The Draft House, 206-208 Tower Bridge Road, London SE1 (020 7378 9995). Meal for two, including beer and service, £65
The list of beers on tap at the Draft House by Tower Bridge reads like a bunch of geographical landmarks from The Lord of the Rings: here's Chalky's Bark and Brugs Wit, Dogfish Head and Mac's Gold. I know chaps who would get damp and emotional over such a document. I am not one of them. One pleasure of reaching your mid-40s is the knowledge that there is much for which you no longer need apologise. For example, I don't much like beer. I'll have a chilled glass of rosé and I don't care who knows it.
However, I found the Draft House intriguing. This is the third in a small chain across south London. That it is run with such enthusiasm and brio is a mark in its favour. It is easier to get the first of something like this right, harder to keep up standards as the brand expands. All that said, it is a curious beast. It feels like one of the microbreweries you might find across America's Pacific Northwest. There are booths and banquettes upholstered in green leather, and café-style tables with chromium edges, walls full of dodgy photos of the Rat Pack and a menu which, with its steaks and burgers, bellows "diner".
For the most part, the cooking is spot on. They serve mammoth portions of big-flavoured food designed to soak up the beer. Thick pieces of quality bread smeared with a big, sticky mix of ham hock and trotter burnished with sesame seeds is exactly the sort of the thing you would want to trough as you work your way down the draft list, all of which is available by the thirds of pints as well as halves. We drank something dark and smoked called Schlenkerla Rauchbier which, with the piggy toast, made the whole thing taste like a bag of Frazzles.
A salad of Orkney bacon with soft duck eggs and spinach was underdressed but pleasing all the same. A sweet onion tart overlaid with a disc of very good goat's cheese was terrifyingly sweet, but alongside a glass of bitter ale worked very well. Mains bigger than my head didn't sacrifice quality to quantity: a huge, crisp-skinned chicken breast came with an apricot and almond stuffing and a classy dauphinoise. Better still was my burger: a serious piece of meat served thick and rare with smoked cheese in a soft, sweet but proper bit of bun alongside good fries. Curiously, a disastrous treacle tart was nothing of the sort. No matter. I drank an intensely sweet cherry-flavoured beer called Mort Subite Kriek to make up for it, a brew for people who don't like beer. It suited me perfectly.
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or visit theguardian.com/profile/jayrayner for all his reviews in one place
