Old Red Cow, Smithfield, EC1

Will Larter left this review about Old Red Cow

Not my first visit, though I didn't write a review in 2014 as I was in company. My solo visit 10 years on found the place much as I had retained in my memory, which makes a pleasant change. (Both with regards to the continuity of the pub and the continuing existence of parts, at least, of my memory.) There are two hand pumps squashed into a corner, Purity Mad Goose and Five Points Best. My half of the latter was a well deserved NBSS 4 and cost £2.95, which is quite reasonable for this area. Most other customers - no, scrub that - all the people present were on anything but cask beer, though to be fair there's an upstairs room and I might have missed a few who arrived before me, but it doesn't seem likely. I'm always amazed that pubs like this are able to sustain good quality cask beers when the vast majority of their customers are drinking something else. (I can't claim to have much knowledge of the craft beer scene, but with reference to the review below of 2019, the only keg or cask beers I could identify among the 12 keg and two cask on the bar that were not now owned by multinationals or venture capitalists were just four from Verdant and Five Points. On mentioning this to a long time member of staff, we concluded that this was a triumph of capitalism.)

On 7^th November 2024 - rating: 7
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