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Reviews (Current Rating Average: 6 of 10) see review guidelines
Blue Scrumpy left this review about Real Drinks
Having just come from the Prince Alfred, you are likely to find this bottle shop a little less interesting architecturally. However beer wise, it is far more interesting.
Taps at the rear of the bar were all drawing Two Flints beers following a recent tap takeover. The choice was Skin Deep, Celestial, Clara, DDH Nelson Sauvin IPA, Looking Glass & Big Frank.
Central bench tables are surrounded by fridges with may different bottles and cans to choose from to either drink in or to take away. The barmaid was friendly. This is well worth a visit if you happen to be in the Maida Vale area.
On 24th June 2023
- rating: 6
[User has posted 2452 recommendations about 2451 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Moby Duck left this review about Real Drinks
Craft bar and bottle shop that also seems quite big on wine, a small amount of seating is available inside with a couple of small tables also out on the street. From a choice of seven keg beers I chose Pomona Catus Crown which was fine and spent a pleasant twenty minutes outside watching Formosa Streets comings and goings.
On 5th September 2022
- rating: 6
[User has posted 1872 recommendations about 1845 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Just a quick pint, then I'm off left this review about Real Ale
Despite the name, the one thing you can't get here is real ale! However, eight craft keg taps can be found on the back wall, offering beers in a range of styles from which I went for the 'house' Mocanda x Real Ale Formosa Pale collaboration (£4.55). Numerous bottled beers available from fridges on both side walls. Limited seating at two small, high tables plus a couple of chairs by the front window ledge. Quite a bit more seating in a downstairs room, but this may only be used for tutored tastings, etc.
On 8th November 2019
- rating: 6
[User has posted 8117 recommendations about 8117 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Pub SignMan left this review about Real Ale
These bottle shop and tasting room ventures generally seem to appeal to beer geeks, but this place seems mainly focused on attracting well-off locals who don't 'do' pubs, which meant I felt very much out of place turning up in my scruffy gear as the rest of the clientele were all in designer branded casual wear and suits. On the surface, there’s no difference to other such shops, with a simple single room with exposed floorboards and a small servery to the rear looking very similar to countless other venues around the country. Two scaffold frame tales either side of the front door and one more a little further back, all served by high stools, make up the only seating options, although an upturned barrel in the centre of the room can be used to perch your drink on. Both sides of the room a lined with fridges and shelves full of craft beer bottles and cans, plus a few cider and wine options. The bar counter is very basic and has the keg taps on the bar back next to some boards listing the beer selection. The décor includes lots of keg inserts (no pump clips here), enamel beer adverts and some high shelves with flowers stuck in empty wine bottles. I also noticed a framed article about the shop and the collaboration beer they’d brewed, which I was coincidentally drinking. Twangy folk music played in the background and signs indicated that pizza could be ordered from the nearby Red pepper pizzeria and consumed onsite.
There’s no real ale here, but they have eight keg taps, six of which were operational on my visit, offering the usual mix of obscure micro brewed beer. I tried an Anspach and Hobday beer called Enigma IPA which had been brewed in collaboration with staff from the shop. It was £4.00 for two-thirds and tasted pretty good. As if the place didn’t seem posh enough as it already was, I noticed that the crisps on sale at the bar were black truffle flavour.
Not the most comfortable pub-going experience I’ve ever had, partly because this type of bottle shop can never match the experience of visiting a ‘proper’ pub, but also because I felt this was really a plaything for the affluent locals and plebs like me were a passing inconvenience. I think beer tickers might be interested in this sort of place thanks to the obscure stuff they have on tap, but it didn’t do much for me and I was happy to head off after one.
On 25th October 2019
- rating: 5
[User has posted 3114 recommendations about 3114 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Bucking Fastard left this review about Real Ale
A small shop conversion,with three high tables in the front windows with 8 stools,display cabinets on each side and a keg bar running along the rear wall.There is an overflow area downstairs with a further set of tables and tressels in the basement.Unlike the Twickenham branch there is a licence to consume alcohol on the premises.
This is the place to come and sample the very best of cutting edge craft beer production.There is a changing list of 8 kegs from a tap menu with on my trip Woodeforde's Conquest Lager,Wylam Reality Asylum,Ansbach & Hobday The Enigma Code IPA,Moncada Formosa,Burnt Mill 1000 Days,Deya Sinister Baltic Porter,Left Hand Giant Compulsory Fun IPA 6.5% (outstanding) and Tiny Rebel Imperial Porter Chocolate Stay Puft 9%(unbelievably good).Measures are served in thirds,halves,schooners and pints with some classy glassware,while there is a corkage charge for bottles and cans from the shelves.Besides beers there are wines and spirits and the emphasis here is on excellence,but that comes at a price.£3 for a third of 9% Tiny Rebel may surprise but I was happy with the result.
The service is knowledgeable ,the muzak was cool and the surrounding hip but welcoming.If you like to swing the bat at very high ABV beers bursting with hop and malt character then suspend your CAMRA biases and give this place a go.I will be back.
On 6th January 2019
- rating: 8
[User has posted 2727 recommendations about 2727 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Tris C left this review about Real Ale
This so-called 'liquid delicatessen' opened just a few weeks ago and is in effect an off-licence/bar shop conversion situated in an attractive bijou parade of shops just 50 yards from the Prince Alfred. It's a small venue with plain white walls, a pale boarded floor, ceiling fans, muted music and brightly lit with the little bar at the rear behind which are dispensed eight beers from keg; so no real ale then. The left and right walls are flanked with glass-fronted chiller cabinets displaying a wide variety of beers in cans, bottles and kegs as well as bottles of wine and an obligatory choice of gins which for some reason people are drinking again, Hogarth's message seemingly having fallen on deaf ears. The bar doesn't sell food, just crunchy bar snacks. There are two high tables each with two stools to the windows and a more centrally located high setup to seat four; there are stairs down to further seating but as the area went unexplored, their height was undetermined.
On our visit we were greeted by a very charming and friendly member of staff who brought us our drinks, as is obviously the custom here, a couple of minutes after ordering.
As mentioned, there are eight beers dispensed from keg via a wall to the bar's rear, all available in not just pints but also in 2/3rds and litres. We both plumped for the Moncada's Formosa Real Ale as it was the only beverage to include the words 'real' and 'ale' in the description. I wasn't what I would call real ale though I'm happy to be corrected, but it was quite pleasant enough being cool, the sort of thing I'd welcome in a pub garden in the height of summer. It was also reasonably priced too at £3.25. A pint would have cost £4.25 and a litre £6.45.
This is an interesting little place and may well be a good off-licence but as a drinking establishment I think it's a little flawed. It's not exactly homely being a little like drinking in a doctor's waiting room; it doesn't exactly cosset and it's certainly not spacious.
That said, I hope it survives and is probably worth a visit if only for the mild novelty factor.
On 13th October 2017
- rating: 5
[User has posted 1985 recommendations about 1951 pubs]