The Hunter S.: Fear and Loathing in De Beauvoir Town

There’s been a lot of excited Tweeting lately about the opening of a new pub, The Hunter S., in De Beauvoir Town, so as I was heading down that way to check out the new Honey Drizzle cooking school in Hoxton, it seemed natural to pay a visit. Given the concept, I was expecting to love it: Hunter Thompson was one of the first literary voices I connected with, his work helping to instil in me the idea that journalism was about more than just reporting three-car pile-ups. While I’ve long since given up my futile attempts at gonzo writing, I’m nevertheless instinctively pre-disposed to like a pub in his honour. What a surprise, then, that I’m writing my first negative review. It’s not just that I can’t really see what the fuss is about – I actually actively dislike the place.

Let’s start with the beers. Beer is the single most important thing about a pub. Great beer can be found in run-down establishments generally frequented by borderline sociopaths and featured on Danny Dyer programmes, while bad beer can be found, well, pretty much everywhere. To be fair, the beer at The Hunter S. wasn’t exactly bad - there just wasn’t enough of it. Not counting the myriad lagers, each one as predictable as the next, there were two cask ales available on the night and space for a third. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as having three well-kept, regularly changing ales is more than enough to satisfy the grumpy old man in me. Unfortunately, the ales were both Sharps. You know - the Cornish brewery that was alright way back when but then got bought out by Molson Coors and started appearing as the token ale in every second-rate boozer in the south of England? 

Having a contract with a multi-national brewer (or the distributor for a multi-national brewer) means that these two hand-pulls are unlikely to come up for air very often and, given the close proximity of breweries like Redemption and East London Brewing Co, it’s hard to fathom why they haven’t opted to go a more local route. Likewise, having imported lager isn’t deplorable in and of itself, but how many trendy Asian and continental imports do you really need? A couple would suffice and free up space for more interesting concoctions like those emanating at an alarming rate from Aberdeenshire.

That said, my Doom Bar was OK. Fairly bland as usual but it seemed to have been kept reasonably well and didn’t offend. Still, it’s a lazy ale choice and what’s even more unforgivable than underestimating the curiosity of the punter’s palate is overcharging them. In this, The Hunter S. seems to be aspiring to new heights. £1.90 is a lot for a half of ale. Doing the maths, that would beg the question as to whether they are charging £3.80 for one of the most bog-standard, samey cask options on the market. Maybe not, as many pubs inflate half-pint prices, a practice the government might want to look at the next time they’re having a whinge about the Great British Binge. It’s not just mean, it’s irresponsible to penalise people who are trying to take a more responsible approach to drinking.