The Pied Bull, Streatham Vale 1st November 2006

Having had two not so successful visits to the Five Bells in Streatham, I decided to make it my mission to find some good beer in the area.

First port of call was my out of date (2005) Good Beer Guide. This lists three pubs in Streatham: the Hogshead (now the Five Bells), the Crown and Sceptre (the Wetherspoon’s near Streatham Hill which I know can serve good beer) and the Pied Bull. Never having been to the latter I decided to give it a go.

The good news was that it wasn’t as far away from where I live as I originally thought, on the High Road pretty much opposite the common.

This is a big barn of a pub (Young’s) and although the Sky TV was on showing football, it didn’t intrude too much into the rest of the space.

The Young’s Bitter (3.7%) was very tasty. I’m quite a fan of ‘mixed’ so I didn’t taste the Special on its own. I also left the other beer (was it Wells Bombardier?). The ‘mixed’ (half Bitter, half Special) was excellent too.

Actually, having thought about it, these beers might actually be Wells & Youngs now. Which would certainly explain the presence of the Bombardier.

The food was perfectly acceptable so this was a good find.