Kmflett's Blog

Thornbridge’s new pub in central London

Thornbridge are based in Bakewell but while Jaipur IPA is an omnipresent beer the opening of the Wild Swan in Fetter Lane is a first appearance of the brewery as opposed to its flagship beer in central London.

The area is well known to me. I had a summer holiday job in nearby Bouverie St in 1971 (the school leaving age was raised to 16 in that year- I didn’t leave btw) with Post Office telecoms who in a privatised format remain my employer 55 years later. That is another story.

I still have an office nearby in \Queen Victoria St but that also is another story.

Anyway for those wondering where the pub actually is its equidistant between Holborn Circus and Fleet St- a 5 minute walk either way- might be a bit quicker it depends how fast you walk- in central London most people except tourists do fast.

The Wild Swan has step free access (the gents are downstairs but decent). These are important matters for some.

Anyway there are six handpulls and two banks of keg taps. The pub has the luxurious feel of another Thornbridge outlet the Colmore in central Birmingham. The beer range on 14^th April was fine but not of specific interest to beer tickers (or whatever they are called now). Whether six handpulls works in the location I’m not sure (the Law Courts) but time will tell on that. I had a pint of 4.5% Hirondu Spring ale on cask. At £6.10 that was an Ok price for the area and it was a well-conditioned pint.

The food much like the Colmore is mostly pizzas, again reasonably priced for the location.

There is a bit of a history of breweries from Oop North appearing in a pub or two in London and not quite capturing the zeitgeist. However Thornbridge have a done a good bit to define the beer zeitgeist over the last 20 years so I hope the White Swan does well.