Cheap, fun night out in North London - Camden?

[Chris71]

Hi,

I'm dragging a load of friends from back home up to London for my birthday in a few weeks.

As it stands the plan is to get the tube into Camden and headed for the nearest bog standard indie-orientated bar and then begin a bit of a mini pub crawl around the area.

I'm familiar with a fair few of the pubs around there - The Black Heart, The World's End, Dublin Castle and The Hawley Arms - but I wondered if there were any others to add to the list?

I quite fancy the idea of going somewhere with more music (something to do other than just drinking basically...) but the clubs seem horrendously expensive and I'm keen to start early and finish in time for the last tube.

Any ideas?

Chris

[eastsider]

Shoreditch is the main area to go out in London for about the last 5 years, assuming you're avoiding west end. Camden is the same as it ever was.

[dcb]

Chris71 said:

I'm familiar with a fair few of the pubs around there - The Black Heart, The World's End, Dublin Castle and The Hawley Arms - but I wondered if there were any others to add to the list?

By a country mile, the Bree Louise near Euston station - 17 real ales.
CAMRA north Lunnun pub of the year. 3 - 3.50 quid a pint for proper beer
and it's always standing room only.

Camden is expensive.

4 quid a pint is cheap and 5 quid a pint is common.

There is the Brew Dog pub recently opened. They have speciality
beers running up to 3.50 for 1/3 a pint (yes 10.50 a pint if
you were daft enough to drink that much). There is also the
obligatory 'Spoons pub, the Ice Wharf, but if you've seen one
'Spoons pub, you've seen them all. Nice'n'cheap in there, though.

Like a lot of inner London, Camden is somewhat cosmopolitan.

Pickpockets are not unknown, having your IPad ripped out of your
hands happened to a friend of mine, getting hassled for money by obvious
drug addicts is nothing special and don't get surprised by folks openly smoking
Moroccan Woodbines in the street.

Oh, and if you want to visit 1975, it's there in the Camden Market.
Wall to wall tie dye Tshirts and cafes from all nations of the world.

Apart from that, it's not too bad, but cheap and fun are about
100% opposite to a night out in Camden.

[Greenwich Ross]

The Bar Fly and the Dublin Castle will have bands on and are cheap as they're just pubs.

One thing is guaranteed: you will be pissed before you go home. It's impossible to leave Camden not pissed. I often pop up there for a Leo during the summer.

But, as DCB suggests, watch out for the thieving scum in Camden. I'm sure you'll be ok, though, as they have an endless stream of foreign punters to prey on.

Have fun!

[Chris71]

dcb said:

Chris71 said:

I'm familiar with a fair few of the pubs around there - The Black Heart, The World's End, Dublin Castle and The Hawley Arms - but I wondered if there were any others to add to the list?

By a country mile, the Bree Louise near Euston station - 17 real ales.
CAMRA north Lunnun pub of the year. 3 - 3.50 quid a pint for proper beer
and it's always standing room only.

Is there much else round there?

The thing is I do know Camden reasonably well and although the self consciously 'alternative' atmosphere is a bit contrived I do quite like it.

If I go out there normally it tends to mean my missus is gigging, so it's straight over to somewhere like Dublin Castle or Dingwalls and I never really wander around. I am quite partial to The Black Heart hidden away by the tube station, though.

ETA Should point out, although I live more or less on the outskirts of London these days the people coming are all from the Westcountry, so I'm trying to give them a bit of a taste of London (one with a proof rating, that is...) even if it is a cliched one.

Edited by Chris71 on Friday 16th March 12:35

[Andacami]

Chris,

Camden is expensive (as has been said) and you will queue to get into the better pubs, Brew Dog, Hawley Arms, etc. Not such a problem if you are going to be there in the afternoon or early evening but anything past 8pm and you will queue.

There is a great little crawl around Westminster that takes in a few really good pubs serving decent real ale. Or, Highgate (not really "London" I guess), there is good wander from the Gate down to the Wrestlers.

If it's a day time thing then Richmond is cool, plenty of decent pubs, food, the geeen and the river, and you can wander round London in the evening on the way back up north.

There's lots of options and I've been on most of them, picking the ones handy for Public Transport to from our neck of the woods.

If you like, I'll see if I can dig out the old itineraries and we can discuss, perhaps at the Ace Café this Wednesday from 18:00 as it's the WSCC and Lotus, Nobel, etc club meet (might have shotgun seat in the Westy...). Otherwise we could take a hoon up to the Cowper Arms one evening...

Anyway, give us a buzz...

[MrDarkBlack]

Sounds like you know Camden well enough to not need any help.

I used to consistantly go to the World's End, then head up to the Dublin Castle... At closing time, head up to the Barfly.. Then when they closed, off to the Marathon "Bar", before a getting cab outside Chalk Farm station. Good times. Must have been over a year ago I last did that!

I've never been into the Hawley Arms. I went once, and there was a queue.. Why anyone would queue to get into a pub, God only knows.

The only other pub that no one's mentioned yet is the Good Mixer.. I think it's heyday was such a long time ago, seems to have lost what I guess it once had!

[djglover]

Crown and Goose and Brewdog are my 2 favorite camden pubs. Decent Music in both

[Chris71]

MrDarkBlack said:

I've never been into the Hawley Arms. I went once, and there was a queue.. Why anyone would queue to get into a pub, God only knows.

I've only been there once on a night out and I think once on a Sunday afternoon and it was pretty crowed, but never had to queue. I certainly wouldn't travel to go there, but it's an acceptable stop if you're doing a mini pub crawl, I reckon.

Will have to investigate Brew Dog, it sounds good. My usual favourite is The Black Heart. Quite expensive, but it's nicely tucked away, so even at peak times it doesn't get stupidly busy.

[MrDarkBlack]

Chris71 said:

I've only been there once on a night out and I think once on a Sunday afternoon and it was pretty crowed, but never had to queue. I certainly wouldn't travel to go there, but it's an acceptable stop if you're doing a mini pub crawl, I reckon.

Will have to investigate Brew Dog, it sounds good. My usual favourite is The Black Heart. Quite expensive, but it's nicely tucked away, so even at peak times it doesn't get stupidly busy.

When you say The Black Heart is expensive, what sort of price are you talking about for a pint? I've read about this place but never been. Agreed, Brew Dog sounds great. I was in Camden last week Friday, would have headed there if I'd known about it. I remember reading all about Brew Dog in the Metro a while ago...thanks whoever mentioned it above!

[Chris71]

Had a great night out on Saturday.

dcb said:

By a country mile, the Bree Louise near Euston station - 17 real ales.
CAMRA north Lunnun pub of the year. 3 - 3.50 quid a pint for proper beer
and it's always standing room only.

This turned out to be a great call - many thanks. We started at the Bree Louise before heading on to the Euston Tap, Lyttleton Arms, Brew Dog, The Black Heart and (less auspiciously, I admit) The World's End.

The food looked great value in the Bree Louise too, so I think I'll be back there for a slightly less raucous evening at some stage. Sampled lots of great beers, but it degenerated into shots from The Black Heart onwards on this occasion!

[dcb]

Chris71 said:

This turned out to be a great call - many thanks. We started at the Bree Louise before heading on to the Euston Tap, Lyttleton Arms, Brew Dog, The Black Heart and (less auspiciously, I admit) The World's End.

The food looked great value in the Bree Louise too, so I think I'll be back there for a slightly less raucous evening at some stage. Sampled lots of great beers, but it degenerated into shots from The Black Heart onwards on this occasion!

Cheers. I'm glad it went well.

My other Lunnun favourite is the Cask Bar'n'Kitchen in Pimlico,
6 Charlwood Street, SW1V 6EE

Not at all like the Bree Louise, but still a pub I could happily
spend the rest of my days in.