retiredmartin

November 2024. Hammersmith.

The descent by foot into Belsize Park Underground station is not for the fainthearted,

but once on the tube you’ve got a quick trip via Leicester Square to Hammersmith.

There’s at least one classic punk song about the tube (were The Jam punk ?), and an obvious pick for Hammersmith, too.

The new Craft Beer Co. place is tucked in that Broadway shopping centre that greets you as you leave the escalator, which means you will fail to find it without walking out, walking back in, walking out again,

then spotting it opposite Hammersmith’s one pretty looking building.

I’d only been in Broadway a few months back, how had I missed this pre-emptive opportunity ? The odds of a Craft Beer place eventually making the Guide are currently 4/11 on (Spoons 2/5).

It’s not one for Paul Mudge to add to his next Heritage Pubs crawl yet, if only because it only opens at 4pm, which seems odd for a place in a shopping centre.

My notes say “Like an upmarket OK Diner with beer“,

but some folk like OK Diners, I read, and the pumps have those little hats on top which indicate that CAMRA have designated the ale as “Good beer“, rather than that nasty national slops.

It’s a cheery place; the 25/12 deccies are up, Billy Idol is singing his famous Xmas song,

my Bristolian Milk Stout is cool and chewy (NBSS 3.5),

though the trade is entirely gentlefolk shoppers, one of whom is aggressively swinging their leg to “A Town Called Malice”, which is NOT about Hammersmith (it’s Maidenhead, obvs).