Hammers' pub hits the spot

There's a widespread belief in the pub trade that there areno-go areas for cask beer.

For no-go areas read working-class areas: the assumption is that real ale is mainly consumed by the affluent middle class, while the proles should be left to sup lager.

Anybody who has visited the Young's tied estate in London will know that this attitude is nonsense.

For further proof, go to any Holt's pub in Greater Manchester and watch the pints of mild and bitter being dispatched by people who look like refugees from Coronation Street.

But old habits and attitudes die hard.

I lived and grew up in East Ham, on the far edge of East London.

I return on a regular basis as I'm a season ticket holder at West Ham United (not so much a sporting liaison, more a form of self-flagellation).

I know that the pubs around the Upton Park ground are dispensers of fizz to the masses, with hand pumps as rare as a Hammers home win.

What joy, then, last week to enter the Miller's Well, a Wetherspoon's pub in Barking Road opposite East Ham town hall.

I have my reservations about Wetherspoon: I don't like pubs with all the creature comforts of an aircraft hangar, and too often the "wide selection" of cask ales is reduced to a couple of beers widely available elsewhere.

But this particular pub is a corker.

It's not small but there are plenty of intimate areas, and the alcoves, cut-glass partitions and fascinating old photos of the area warmed the cockles of an ex-pat Cockney's heart.

The pub was busy on a Thursday evening: there was no football match at Upton Park and I was in East Ham to meet some old friends and acquaintances.

Not everyone in the Miller's Well was drinking cask beer, but a goodly number among the lively throng were.

The range was inviting.

Courage Best and Theakston's Best, from the ScotCo stable, are not over-exciting discoveries, but Shepherd Neame Spitfire and Hop Back

Summer Lightning are rare for the area.

Encouraged by the Cask Marque plaque in the entrance, I ordered a pint of Summer Lightning.

It was in impeccable condition: the temperature was spot on, the head was just right for the south of England, lacking the exaggerated foam produced by a tight sparkler, the lacework followed the beerlovingly down the glass, andthe aroma and flavour were entrancing.

It was, simply, a cracking pint.

I had time for a refill, and was encouraged to do so by the remarkable prices.

The five or so cask beers listed on a blackboard were offered at between £1.50 and £1.65 a pint.

Such prices are astonishing when you consider that a pint in London and the south-east is often closer to £2.50 than £1.50.

I suspect the producers of the beers on sale in the Miller's Well are less enamoured of the prices than the drinkers are.

Wetherspoon must be getting some big discounts to be able to sell beer at such low prices.

But the end result is that, in a far-flung part of London, largely untouched by economic upturns in the 1980s and '90s and with considerable pockets of poverty and poor housing, an attractive, comfortable pub was packing in the punters.

And it is selling large quantities of a type of beer that most brewers and pub company bosses think is fit only for readers of The Guardian and The Independent.

I was impressed, too, by the enthusiasm of the bar staff.

Drinks were dispensed quickly and efficiently to customers thronging the bar, but there was no attempt to cut corners where the cask beers were concerned: they were pulled slowly and with enormous care.

I'd gone to the pub from a beer-tasting event and had forgotten I was wearing a rather garish tie with a motif of a beer barrel and a foaming glass.

The barman who served me clearly thought I was a kindred spirit rather than a real ale nuisance, and engaged me in knowledgeable conversation about other beers from the Hop Back portfolio.

A great pub with great beer in an unfashionable part of London.

If real ale can survive in East Ham, then there's hope for those Hammers yet.

www.protzonbeer.com