The Camden Beer Hall, Kentish Town West, NW5

To be fair they have done a bit more to it than just moving into another arch and this reopened a few weeks ago after closing for a while and undergoing a major make over and is now a lot bigger and a lot airier and a lot more corporate internally than the thrown together MDF bar that I remember. The tap wall has moved from the right to the left as you enter and is now twice as long as the old one with several more taps. Much more seating available and unfortunately now some screens for the sport which I don’t recall from before. It has also now undergone a rebranding exercise as is now called the Camden Beer Hall instead of just the Brewery bar. It is a lot larger than before but calling it a Beer Hall is over egging it, and the serving guy who showed us to our table had to admit that the Camden Town marketing guys were being a bit fanciful. Plenty of Camden brews on, along with a couple of guests and I do like their Ink Stout when you have allowed it to warm up from the frozen state it is served. In these Covid times you have to book in advance for the internal tables to be sure of getting one of these, but there are still the plentiful amount of outside benches that you can just ruck up to usually.

The Camden Town Brewery Tap appears to have moved slightly into a different arch. However, there is still a vast array of the brewery's craft beers. On this occasion, there was Ink Stout, Session IPA, Modern Lager, India Hells Lager, Off Menu IPA, Hells Lager, Pale Ale, Arch 55 Ice Cream Lager & Wheat Lager, Tank Beer, Italian Pilsner, Gentleman's Wit, Strawberry Hells, Sour IPA, Belgian IPA, Vienna Lager, Camden X Wagamama & Camden X Homeslice. The Camden Ink was typically cold and a little gassy, but drinkable. Bench tables fill the main bar, whilst there is a reasonably large outdoor seating area in the passageway at the side. Not really my kind of place, but I can say I've tried it. Craft beer lovers will undoubtedly enjoy a visit.

Official site of The Camden Beer Hall - www.camdentownbrewery.com

Official site of The Camden Beer Hall - www.camdentownbrewery.com

Busy, buzzing brewery tap underneath the Kentish Town West station viaduct (but with some production still on this site following construction of its new brewery). Not a huge amount of seating inside, but plenty of space on the canteen-style tables out in the alleyway. No real ale, of course, but the variety of 11 craft keg beers from a total of 13 taps would offer something of interest to all but the most curmudgeonly, and I went for the Red Lager (£4.50) which was a bit different and well made.

Prior to their 2017 expansion into a new £30 million plant in Enfield, this was the main operational site for the remarkably popular Camden Town Brewery, who still retain brewing facilities next to this modest tap room. The premises are located, in true London brewery fashion, in a series of railway arches beneath Kentish Town West station, with the bar occupying a single arch a little way down from the main road. The approach to the bar is lined with a number of picnic benches, making it a promising spot for some outdoor drinking in warmer months, even if it is mainly in the shadow of the railway line. A huge, glass-fronted arch bearing the brewery logo gives way into the surprisingly compact concrete floored room, with the servery located along the back wall. Corrugated iron clads the vaulted ceiling – a trend many of these railway arch bars seems to adopt, which I always feel is a real shame – whilst the walls have been whitewashed and the servery has a rather austere looking counter made from cheap looking wood topped with a marginally more presentable counter. Hard tables and stools run through the centre of the room, with similarly hard benches and low metal stools to either side, meaning that none of the seating options are particularly comfortable. Potted plants around much of the room add some much needed colour, as do some large, brightly coloured posters and a big TV screen showing endless promotional material. A shelf to the rear left has been stacked with various local listings and craft beer magazines and there was a decent rock and pop soundtrack playing. The keg taps are all lined up across the bar back and dispense a wide range of Camden Town beers, with options on this visit extending to Pale, Pils, Wit, Ink Stout, Show Off, Oktoberfest and two variations of their Hells beer. The Ink Stout is the only Camden beer I’ve ever managed to get to grips with and it was pretty good here, albeit way too cold at first. The bar staff were very friendly and having arrived to find the place almost deserted, things livened up considerably when a massive band of fancy dress wearing Halloween revellers turned up and instantly packed the place out. I suppose this place was a front runner of sorts for the numerous railway arch micro-breweries you can find all over London nowadays. The bar here has better facilities and a wider beer range than most of these sort of bars, but then again, Camden are a much bigger brewer than those other breweries and something a bit more refined is perhaps to be expected. I don’t care much for their beer, but this is a decent place to stop off in passing and makes for a good contrast with the more traditional Tapping the Admiral, a short distance away.