The Two Brewers

The Two Brewers is located in the backstreets of Barnsbury, close to Pentonville Prison in Islington. The nearest Tube is Caledonian Road, it’s a five minute walk to get here. The pub dates from the mid 19th century. It was rebuilt at some point but it is not clear when, possibly 1930s. This was once a Watney Combe Reid boozer, you can still see the original lamps and signage on the exterior of the building. Since 2018 there have been multiple plans to demolish and rebuild this pub as part of a new development. Generally, plans like this to reinstate a pub never happen, the locals have dug in and are fighting the good fight. This is a two bar pub which has a central servery that serves the adjoining bars. The decor here is simple no frills and is painted grey like the outside. The right hand bar has a large fireplace at the back with a couple of photos of locals out on a Jolly. The left hand bar has a pool table, dartboard and Arsenal memorabilia, at the rear of the pub is a beer garden. The beer line up was a straightforward selection of mainstream keg options popular with the locals. I decided on a pint of Fosters, my pint was decent enough, price point was very reasonable at just over four quid. This is a wet led pub that doesn’t serve food. We arrived just after 1pm on cloudy Saturday afternoon in late December. There were a dozen or so locals in the left hand bar playing pool and watching the horse racing and footy. We sat in the right hand bar and watched the end of the Luton v Chelsea game. The atmosphere was chilled with the occasional crescendo of laughter from the banter in the other bar.