The Crown, Soho, W1

Visited 11/08/26. Visited previously 07/08/19 Cask here was four handpumps dispensing Bass, Nicholsons Pale Ale, London Pride and the Raspberry Lemonade cider from Lilley's. Keg was Camden Hells, Guinness, Neck Oil, Madri, Peroni, Damm Lemon, Jubel peach, Budvar, Henry Weston's Vintage Cider, Lucky Saint, Signature Brew Haze Machine. Classy corner boozer with again good standing space outside on the two street sides. Inside it is L shaped with the bar counter along the rear wall facing the glass frontage onto Brewer St. Venue is bare boarded with some ledge seating to the right and immediate left of the corner entrance, then some tall tables with tall unbacked stools around the nearer end of the bar counter. There are some leather banquettes serving regular tables with small stools the other side thereof around the front left-hand corner to the start of the rear space beyond the left-hand edge of the bar counter. The rear left-hand corner is a dark wood panelled affair with the same red leather studded banquettes around the left-hand side and rear left-hand corner and then regular tables dotted around the space. Screens were switched off on my visit and the music barely audible, the chatter of punters the dominant sound. Was v tolerable compared to some more packed venues around here and a good if not great pint of Bass - what's not to like!

This is a Nicholsons pub on a corner not far from Piccadilly Circus. It's fairly ordinary but well presented. Despite six hand pumps there was only one real ale on the bar at the time of my visit, but this was a very good Sharps Doom Bar, the best of this beer that I'd had for about five years (NBSS 4). The other hand pumps had what may or may not have been a real cider, according to Camra's definition, and three that were marked as being in the process of line cleaning. I'm not sure whether to deprecate the lack of beer choice or celebrate the evidence of one beer being plenty. My notes made at the time go on at some length about a remarkably large dog that was taking up a lot of the floor space while carefully examining my shoes, perhaps with a view to determining whether they, or I, were digestible. I appear to have survived unscathed. Date of visit: 15th September 2022