Beer Guide London Visits 25 – Clerkenwell

Despite not arriving home from my Polish trip until the early hours I had to make sure I got myself up and about in order to go and see the band Tool at the O2 Arena that night. As I was still on holiday it would have been rude not to stop off somewhere en route for a bit of Guide research.

I ended up getting off the tube at Farringdon for a quick wander around the Clerkenwell area. The first stop was a fairly quick revisit to see what had happened to the Jerusalem Tavern since it had abruptly closed and subsequently re-opened as the Holy Tavern. Everything was much as it was before with the same great range of St Peter’s Brewery beers but the addition of some guest beers from Anspach & Hobday, most notably the sublime Black.

My next port of call was the Dovetail which we had listed as opening at 12:00, but it turns out that on Mondays it doesn’t open until 16:00. Another illustration of the value of constantly checking to ensure that the information we provide is as accurate as possible. In the interim I headed over to BrewDog Clerkenwell, one of the smaller of their London branches but a personal favourite, it always feels a bit less “BrewDoggy” than the larger branches.

As it was now past 16:00 I headed back to the Dovetail. Situated down a small alley this is a cracking Belgian bar that wouldn’t be out of place in Belgium itself. A great range of classic beers on tap, plus one tap that has a rotating guest beer which often throws up something interesting, and a large bottle selection. This is one of the little hidden gems that London has a habit of turning up.

I finished up here and headed on over to the O2 where I had hoped to pay a second visit to the branch of Beer+Burger that opened here prior to the pandemic, but unfortunately I found it closed and received confirmation later that the closure was permanent. A shame as good beer is hard to find at this venue. All that remained was to spend the rest of the evening in rapture at another show of superb musicianship provided by Tool.