London – Southwark (Borough of) – The Ship

My opinion of Fuller’s has very much changed this week, some of their pubs are way above average and I had been expecting them to just be offering London Pride in the main. The choice has been much better than that and there’s some quirkiness, in a positive way, to what they’re offering. This Fuller’s pub has a traditional feel to it, located relatively near to Borough underground station and to Mercato Metropolitano.

The welcome at the pub was prompt and friendly, with the staff member showing me to a table outside and then explaining the set-up at the pub. Customers could either order at the bar, or scan a QR code to order direct to the table. Everything seemed well managed and organised, with a few different real ales to choose from. Nothing overly exciting in terms of dark options, but I’ve never seen the HSB before and so went for that.

And here it is, not bad at all, Fuller’s say that it has a taste of Dundee Cake and I had to look up what that was (fruit cake with currants, sultanas and almonds). I’m not sure I got those tastes, I got notes of toffee, but it was all rather refreshing and was well-kept.

The outside garden was suitably cooling and there were no wasps around to irritate me, something that happens too often when I sit outside. It was all organised and laid-back, this is a quite lovely way to spend the afternoon.

And the pub sign. All told, a perfectly decent pub which had a community feel to it. The service was friendly, the pub was clean and the environment was comfortable. So, all rather lovely.