August 2025: The Battle of Trafalgar, 40ft Kings & London's Bouncing Czechs
A monthly newsletter about London beer and pubs written by Will Hawkes
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England Expects
Oli Carter-Esdale, landlord of Wimbledon’s Trafalgar Ale House, is extremely proud of his handpumps. “That’s my pride and joy,” he says, pulling back on the right-most of five pumps on the main bar, so I can see that it was made by Birmingham company Gaskell & Chambers in 1940.
“We used to have one handpump that was original, from when the pub was a beer house in the 19th century. It had a secret spirit measure in it - they weren’t licensed to sell anything stronger than beer - but [the pump] finally snapped recently.”
That old pump might have given up the ghost, but the Trafalgar is clearly not planning to follow suit. Reopened in 2023, it has faced repeated attempts by owners Adenbuild Construction Limited to redevelop the pub site - and this week Oli discovered that Adenbuild has appealed to the Secretary of State over rejected plans to demolish the building and replace it with a four-storey block.
These plans included the replacement of the pub with a new, smaller venue - but anyone in the pub business has heard this sort of thing all before. Redeveloped ‘pubs’ are frequently completely unfit for purpose. (Even apparently minor changes - like the conversion of upper floors into flats - can be fatal: take a look at the White Hart in New Cross, shut since the landlord got planning permission to turn the upstairs into flats. It’s currently on the market for £60,000 with a free-of-tie lease.)
Luckily, Oli - who grew up nearby and has worked in hospitality in London and Bristol for more than a dozen years - has no plans to lay down and die. “We’re waging a campaign,” he says. “We’ve had councillors sending around emails telling people how they can make a comment on the application, because it’s now out of their hands.
“We’ve got a couple of people in the pub who are lawyers, one of whom has drafted - if it comes to it - a judicial appeal. We’ve got five weeks [from the 24th July] to make representations - and then, apparently, there’s a 29-week delay at the inspectorate down in Bristol, which will really drag things out.”
How the inspectorate will come to a decision is not clear, but you’d hope they’d visit the area. This part of Wimbledon feels a long way from the famous tennis club; it’s a mish-mash of council-owned housing and new flats, with various other structures - a school just across High Path, for example, or a car wash a little further up the road. Nearby is the Nelson Arms - a pub whose exterior beauty is only matched by the bleakness inside - and, a little further away, The Sultan, an excellent pub run by Hop Back Brewery.
Unlike the Nelson, The Trafalgar is not, in all honesty, London’s prettiest pub. It’s a squat little place, with a cellar squeezed in under the floor at one end of the building and toilets with questionable plumbing (“Every three or four weeks, I’m in there with a rod and hose,” Oli says, leaving just enough to the imagination).
But what it lacks in physical beauty it makes up for in the evident connection it has with local people. “When we first got the keys [back in 2023] I had people coming up to me in the street, delighted and amazed, saying, ‘Are you sure? Are you actually doing this?’” says Oli.
“The pub is tied to the community. There's a man called Keith who’s been coming in for 57 years, a guy called Lance who’s been drinking here since he was 21. My Dad brought me in here when I was 21. The community goodwill has been enormous. When the first planning permission went in, 400 people objected.”
Others should care, too. The Trafalgar serves some of the best cask ale in London; last Saturday, I enjoyed a genuinely superb pint of Surrey Hills Shere Drop. No wonder 60 percent of this wet-led pub’s takings are cask ale, even at the height of summer.
You could understand, though, why Oli might want to give up, notwithstanding the impact on his four staff members. He also runs the Hand and Marigold in Bermondsey, a superb little pub, and the psychological impact of constantly battling to survive must take its toll. “It’s tough,” he says. “Often the only thing people want to talk about when they come to the bar is, what’s happening? What’s going to happen next? It’s relentlessly stressful.”
The pub’s three-year agreement, signed in 2023, has one year left to run, after which it becomes a rolling payment. “Back in 2023, everyone thought this pub was going to be closed forever, everyone thought it was lost,” says Oli. “And having revived it, and rejuvenated it, and put so much of myself into the pub - including most of the decorations - I’m not going to give up now.” All hands to the pump.
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Manet Mix
A delightful and rare confluence of beer and art is on show at the National Gallery at the moment. Two paintings by Manet - At the café and Corner of a Café-Concert - which originated as one before the artist cut them in half, have been reunited at the National Gallery in London (the former is owned by the Oskar Reinhart Collection 'Am Römerholz’ in Winterthur, Switzerland). The pictures, created in 1874, depict a scene at the Brasserie Reichshoffen in Montmartre, Paris and will be together in London until December.
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Fan Flick
A pub in North London has produced a film about itself. Here Comes A Regular - a "quirky, warm and soulful short" co-written by The Boogaloo's landlord Gerry O'Boyle - is acted out by staff and customers. "I wanted to make a film about the beauty of pubs, about how they are important for the mental, spiritual and physical health of the customers,” O’Boyle told the Ham and High.
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Hoop and Horse
Two historic London pubs are currently being restored prior to being reopened. Farringdon’s Hoop and Grapes - which first opened in 1832 - has been shut since the end of 2020, but owners Shepherd Neame have announced it will reopen next year. An extensive “multi-million pound” renovation is expected to begin in the autumn, with the hope that it can reopen in the spring.
“It needs doing top to bottom,” says Sheps’ operations manager Ryan Torrie. “[We’re going to make it] a really brilliant, premium traditional pub. It’s going to look great.” Sheps is currently ploughing money into its central London estate: The Westminster Arms, reopened in March, gives a reasonable idea of how the Hoop and Grapes will look.
Then there’s the Running Horse in Mayfair, which closed in 2023 and which apparently dates back to 1738. It’s currently being restored as part of a development next to Bond Street tube. More info when I have it.
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Stag Party
The Stag Brewery at Mortlake - once home to Watney and most recently a Budweiser plant - has finally been approved for redevelopment. Most of the former brewery will be demolished, with the exception of the Maltings and the façade of the bottling plant and former hotel. The brewery closed in December 2015. Not everyone is happy.
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40ft High
Dalston brewery 40ft is rapidly becoming London’s most upwardly mobile beer-maker. Having recently taken on German Kraft’s former bar at the Staycity Hotel in Dalston, the brewery - founded by four pals in 2015, but now run entirely by Irishman Steve Ryan - opens a new venue, 40ft Blackhorse Road, tonight (Friday 8th) in Walthamstow. “You meet your partner here [in Dalston], have your first dates, do your thing, get married, move to Walthamstow, and then bring your kids to that tap room,” Ryan told The Times.
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Cellar Watch
I spent part of Monday afternoon at the Coach and Horses in Greek Street, filming a little clip that may or may not see the light of day. Whilst there, I managed to inveigle myself into the cellar - and here’s the proof. What a beauty!
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Temple Of Gloom
The Temple Brew House - sometimes described as London’s most central brewery - has closed. Owners Young’s have decided to rearrange things on Essex Street: Davy’s Wine Bar will take over the entirety of the ground floor, with a new ‘Beer Hall’ occupying the lower-ground space. Given that on-site brewing isn’t mentioned in the social media stuff, I suspect that’s the end of that.
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Two pubs, One City: Duck and Rice, Soho; Stranded, The Strand
What, you might wonder, has been my most profound impact on the wide world of London hospitality? Firstly, thanks for asking. Secondly, it was probably when I provided the name for a Czech beer bar that opened in Clerkenwell in 2021. Pivo. The founders wanted to call it ‘Czech Pub’ or ‘Real Beer From Bohemia’ or something similar - and my much snappier suggestion (the Czech word for beer, language fans) was happily accepted.
Not that it helped. Pivo shut about three weeks after opening, for which I must take some of the blame. Who knows, maybe ‘Real Beer From Bohemia’ would still be going today? Probably not. The truth is that real Czech lager (i.e. not the stuff brewed in Burton) has largely struggled to establish itself on the London market.
Take a look at Pilsner Urquell’s tank beer. A decade ago, it squatted like a giant toad across London’s hospitality scene. Tankovnas were everywhere, from the Sloaney Pony to the Draft House (remember them?) on Seething Lane. Now there’s just one left, at the Duck and Rice in Soho. According to my spies in Pilsen, owners Asahi have lost interest in promoting PU, preferring to focus on Peroni. At the recent National Geographic Traveller Food Festival, Pilsen’s stall was serving (admittedly delicious) beer from a microbrewery rather than the beer that made the city famous.
It’s a rum do, but happily there are still people prepared to try and sell the good stuff to ungrateful Londoners. Stranded, the latest opening from Bloomsbury Leisure Group, focuses on Budvar in its various forms and opened on the Strand earlier this summer. It’s not far from the Duck and Rice - so I thought ‘two pivos, one stone’, so to speak. Maybe I could get to the bottom of the issue.
It was Saturday afternoon and Soho was absolutely alive. The Nellie Dean has dozens of customers necking pints outside, and the Blue Posts on Broadwick Street was if anything even busier. Down on Frith Street, Ronnie Scott’s was throwing a street party and the atmosphere was near-manic. Everywhere there were people wearing Oasis gear (the Peroni of rock bands lol lol lol, only teasing. Seriously, though, those lads must be making a killing).
At the Duck and Rice, meanwhile, lunch service was winding to a close. I had 15 minutes to choose some grub before the kitchen closed, the waitress told me, which is exactly the sort of challenge I embrace. Crispy duck roll, Char sui cheung fun, Steamed har gui prawn. Bosh, as I believe the kids say.
And to wash it down, a glass of tank PU (£8.50). The PU here is served in a frosted glass, which a lot of people don’t like but it has the benefit of toning down what - even for PU - was an unusually potent dose of butterscotch. This is not a novel observation, but it’s such an odd beer: very bitter, but otherwise it doesn’t taste like a Pilsner, despite being the original. I used to love it, but on this occasion I struggled - perhaps because I’ve recently been in North Germany, where the pale lagers are crisp, bitter and very, very clean.
I wasn’t the only person struggling. The couple seated next to me barely exchanged a word, although they didn’t look particularly upset. Bored, if anything. On the other side, a group of South African pals were, by comparison, having a wild old time. “You got shook up like a soda can!” one remarked, to widespread amusement, apropos of an anecdote that I failed to hear.
The food is decent, the beer is fine, the decor - including four PU tanks at the entrance, installed way back in 2015 - is quite nice (even if I am seated with my back to the room, perhaps as a punishment for having arrived for lunch so late). I do have one complaint, though. The music is awful, the sort of cheesy house that was a key feature of “It’s A Scream” pubs back in the 1990s.
Things, happily, are much quieter on The Strand, and even more so inside Stranded (“Home of the Perfect Pour”). This is a big place, authentically Czech in its combination of comfort and slightly awkward liminality, and although there’s a regular stream of customers it never gets close to being busy. A plus, you might say, although if I was the owner I’d want to squeeze every last drinker in.
But what of the beer, I hear you squeal impatiently? Well, there are four Budvar options, including Unfiltered (£5.50), which seems appropriate and is, at 4 percent ABV, a whole percentage point weaker than the normal Budvar. After a brief chat with the actually quite genial barman (“why’s it weaker?” “Sugars” “fermented out less?” “Yes”), I take a seat to enjoy my beer.
Budvar is a much cleaner beer than PU; it’s not very bitter, and is in some ways its more like a Bavarian Helles than a Czech Pilsner. The unfiltered version is a touch sweeter, inevitably, but still (by contrast with the PU) very crisp, and it goes down easily.
The clientele on this unsettled Saturday afternoon are a mixture of people who have been watching the Lions rugby team and people who are going to the Oasis concert later. Maybe some are doing both! There’s a big group from Ulster, standing next to the pub’s impressive fibreglass pivo. A woman whoops with glee when she finds the accessible toilet. The tunes are classic British pop, from A Town Called Malice - a man in an Oasis t-shirt does a little dance - to Too Shy Shy.
It’s a decent place, and the beer is great value. I can’t help feeling, though, that the Strand - and particularly this bit of the Strand - is an odd spot for a bar, and it doesn’t look particularly like a bar from the outside.
And then there’s the name. Stranded? Lads, come on. ‘Real Beer From Bohemia’ is right there.
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London Beer City is written by journalist Will Hawkes. Feel free to contact me on londonbeercity@gmail.com. If you like what you’ve read, please share it with your friends; if you’ve been forwarded this email and enjoyed it, you can sign up here. Unsubscribe here. Help me keep the newsletter free here. Thanks for reading!