The Hops and Glory

A couple of years ago, fed up with the limited beer selection in the nearby Lord Clyde, I came across a small, unassuming corner pub on Essex Road. It had a curious maroon front and inside the dark interior twelve keg fonts sparkled in the dim light. A scattering of furniture adorned the floor, with largely mismatched sofas and low tables. A pile of board games sat in the corner on top of an old piano, free to use for all that wanted to play Scrabble with a few letters missing or maybe Trivial Pursuit with question cards from 1990. 
This was the Hops and Glory, and it was the first proper 'craft beer' pub that I'd ever stepped foot in (BrewDog aside).

I'd discovered a love for beer back in the mid-2000s. Of course, my later teenage years were driven by cheap lager and Stella-induced headaches but by my twenties, dislike of the basic taste of lager I had written off beer as "not for me" and moved over to cider - the hangovers were worse but the product didn't taste horrible. I was converted back to the hoppy side by the combination of a lack of cider in the pub I was frequenting and a cask of St. Austell's Proper Job, and I eventually became a bit of a cask beer Nazi, refusing steadfastly to drink anything that didn't come from a hand pump. 

On that first visit, I stuck to the three handpumps although the selection wasn't exactly inspiring. I became a regular and with the advice of Graham (the regular bar keep on Saturdays) and the landlord, Durham, I was weaned onto the keg selection and my appreciation for quality 'craft' keg was born. For two years I kept coming back but the beer selection started to get a bit samey and I found that the area by Angel station was a much better bet for craft. The Hops became another one of those "pubs where I used to drink" but I will always be grateful to the staff there for opening up my beer horizons even more than CAMRA and cask ale did.

The Hops shut for a couple of months after the summer for a refurb and to add a bigger kitchen so when they announced a "soft" opening I headed down to see what Durham had done with the place.
Inside, the main decor was pretty much as it had been before but the new kitchen protruded out into the pub, taking up the area where once there had been some comfy sofas. The tables and chairs were all new, and a huge long table sat in the middle of the pub, catering for several drinkers and diners at once. Although it looked smart, my main concern was that the pub now looked and felt a bit like a restaurant, despite Durham's assurances to the contrary when I questioned him about it. 

Still, the half of Beavertown's Neck Oil was spot on but the star of the show was the food. We shared two dishes, selecting the bavette steak and the celeriac. The steak was beautifully cooked and flavoursome and sat on a most wonderful aioli which was so nice I forgot I was on a diet and promptly ate it all. It came with a portion of duck fat chips which were nice and crispy on the outside yet fluffy and light once you bit them. I'm not one for ordering veggie dishes but the celeriac was just as good, how you get that flavour from a bit of celeriac I'll never know. It came with roasted parsnips (good, but you can't really do much with a parsnip. It'll always just taste of parsnip) and a nut mayo which lifted the whole dish. I could have easily eaten both dishes and even at full price they'd have been good value for money.

We left after dinner but I'll definitely be back - I'd like to see what the beer selection is normally as on our visit they only had a couple of beers available and the bottle fridges were still absent, and I want to try some more things on their menu. If the landlord can balance the pub operation so drinkers are accommodated as well as diners then it'll be one of the best venues in the area but hey, if it just becomes a restaurant which serves nice beer then Islington may have lost a pub, but it's gained an excellent eating establishment.

The Details:
The Hops and Glory
382 Essex Road
Islington
London
N1 3PF
http://www.hopsandglory.co.uk/