Tipped

Good beers, alright pub.

March 07, 2009

This place has loads of good beers, they have a beer list divided by location - and my current penchant is for American craft beers, which they have a few of: Sierra Nevada, Brooklyn (lager), Liberty Ale and Anchor Steam .. and maybe Goose island.

The place is pretty nice inside, from the outside it looks like any other west end pub but its almost a bit more upscale than average.

I went on a Friday, and it was bearable - it was filled with the usual dickheads, and they had a band playing covers somewhere in the bowels of the pub, played over tv screens - bleh.

That said, I was meeting friends in town, and we drank craft beers until everything got a bit rosier, I trundled home happy and drunker than I arrived.

I reckon mid-week this place is a really worth checking out, at least you can get a decent beer if nothing else.

Keywords: beers, bottled beers, imported beers, imported beer, west end

Get lost in beers (and the bar)

September 02, 2008

The Porterhouse is one of those spectactular, wonderful places with more beers than you could possibly drink, even with a daily pilgramage for a year.

As far as I can tell, the place is full of people seeking out that-beer-they-had-while-they-were-travelling (Beer Lao anyone? Windhoek?), people genuinely wanting to move beyond the stagnant Carling for something different (good work guys), and a few of those on a challenge to 'drink the world' (tip: you will fail).

The space itself is akin to a rabbit warren, with hidden places to sit all over the shop, and staircases winding themselves together around a huge ornamental ticking clock. Because of this, some parts can seem a little too dark when you first go in, but this soon evaporates as your eyes adjust to focus on the thousands of bottles in floor-to-ceiling glass cases, and the menu with a dozen pages.

As everything decent here comes in a bottle, and stuff is imported from around the world, it's not the cheapest place. However, it's not the expense you might expect from somewhere smack bang in Covent Garden, with most bottles about £3.40. As far as I'm concerned, it's well worth it. Especially considering thrown in to this were quick and knowledgable staff - often something of a rarity in a bar with a huge variety. They were particularly good when catering for my strange bottle-top requests.... this bar is well worth a trip for.

Keywords: international beer, world beer, bottled beer, imported beer, covent garden