TV screen, a book swap and a closed dartboard case. This is perhaps the least appealing part of the pub, but acts as good overspill and has additional vertical drinking space, should it be needed. Greene King seem to be slowly coming around to the idea that they can produce pubs like this and still make a truck load of money, so I’m all for supporting such a venture. I’d say this is the best place for a quick pre-train pint in the vicinity of the station and longer visits offer the chance to work through all those lovely hand pumps.

The Williams Ale & Cider House page on the Metropolitan website - www.metropolitanpubcompany.com

A good addition to the real ale/cider scene. A front bar on the left selling a good range of real ales with a bar at the back selling a selection of ales and ciders. A drinking area at the side. The Hackney Calypso I hade was in top form and at £3.90 a pint about the norm for the area. A couple of minutes walk from Liverpool St. Station.

The Williams Ale & Cider House page on the Metropolitan website - www.metropolitanpubcompany.com