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You could be forgiven for thinking that Shaw’s Booksellers, in the City of London, not far from St Paul’s Cathedral, is a booksellers.

The confusing name (which came with the premises) nonetheless conceals a pleasant enough pub.

Fuller’s have tailored this for the City crowd. so there’s a nod to real ale (two pumps, Pride and Discovery); lots of exotic-sounding but unexciting kegs (Blue Moon, Erdinger Weiss); Belgian and German bottles, but nothing you can’t get in Tesco; and ‘chilled beats’ straight out of 2002.

We tried Blue Moon, a controversial pretend craft beer from Molson Coors, and found it reminiscent of Kronenbourg Blanc, though less offensive — a bit sweet, a bit cloudy, not much hop flavour and an odd artificial lemoniness in their place. Not a candidate for beer of the week.

We’re no nearer yet to finding a perfect pub in the City of London, but we are working our way through them, one by one.



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