Two Elegant London Pubs! The Old Bank of England and The Counting House

Two more London pubs ya gotta see.  I know, you’re thinking:  More pubs?  Can’t count any more! Already got my shoes off and running out of digits!

I offer this simple truth:  You cannot visit too many pubs.  Even a couple of lifetimes might not even do the trick.  But, I see your problem and I’m sympathetic.

How often does a person get to London?  In my case, the answer is EVERY CHANCE I FREAKING GET!  But then, I’ve been going there for some forty years and I get back an average of three times a year.  When my brother and I meet in London, every two years, we manage to hit about thirty pubs in a week and I still carry a list of “must go to” pubs we haven’t set foot in.

So, when I bother to stoop to your amateur-pub-experience-level, do yourself a favor and pay attention!  Here are two names to jot down:

The Old Bank of England

The Counting House

Both are owned by Fuller Brewery and both went through years of refurbishment before any barkeep pulled a pint.  I’m talking about refurbishment in the grand sense of the word.  Soaring, intricately festooned ceilings, carefully carved dark wood, sparkling chandeliers, majestic windows, and of course, fabulous ales, pulled from the cask by hand pumps.

What’s with the hand pumps? you may well ask.   Not easy to say in one sentence, so allow me time to explain.  Let’s start with the difference between English ales and American and Continental style beers.  Most American and European beers are either lager, or lager-style.  In a phrase:  for lagers, yeast falls to the bottom of the vat and that’s where the sugar turns to alcohol and carbon dioxide bubbles its way to the top.  It’s called bottom fermentation and the result is a light colored, carbonated beverage.  To keep the carbonation, the beer is either bottled, or stored in pressurized kegs.  Additionally, commercial gas is used to pull the beer from the keg to your glass./

English ales, on the other hand, are a product of top fermentation.  Few to no bubbles.  Ale is placed in kegs for a secondary fermentation and storage.  There’s almost no carbonation to pump it out, so the ale must be hand-pumped directly from the keg.  In some cases it’s called cask conditioned, or gravity ale.  As the name implies, gravity ale flows directly from the spigot in the cask, with no pumping required.

Ok, it’s a bit more complicated, but those are the basics.  The result is (in my considered opinion!) a different beverage from the beer Americans’ taste buds are used to.  Sometimes the English beverage is derided as warm, flat beer.  No so.  Normally, kegs are kept in a pub’s cellar, where the temperature is about 55-60ºF.  Cool, not warm.

And with top fermentation, the result is deeper, amber color, and robust flavor, not the same thing you’d get if you let an American beer go flat.

Lest you think I’m knocking American and European beers, I’ll confess that an ice cold, fizzy brewski, after mowing the lawn on a sweaty summer’s day, is just the thing to bring you back to life. Time and place for everything.

           

But, I’d much rather be ensconced in an English pub, sipping an English pint.  There’s something about the sheer romance of hand-pulled ale and the atmosphere of an old and wonderful watering hole, that’s the thing of comfort and dreams. Plus, the rich, complex flavors of English ale are to be sipped and savored. 

Check out the photos of The Old Bank of England and The Counting House and see if you don’t yearn to join me for some polite chat over a pint.

Inside The Old Bank of England

All you really need to know

The Old Bank of England (194 Fleet Street) is in what once was the bank branch in the Courts of Law.  Don’t miss the gallery, which gives a magnificent view of the entire pub.  And don’t just come here to drink.  It’s famous for it’s English fare, including heavenly meat pies.

http://oldbankofengland.co.uk

Inside the Counting House

The Counting House (50 Cornhill) dates from 1893 and as the name implies, was once a Victorian banking hall.  As with The Old Bank of England, The Counting House gleams and glows with 19^th Century luxury and charm.  It also sports a wondrous gallery that allows you to observe the full sway of the crowds while you calmly sip your ale.

Attention to Elegant detail 

Ready to pull a pint?

Both pubs are spectacularly adored and spaciously comfortable.  The perfect spots for gentlemen and their ladies to while away a few hours in the almost magical atmosphere of old London.

http://the-counting-house.com

Make sure you check the opening hours on these pubs before you go.

Next blog, I'm going to treat you to a Brewery tour!

Steak and Ale Pie - Another English Gift

Meat pies are the staples of English pub cuisine.  Well, I guess you have to add fish & chips to make it a full menu.

The most common English meat pie, Shepherd’s Pie I’ve already written about, given you a recipe, and done every bloody thing I can do for you besides strolling into your kitchen and slaving over your stove.

http://stroudallover.blogspot.de/2012/07/english-cuisine-is-underrated-shepards.html

So, have you plucked up some courage and made that one yet?  You have?  Well, I take back all I said and Bravo! for you. Still basking in the glow of success and well wishes?  I thought so.

Now I’ve got another savory treat and one I often lust for, especially when I’m nesting in an English pub, with a pint of Real Ale in hand.

Steak and Ale Pie, or steak and ale pudding, if you prefer, is a rich concoction that’ll make you put down that pint of ale and unsheathe your trusty spoon.  For fighter pilots salivating over this, just remember I said ‘trusty spoon’ not ‘rusty spoon.’

Onward…I have to give a nod to The Hairy Bikers, from Lovefood.  I used their recipe, but not exactly.  Do you ever follow a recipe without making some twists and turns?  I don’t.  Can’t be helped.  You’re out of this, or can’t find that, or just think your way might better satisfy the hungry masses.

In this case, my son and I concocted and cooked together.  And, I don’t mean I just asked him to stir now and then.  Nope.  We truly cooked this dish together.  Just wanted to get that straight in case you think I easily step aside to reward somebody else with the credit. When it comes to cooking, relatives get no special breaks. He cooked.

So, now that I’ve wasted time with nods and kudos here and there, let’s get to the heart of a dish that will thrill and delight even the pickiest eaters, with the most ungrateful attitudes.  You know of whom I speak.  Our so-called loved ones.

Steak and Ale Pie  (start early – taking 2 hours to cook, not counting another hour or two of prep and pre-cooking)

Puff Pastry, I used a package of Pepperidge Farms.   Very good and puff pastry is a bitch to make.

5 Tablespoons sunflower oil

8 oz bacon, chopped or cut into thin strips

2 Onions, diced

5 Cloves garlic, diced

2 lbs of rump roast, fat removed and cut into 1 inch cubes (2 lbs after fat removal. A little more meat won’t hurt.)

A quart of ale. (I used a dark, German variety)

A pint of beef stock. (I used two heaping tablespoons of Bovril English beef extract, dissolved in a pint of warm water.)  For my money, Bovril is the richest of beef extracts and you want this beef stock to be almost black with richness.

1 Heaping Tablespoon tomato paste

4 Sprigs of thyme, leaves stripped from the stalks

3 Heaping Tablespoons cornstarch, blended with enough cold water to make it very creamy

½ Pound mushrooms, quartered

2 Tablespoons butter

1 Egg, scrambled (for painting the crust before baking)

Salt and Pepper to taste….when it tastes almost right, add a little more pepper.

We used three cooking pots:  A 12 inch cast iron skillet, a 12 inch round enamel casserole pan with a lid, an 8 by 13 inch glass-oven-proof casserole dish.

1.     Heat one tablespoon of oil in the skillet, then add the bacon.  Before the bacon starts to crisp, add the onions and garlic and cook until the onions are golden.  Use a slotted spoon to transfer the bacon-onion-garlic mixture to the 12 inch round casserole pan.

2.     Heat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC)

3.     Cook the steak in the skillet (small batches work best) until well browned. Add oil as necessary and transferred each batch of cooked meat to the round casserole pan.

4.     Deglaze the skillet with half the ale, scraping up the bits from the bottom.  Pour this over the beef/onion/bacon in the round casserole pan.

5.     Add the remaining ale, tomato paste, stock, and herbs to the casserole pan. Return to the stovetop and bring everything to a boil.  Put on the lid and slide it in the pre-heated oven for an hour and a half.

6.     Remove the casserole pan from the oven, put it on the stovetop, add the cornstarch mixture and stir until thickened.  Set it aside to cool a bit.

7.     Turn the oven up to 400ºF (200ºC)

8.     Heat 2 Tablespoons of butter in the skillet and add the mushrooms.  Cook until golden. Add them to the meat mixture.

9.     Pour the meat mixture into the oven-proof-glass casserole dish.

10.  Roll out the puff pastry.

11.  Paint the edges of the glass casserole dish with egg (so that the pastry topping sticks to the edges of the dish).  Stretch the pastry over the meat mixture and use a knife to poke holes in it. (this allows steam to escape)

12.  Paint the pastry topping with the remaining egg and pop the casserole dish in the oven for another 30-35 minutes, or until the pastry is puffed and lightly brown.

If you’ve done things right, this pie will be so thick and rich that conversation will cease and in no time you’ll have some Olivers, bowls in hand, pleading pitifully, ”Please sir, may I have some more?”

I left out the steps about keeping the ale flowing while the Pie cooks.  A big red wine also works well. Your hungry guests may get testy if they’re left with time on their hands and beer on their minds.

You might consider putting out some Stilton and crackers, or perhaps some mild Gorgonzola. But, not too much.  This meal is filling by itself.

Down Tha Local – a tasty British institution

The Salisbury - a Victorian Pub

The Nut Tree - smallest pub in England  

fish and chips

Pubs are still the great equalizer in Britain.  Working blokes and financiers, who fancy a pint, rub shoulders in what has always been a sharpened axe to the English barriers of class, the Pub.

The first time I drank Brit beer, in decades past, I’d been warned with the standard poppycock.  “They drink their beer flat and warm.  Terrible stuff!”

Yeah, it’s terrible to sit your bottom down in an historic and infinitely comfortable place, warm yourself at a fire while sipping a bit of liquid history and chatting with the locals.

Expecting something akin to warm spit?  Got news for ye.  First, let’s get some things straight.  Brit beer is not served warm. They keep their kegs in the cellar, with a temperature of around 50ºF (10ºC).   That’s not going to get frost on your fingernails, but it’s not exactly bikini warm.  Secondly, Brit beer is brewed with top acting yeast, rather than American and European bottom feeding yeast.  What’s up with that?  Less natural carbonation remains in the beer.  I’m not going to go into malts and hops and how many monks can dance on the head of a barrel.  You can read about it yourself, well into the night.

When I say historic, what do I mean? I’ll give you a quick glimpse. The Mayflower Pub sits next to the dock where tradition has it that ‘the’ Mayflower sailed for Southampton and on to the new world.

Then there’s The Grenadier, a club for the Duke of Wellington (of Waterloo fame) and his regiment. 

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese has direct ties to Dr. Samuel Johnson, Dickens, Wilde, and Yeats, among others.

Blackfriar Pub, dating to 1905 and built on the site of a Dominican friary.  This architecture is simply outstanding.  All marble, inside and out.

Back to beer.  But, let’s stop calling Brit beer, ‘beer’, and call it what it is, ale.  Playing with linguists?  I don’t think so.  Ale has a different, heavier flavor and generally a darker color.  Even Bass Pale Ale has a deep amber glow.  In fact, to my well-trained taste buds, ale is a different beverage all together.  Comparing Brit ale and American beer is like comparing coffee and tea.  Both are warm beverages served in cups, but after that…

Time to cut the idle chatter and race into a pub.  Pub is short for Public House, meaning anyone 18 or older, with British Pounds and pennies, can walk in and order up.  I do urge one word of caution, order only traditional ales.  The rest are fizzy crap. Traditional ales are the ones the cute bar maid pumps when she pulls on one of the array of long wooden handles.  Check the bottom of the pull and you’ll see the name of the ale and the percentage of alcohol.  For my money, the lower the alcohol content, the smoother the brew.

When I first caught on that English pubs were God’s way of rewarding lechery and sloth, way back in the 1970s, I purchased a thin book called CAMRA’s Guide to Real Ale.  It had a sparse list of pubs around England that offered traditional ales.  CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, arose in the 1970s as a response to so many big brewers doing things the easy way and adding large squirts of carbon dioxide, to weaker and weaker cousins of what used to be.  A hue and cry (both of them at once, apparently) rose up from the throats of those in every Middlesex village and farm.  “Save our ale!”

The happy result is that traditional ale is now available in nearly every pub and the CAMRA Guide to Real Ale has expanded to the thickness of the London Telephone Directory.  But, alas, every sunny day has a lingering black cloud.  British pubs are disappearing at the rate of some 50 per day.  Why might that be?  Prices.  The cost of a pint has doubled in the past decade, mostly due to rising taxes on alcohol.  Without being political, there does seem to be a direct relationship between people having less money to spend and people spending less money.  It’s not just the tax on beer, but also the taxes on the pub businesses.  The ban on smoking has also taken its toll.

Still, there are some 57,000 pubs left, serving 2500 varieties of brew from about 500 brewers.  Here are some general styles you can find, all of them richly flavored:

Bitter – lighter amber colored.  Light head.  Usual alcohol content is about 4.6%.

Mild – definitely darker.  Creamy head.  Alcohol closer to 4.0% or a tad below.

Stout – Guinness is the most popular brand.  Darker body, with a thick, creamy head.  It’s said you can write your name in the foam and it’ll be on the bottom of the glass when you finish your stout.

Those are very general terms and brews vary widely.  Do what I do.  Forget all those tales of what other people think Brit ale is.  The detractors are flat wrong and not even warm.  Experiment.  Try a half pint of this or that.  You won’t be sorry.  If you’re lucky you may even find a pub that brews it’s own.  Now, that’ a place worth spending some time.

"If you took a guy from the 10th Century and brought him forward in time, the only things he would recognize in the world today are churches and pubs," said Peter Brown, the author of "Man Walks Into a Pub," a history of pubs and beer.

 

Inside Blackfriar Pub 

Entry to the Bunch of Grapes