William's Ale and Cider House, Spitalfields

 

I have of late come to realise that the thing above all others that really inspires me to put pen to paper is having my expectations utterly confounded.

 I have begun writing a review of The Friendship in Borth, yet to be completed, but there was a bizarre, cold, deserted husk of a pub that over the course of three hours became one of my favourite ever. And the opposite can happen too.

I love cider. It has a hard time. I barely ever drink it when I'm out because it's almost impossible to get a good pint of cider anywhere. Even in Zummerzet, as I discovered earlier this year.

But in London you can get anything! If you want really good Korean food, you can get it. If you want to go to a specialist Belgian beer bar that makes you feel like you're in Ghent, you're sorted. If you want the latest faddy Instagrammable food trends that cost an absolute fucking fortune and are 'curated' by someone whose Dad is a major shareholder in BAE then there's Borough Market.

Yet cider is apparently far too niche for even really good specialist beer pubs to bother putting any effort into (see my review of The Hope).

So imagine my elation when I was steered by the evil Google algorithm towards William's Ale and Cider House in Spitalfields. Further research shows that it frequently features on lists of cider pubs in London, usually towards the top. I simply had to pay a visit.

In hindsight, I simply had not to pay a visit and I'd have been happier.

Having spent the afternoon in east London amusing myself by watching people with green hair pay thirty quid for a second hand Uriah Heap t-shirt (irony is expensive) I decided it was time to tick off another pub on the list. Every place I walked past was fucking heaving, and yet when I arrived at William's Ale and Cider House it was largely deserted. There were a few people about, but compared to every other pub in the Brick Lane/Liverpool Street area it felt a bit like stepping through a weird portal.

Gone was the hubbub of the street hawkers! I was no longer being accosted by men telling me how many awards their restaurant had been nominated for (in fact, it seems that in Brick Lane it's virtually impossible to find a curry house that hasn't been nominated for any award in the last decade) but walking into the pub didn't seem like a sanctuary from the hustle and bustle - that would be The Red Lion off Pall Mall - it just felt kind of moribund. A cavernous space that cried out for greater patronage that was mysteriously lacking. The plot thickens.

The interior isn't terrible, but one thing that strikes me as odd is that along the length of the main room, opposite the bar, is another narrow bar up against a brick wall. If I'm to climb onto one of the high stools and sit with a pint, elbows on the bar, my nose is about an inch from a brick wall. Could be good on a date where you've been horrifically catfished.

As I approached the bar I saw that there were five or six real ales on of various styles. To give an idea of the selection, the most mainstream of these would have been Tribute, an ale I have enjoyed many times over the years. In fact, there was a period whilst living in Cornwall that my body mass was on average about 9% Tribute at any given time. Don't see too much of it in London, though given the low customer numbers today I would have some concerns about freshness. What did please me were none of the chain pub red flags. No Greene King IPA, Old Speckled Hen, Pedigree etc.

But ale was not why I had travelled to this particular hostelry! It was the cider. But I couldn't see any. I was approached by the bartender, which seemed as good as any time to make my enquiries. She directed me "around the back." And around a brickwork arete I discovered a back bar, still in the main room but completely out of sight and tucked away - the site from where the cider was distributed. It was completely deserted, just kept company by the untroubled dartboards. 

I was disappointed beyond belief.

A total of four ciders. Two were Lilley's, which is all I need to say about them. A third was Seacider, which somewhat improbably is even worse than Lilley's. I used to work in a bar that sold it (amongst other dross) and I would taste everything that came in, only out of curiosity. This stuff tasted like a can of some never before heard of energy drink had been bought from a petrol station on a warm summer's day, cracked open, then forgotten about and left in a car cup-holder untouched for two weeks. But they had very fancy pump clips, so people bought it. If I was making an alcoholic beverage and the best thing about it was the pump clip, I'd take that to mean that I should probably knock it on the head...

There was also Turner's Kentish Dry cider on draught. Certainly a massive step above the others, but I'd had a couple of pints of it in The Harp on another occasion and wasn't exactly blown over to be honest. Whilst there's not much wrong with it, it hardly made a journey across London worthwhile. There were also a couple of kegged ciders and some bottles, but these are not worth reporting on.

I ordered a pint of German lager and sat on a stool so I could stare into the brickwork. I got bored and tried to do the Grauniad crossword, but struggled to get comfortable. I gave up and tried to connect to the WiFi. The network name was GKGuest.

GK... Could it be? I visited the William's Ale and Cider House website, and after a bit of a trawl it became clear that this was just one more of the ten thousand or so Greene King corporate shitholes that you can't fucking move for in London.

If there'd been a Greene King sign hanging out the front I never would have bothered visiting, I would have known exactly what sort of establishment it was going to be, and I wouldn't have been left disappointed. Brand recognition is important, we base our decisions apropos who to give our money to based on a perceived set of qualities. If I see a Titanic or Thornbridge pump clip, I know there's a good chance I'm going to like a beer. If I see a former bingo hall called The Something Moon, written on a blue sign in script, then I know a lot of people in there just wanted their country back. If I see a Greene King sign I know to not go into a pub. 

I realise this is probably the exact opposite reaction to the one that Greene King would have wanted me to have to their branding, to which I say: make better beer then. But thank you for advertising clearly which pubs to avoid.

The fact that William's Ale and Cider House hides away its corporate identity (if the term identity can be used here regarding such a bland establishment) suggests to me that at least someone is aware of the reputation of Greene King pubs and has sought to disassociate from it. And this has really pissed me off. I would have appreciated a fucking warning! Not only would my expectations not have been raised, I simply wouldn't have bothered making the trip. If I wanted to drink utter horsepiss that has the nerve to be labelled as cider then there are several hundred other pubs I could have gone to much closer to where I live. But I don't because I'm not a basic shitmuncher who watches I'm A Celebrity and thinks Nigel Farage is a man of the people.

And finally, if you think any of the above is in any way unfair, or hyperbolic, or pedantic, and you think I should just chill the fuck out and cut people a bit of slack, just remember this one fact: they are charging £7.50 for a sausage roll.