Best Pub, Best Pint

Herbie sits patiently waiting for our next visit which ought to be soon if only to clean the roof of rotting leaves and top up the batteries. In the meantime , and after deep soul searching, I can now announced the 2008 Herbie Award for Best Pub, and it goes to . .. . . . .

The Grapes at Limehouse - a unanimous decision. It's a pub you want to take your friends to, and it scores on character, location and quality of food and beer. What else is there to say?

The Best Pint Award is always going to be more contentious, so the Award will be based on my personal choice, although I suspect Phil would back me up as he waxed lyrical about it on our recent trip. There are lots of good beers, but occasionally you get a pint of a generally good beer that is in absolutely tip top form, and such was the case this time. Even one of the local regulars in the pub was singing the praises of this particular barrel. So the big prize goes to a pint (well more than one actually) of Fullers ESB served at the Black Horse at Greenford in October. Stunning.

A really really good pint like this must surely rank alongside the very finest of wines. The difference is I can afford to buy the beer whereas a bottle of wine of that quality would cost about twenty times as much.