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Disappointment of the week with Tris39
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Tower Bridge Arms, Bermondsey, SE1
SE1
SE1 2UP
Reviews (Current Rating Average: 6 of 10) see review guidelines
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Steve C left this review about Tower Bridge Arms
My early midweek evening visit a couple of weeks ago was my first since back in 2009 when this place was known as the River Bar, as per my old review. It would seem that there have been a couple of name changes since, before now settling on the Tower Bridge Arms. I like this name, they should keep it. An open plan bar is located to the right where a bar counter sits on the left wall facing high tables in the centre. Banquettes run under the windows along the right and rear walls. To the left some steps lead up to a seating area with booths along the left-hand wall and standard furniture at the rear.
Unusually for a BrewDog venue this place has four hand pumps, two of which were in operation. Unfortunately both barrels went whilst trying to pull me a half so the embarrassed barman gave me a free half of premium keg as an apology for wasting my time. I appreciated this gesture and I will return when next in the area to see if I can actually get some real ale. Food is available, the burgers are priced between £11 and £14, which is OK for the area.
On 19th March 2023
- rating: 6
[User has posted 5251 recommendations about 5219 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Tris C left this review about Tower Bridge Arms
In 1921, this building was home to a tea dealer. It was formerly a Courage house (all three façades sport Courage sign brackets, cockerels having fled the roost), opened by them seemingly in 1971 and actually called the Draft House, so clearly people couldn’t spell then either.
Now called the Tower Bridge Arms, this is actually owned by BrewDog, but because it sells real ale, it has a pub name, no cinema beer board and an interior that isn’t modelled on an oilrig, though I suspect that it’s little changed since the previous reviews. There’s a modern boarded floor, smoky blue and pale grey paint scheme, conventional furniture, with some fawn-coloured studded banquettes, hanging spherical glass filament lamps, a dark grey bar front with tubular steel shelving and quite loud music. Customers seemed to be office workers and many were in high spirits.
The ale front displayed Siren Session Pale Ale, Anspach & Hobday’s Golden Bitter, Brick’s Peckham Pale, me choosing a Siren Memento at the ridiculous price of £3.20 a half and really not in great condition either, served by a barman who said, “This is the last thing I’m doing this evening”.
I don’t see a massive point in coming here again. The rowdy but neighbouring Pommeler’s Rest offers superior beers at superior prices, albeit without the hipster affectations.
On 30th April 2022
- rating: 5
[User has posted 1985 recommendations about 1951 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Real Ale Ray left this review about Draft House Tower Bridge
This is a two roomed pub with the main bar positioned in the left hand corner section as you walk in. The back room was mainly set out for dining with a collection of seating booths. A large wall mounted beer board could be found in the passage way between the two rooms. The young barmaid was very helpful on our visit and before we even asked, she was offering us samples of their cask and keg beers. Five handpumps on the bar, so we went for the Siren Undercurrant.
On 21st June 2019
- rating: 6
[User has posted 3382 recommendations about 3381 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
hondo . left this review about Draft House Tower Bridge
Located just along from tower bridge. A basic bare boarded interior with split levels. 4 real ales and “craft keg” served.
On 27th October 2018
- no rating submitted
[User has posted 2883 recommendations about 2820 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Steve of N21 left this review about Draft House Tower Bridge
Another one of the expanding small Draft house chain, where irrespective of what you think of the décor, you cannot fail to appreciate the focus on beer that the Draft House chain follows. The corner bar supports four cask ale pumps and around 12 cask taps from what I could see. The four ales were two from Redemption, Sambrooks Session and Adnams Prop Hop and several interesting cask options from American and British breweries including Siren, Camden and Moor. My decent enough pint of Redemption Trinity was just over £4 and you could get a wooden paddle of three craft thirds for a fiver, which didn’t seem too bad considering that most of the cask offerings were over £2 for a third.
As a comfortable place to drink them in then I have to concur with others that this place is just too brash and noisy for that. It was OK for one pint of vertical drinking, but wasn’t long before I was off to the much more pleasant pub experience of the Dean Swift around the corner.
On 31st March 2017
- rating: 6
[User has posted 2111 recommendations about 1992 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Rex Rattus left this review about Draft House Tower Bridge
This is one of the ever expanding Draft House chain of pubs. Having visited a couple of their pubs in the same afternoon I was able to detect a common theme of brashness and noisiness, neither of which I regard as endearing qualities. The main room is a barren open space (but with some high shelving and tall stools in the centre of the room) with standard seating around the sides. Everything seems to be painted a boring brown/grey colour. There are a handful of prints on the walls - I noted one of the late David Bowie getting out of a car. There's a separate room to the left, which seemed to be a bit quieter, and with some more comfortable looking booths.
There were however three ales on - Sambrook Wandle (£3.60 a pint); Burning Sky Plateau (£3.85 a pint) and Siren Broken Dream (6.5% and £4.95 a pint). They were clearly serving food when we dropped in on a Friday lunchtime, but I didn't see a menu.
There were a couple of large groups (12 or so punters in each) all enjoying themselves and obviously making a fair bit of noise; there was overly loud music playing for no good reason other than making everyone in there having to shout louder; and the retractable windows were open on a warm day allowing the traffic noise to compete with the noise from the pub.
On 29th May 2016
- rating: 5
[User has posted 2606 recommendations about 2520 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Danny O'Revey left this review about Draft House Tower Bridge
Traditional corner pub that has been modernised & opened out with a contemporary result. Nice central raised seating area with stools. There are various musical artist pictures on the walls. Both top areas have some lurid green benches that distract slightly from the pubby feel. Nice all round pub.
4 real ales
On 22nd March 2016
- rating: 8
[User has posted 1456 recommendations about 1434 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Moby Duck left this review about Draft House Tower Bridge
Had been trying to get to this pub for a while, having driven past on a few occasions,I was though rather underwhelmed. It's rather canteen like in its set up inside,not really a layout I could warm to,on the walls are numerous framed photos ,mostly of various rock stars. There were four pumps on the bar, I chose Celt Experience Dark Age Mild which was decent but served a little too cold for my liking.Its far from the best the Draft House chain has to offer but I would give it another go here though if passing.
On 20th February 2016
- rating: 6
[User has posted 1872 recommendations about 1845 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Quinno _ left this review about The Draft House
Dropped in on the back of various bits of hype to see what the fuss was about. Situated near Tower Bridge, this is a two-roomed place that opened in its current guise in 2011. The bar is situated in an opened-out room with bare boards and grey tinged utilitarian paint, though some retro music prints break things up a little. The rear room has an American diner feel with some green leatherette bench seating and is dominated by a large old-style backlit cinema-style sign proclaiming "beer cans and bacon" for some reason. Above the door frame between these two rooms is a red neon beer glass-design strip light. A selling point in the bar area is that on sunny days (as it was on Saturday) the doors can be folded inwards to create a drinking terrace atmosphere. Lots of tables in both rooms were reserved and as seems standard in London half of them were not taken by the supposed occupants despite the scribbled time of arrival having long passed, a practice I find extremely irritating. The increasingly loud music also started to grate. Felt sorry for the girl wafting around who was clearly told to try and get people to order food. In a hipsterish nod there is Ghostbusters wallpaper en route to the bogs. To the bar; four ales, two from Purple Moose plus Sambrook Wandle and Wharfe Bank Verbeia. I tried both the Purple Moose New Zealand and Wharfe Bank; neither were up to much, warm and somewhat lacklustre…similar to those I tried earlier in Simon the Tanner. As is to be expected, there was a good craft keg and bottle range and my companions Camden was a decent drop. Mention elsewhere of a CAMRA discount but I noted no outward proclamation at the bar. As a pub, this place is nowhere near as good as it thinks it is – the Dean Swift round the corner is a much better bet.
On 10th June 2014
- rating: 6
[User has posted 5099 recommendations about 5082 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Malden man left this review about The Draft House
Larger than the nearby Dean Swift however seemingly looking to attract a similar customer base, this pub also has an extensive range of keykeg products which included a trio from Camden. Four handpumps at the end of the bar had a couple previously unknown to me, Hewitt's Urbane Gorilla, Cully's Orange Ale plus O'Hanlon's Flagship IPA (£3.50) and Sambrooks Wandle. A large bottled selection in fridges and along the bar gantry.
The main room with the bar to one side is bare boarded, has tall tables along the front of the bar and a mixture of benches and pews to the perimeter. The side room resembles an American diner with lurid green benches facing each other across the tables booth style, decor in here consists of large movie and music posters. TVs were showing golf muted while a laid back bluesy soundtrack played.
It's all a bit modern and stripped out, apart from the green benches the colour scheme is grey and dark green.
Service was friendly and informed and the barman agreed with my deep distrust of the Orange Ale.
There is a third room downstairs, the Tower Bridge Tasting Rooms which has it's own bar, this was closed but is available for private hire.
Food is served, I didn't see a menu but there were pots of mustard, bottles of Tabasco and salt and pepper sets on each table.
A bit quirky and not at all a traditional pub but I quite liked the place.
On 20th November 2012
- rating: 7
[User has posted 1708 recommendations about 1681 pubs]