There is beer journalism just about everywhere now. London’s Daily Telegraph has collected their pub reviews, though the initial idea that this is a collection of the best places to down a pint seems to have given way to a more agressive journalism, which is also wastly more entertaining…
The Gatehouse Inn in Highgate is one of the pubs who will not particularly appreciate the visit:
The cavernous Gatehouse Inn is a dimly lit, richly carpeted pub that can seat 190. At breakfast, it offers a welcoming fake fire, two big-screen televisions, three one-arm bandits and four staff dressed in black attending to its one customer, me.
I order the £1.99 special and a half-pint of the Red Squirrel Brewery’s Dark Ruby Mild, which I think is a good bet to cut through the anticipated greasy-spoon fare. The egg and bacon are just about acceptable, but the tomato is undercooked, the hash browns inedible and the clammy, cold mushroom as unappetising as the equally second-rate sausage.
On the other hand, the weak black beer (3.7 per cent ABV) is a revelation. A half-pint of the stuff is a wonderful accompaniment to a “full English”, which, when both are consumed early doors, should henceforth be known as a “Continental breakfast”.
I have no photos of the Gatehouse Inn, so you’ll have to settle for this. It is from the Kensington Arms, where I cannot vouch for the breakfast, but they have a splendid pint: