Devonshire House (JD Wetherspoon), Crouch End, N8

I first came here a year or two back when it was the newest Spoons in London. My recollection of it was that there were too many Fuller's ales on and that it was pricy for a Spoons. Today I came here as part of the Compass Points festival where they were showing off Redemption beers, I went for the newish Rock the Kazbec (£2.15), which had a haze but tasted OK. It's a blond beer that tend to be prone to haze, but wished I had gone for the familiar Urban Dusk rather than one I hadn't tried. However, £2.15 for a standard guest is at the lowest end of Spoons pricing and as noted below it's a typical Spoons far better than an All Bar One. To me it's a good place to go in trendy Crouch End (it wasn't trendy when I lived in the area as a student!), and I would be happy to give it another visit.

Prevuiously an All Bar One, the Devonshire was converted to a ‘Spoons in November 2010. It’s very much a seen one, seen ‘em all type of place that isn’t exactly oozing in character and possessing all the usual ‘Spoons familiarities. The long narrow interior opens up towards the slightly raised rear section but there isn’t really anything that catches the eye aside from a set of organ pipes in the front bar area, the significance of which I was unable to ascertain. The initial joy of seeing 10 hand pumps without copious “available soon” tags soon waned when I noted that a lot of the pumps were doubled up with the lesser interesting ales. It serves its purpose as most ‘Spoons do and has tio be an improvement on an All Bar One but there are far more interesting pubs in the area.

Randomness Guide to London - Devonshire House entry

Randomness Guide to London - Devonshire House entry

Official pages of the Devonshire House - www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk

Official pages of the Devonshire House - www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk

There seemed to be more idiots in here than the usual ABO. I saw some tanked up idiot hit a car with his lighter as he attempted to throw it across the road to his mates who were blocking the entrance and making no attempt to let people through. Best avoided.