Indiebeer, Holloway, N7

Situated on the main Holloway Road, just a short walk from the tube station and Arsenal’s Emirates stadium, this is a larger-than-average bottle shop and tasting room. The single room set-up comprises a deep and reasonably wide interior with smart, chunky floorboards, plain off-white walls and large shop-style front windows with the shop’s name and logo on them. Some high stools serve a ledge under these windows, to the right of the entrance and some rickety looking canteen benches run down the left side, eventually supplanted by a battered old sofa, some retro armchairs, plastic school-style chairs and bits of garden furniture. Eight fridges down the right hand wall are stocked full of bottled and canned beers, all ordered by style, with each fridge sporting a style-guide appropriate to its contents, which I thought was a good touch. To the rear, a crate shelving unit has been filled with beer bottles, jars of hops, beer-themed books and a few board games and this acts as a partitioning screen from the rest of the room beyond, where the servery can be found. This comprises a basic wooden counter on the left hand wall with a few beer taps on the bar back. The draught beers are listed on a board behind the bar and there is only standing room back here, with a few punters chatting away to the friendly barman. The walls have been decorated with some thematically appropriate beer and brewing pictures and posters and there was a radio station audible somewhere under the chatter of a modest mid-week crowd. The bar back supports four keg lines for craft beers and a fifth for a cider option. The prices were pretty drastic and I found myself forking out £4.00 for two thirds of a pint of Odyssey Protect Yo Neck. This turned out to be a disappointingly murky brew but I have to admit it was nevertheless delicious. Lots of people were in and out, browsing the fridges and the barman seemed very knowledgeable and happy to help people to find a beer they might enjoy. These tasting rooms don’t really do a lot for me in general, but this place seemed slightly better than average, thanks perhaps in part to its more spacious floor plan, allowing for comfortable furniture and clear division between shop and bar. Not a bad place to check out if you’re passing by but not worth heading out of your way for unless you’re planning on stocking up on some expensive bottles.

A shop conversion into a bottle shop-cum-tasting bar. It's a long, rectangular bare boarded room, with rows of fridges on the right, marked up per beer style (IPAs, Pale Ales, etc.) and a small wooden bar top left with four keg taps behind. They've been going for a few months now and are ticking over - my Monday night visit didn't see them in their best guise, as my pre-9pm calling saw me effectively 'locked in' with one other punter, but I had a great chat to the proprietress and a fellow drinker, which goes to show the egalitarianism of these ventures. A 2/3 of Fierce Orange Scream (an ice cream, orange-hopped, unfined beer) was nice enough - 2/3 of it was plenty (at £6 for the privilege). I enjoyed my brief sojourn and wish them the best. The keg offerings are on the steep side, but there's plenty of the usual suspects as well as others in terms of takeaways.

Official site of Indiebeer - www.indiebeer.co.uk

Official site of Indiebeer - www.indiebeer.co.uk