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Detail Pages
Small Beer, Crouch End, N8
N8
N8 8PT
Reviews (Current Rating Average: 5 of 10) see review guidelines
Blue Scrumpy left this review about Small Beer
Having last visited Crouch End 11 years ago, I ventured back to visit the area's first pub in the Good Beer Guide since the Harringay Arms made it in back in 2011.
Small Beer is a rather dark, but modern bar with a distinct emphasis on craft beer. Nevertheless, it does have 4 cask ales, which on our visit were Drop Project Choppy, Two By Two Strata Talus, Burning Sky Plateau & Almasty Best Bitter. The cider was Ascension Pilot.
Craft beers were Kernel Mosaic Galaxy Pale & Table Beer, Left-Handed Giant Stepping Stones, Drop Project Shifty, Turning Point Disco Mango, Goodness Sunset, Villages Rafiki & Bassoon, Deya Steady Rolling Man & Indie Rabble The Mob Has Arrived. All beers and ciders are listed on a screen above the bar. There is also a list on Untappd. However, I soon discovered this to be out of date.
On our Saturday evening visit, the customer base was a mix of ages. Although the majority were of the younger generation. A hip soundtrack was playing, whilst many were in for pizzas, which were being prepared in the far left-hand corner. Toilets (clean by the way) can be found along a corridor beyond this. The bar itself is in the far right-hand corner. In addition to the beers, a list of cocktails could also be seen at one side of the bar.
Whilst there are much more traditional pub options in Crouch End, this modern bar undoubtedly sets the bar for decent beer in the area. It's certainly a good option if you find yourself in the area.
On 26th December 2023
- rating: 7
[User has posted 2452 recommendations about 2451 pubs]
Steve of N21 left this review about Small Beer
I visited this one on a fine sunny afternoon when the front window was completely open and light was streaming in from the skylight above the serving area and it was perfectly fine. But I can well believe on a dark February evening, with the only light coming from the multitude of orange filament bulbs that bars and restaurants consider trendy nowadays, it may be a different story. But however dim and dark it may be it must be an improvement on the previous Wishing Well and Henry Ryder incarnations.
The small serving area to the back right had three hand pumps on the front of the serving area and a 12 craft keg tap wall behind. For my visit there seemed to be a focus on the Two by Two Brewery, the seasonal craft brewery based in Wallsend with four of their beers present. Their Leap Frog pale ale and Alzacca Mosaic was on the ale pumps alongside Almasty Best Bitter. Then a mixed selection of porters, sours, APA’s and Pale Ales were on the keg taps from quite a few craft brewers I was not familiar with, such as Ideal day, Beak and the Goodness Brewing Company, who apparently have been brewing in Wood Green for the last couple of years. And as my late afternoon visit coincided with their 4 till 6 buy a beer and get a slice of pizza offer, I got some free scoff as well.
I targeted this one primarily for the beer but also to experience the train spotting toilets described by Will below and had been holding it in for the last couple of pubs so that I could do so. I think Will must have had a few by the stage of his visit and had narrow vision. Either that or they have strange letter boxes up in that there Sheffield.
Yes the urinal design is unconventional, but it wasn’t the krypton factor Todger test I was looking forward to and hopefully my photo will be uploaded so that you can make up your own mind. And although there wasn’t enough customers of the male variety to put the hygiene level under pressure they had clearly been cleaned since Wills visit.
I agree that this place hasn’t got a great deal of character, but the interesting range of ales from non-mainstream breweries will certainly make it a place of interest for beer tickers
On 11th August 2023
- rating: 6
[User has posted 2111 recommendations about 1992 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Will Larter left this review about Small Beer
This shop conversion has been a pub for quite some time, so doesn't belong to the recent trend for micropubs. It's fairly small, dim and grungy, with a bar in the dimmer recesses of the rear of the single room. There are four hand pumps, with nothing I liked the look of, so I perused the keg options, plumping for a wheat beer from The Kernel, a brewery whose bottled ales I occasionally pick up from shops in Sheffield but whose kegged versions I had yet to try. Well, it was cold, fizzy and lacking in anything interesting by way of flavour; what was I expecting?
What else can I say about Small Beer? As well as being dark, minimalist, uninviting, with bare brick walls and challenging background music, it has the worst pub toilets I have ever used. The urinals were made out of some sort of metal boxes - taking a pee was like putting your most vulnerable fleshy parts into a letter box; and you can imagine how difficult it must be to clean something like that. The solution (it's so obvious, really): let's not bother! Seriously, these toilets have *never* been cleaned.
On 17th February 2020
- rating: 1
[User has posted 3746 recommendations about 3483 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
john gray left this review about Small Beer
Small micropub sized craft beer bar.Tiled modern bright clean looking interior.No outside space.About 10 keg beers and on cask were beers from Track,Burning Sky,House Brewery and Ansbach and Hobday.Decent prices
On 10th November 2018
- rating: 7
[User has posted 1023 recommendations about 1009 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Alan Winfield left this review about The Henry Reader
The Henry Reader is situated in the middle of the Crouch End shopping area.
Once inside there is a smallish oblong shaped room which runs to the rear,the bar is on the left side and the room is carpeted,there are normal tables and chairs on the right side and a few tall tables and chairs to the front.
There was a decent choice of real ales on the bar,i had a drink of Bootleg Urban Fox which went down well,the other beers were Henry Reader Bitter,Adnams Ghost Ship,Sharps Atlantic and Doom Bar.
There was a TV to the front which was showing crap irish songs.
This may be an improvement since the previous reviewers visits,especially if you like watching irish song videos.
Pub visited 4/8/2016
On 25th September 2016
- rating: 6
[User has posted 6113 recommendations about 6113 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Rex Rattus left this review about Henry Reader
I reckon that this pub has improved considerably since the previous reviewer's visit during its time as part of the Wishing Well chain. It's a small one-room shop conversion pub by the look of it, and is reasonably comfortable, being carpeted and furnished largely with sofas, but with enough normal tbles and chairs to satisfy a traditionalist like me. There are numerous old framed black and white prints on the wall, but red features prominently here, with much of the walls, some upholstery, and the carpet all this colour. But it doesn't look too garish somehow. There was some pop music playing at background volume, and and a TV (muted) showing the live football.
On the ale front they had on GKIPA and Doom Bar (£1.85 a half), with a Deuchars IPA clip reversed on another pump. I didn't see any sign of food on a Saturday afternoon. This is one of the better shop conversions that I've seen (if indeed it is a conversion). It's quite comfortable, does some real ale (albeit nothing exciting), and the service was friendly and efficient - I was acknowledged while waiting my turn to be served. But with The Queens, and the Earl Haig Hall just over the road, it's probably not going to be revisited by me.
On 23rd February 2014
- rating: 5
[User has posted 2606 recommendations about 2520 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Steve C left this review about The Wishing Well
This place is pretty much what you would expect from the Irish Wishing Well shop conversion chain of pubs with the usual generic draught and plasma screens that show Sky Sports, Setanta (probably not any more though) and GAA.
There were only five other punters, but they seemed like a nice bunch as they discussed the benefits of getting totally plastered. Unsurprisingly, Magic love songs was playing on one of the plasma screens, not that anyone other than the barmaid was listening to it. She said please and thank you and even said goodbye when I left, but she seemed like she'd had a long day as she didn't crack a smile once.
As I went to use the toilet at the rear of the pub I passed a bloke was smoking at the locked back door inside the pub. He glanced at me and asked if he would be ok smoking so close to the gas canisters, which were actually empty beer kegs. I had a chuckle to myself as he thought he was risking his life just to have a sneaky fag in the pub rather than standing on the high street out the front.
I ended up sitting at a table and reading a paper from the bar that another customer had left. It was here, whilst I was trying to work out why I didn't like this place as much as other Wishing Wells, that two dogs started humping in the middle of the pub and it took until they had finished for someone to calm the situation.
I'm still not entirely sure why I wasn't so keen on this place!
On 23rd June 2009
- rating: 3
[User has posted 5251 recommendations about 5219 pubs]