1 Neck Oil | Beavertown Brewery | Session IPA | 4.3% | £6–£7 | First pint after work when I’ve still got ‘one or two’ good decisions left in me. | Basically the Excel of beers: light, everywhere, and you only realise how much you rely on it when it’s not on tap. |
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2 Jupa | Gipsy Hill Brewing Co. | Juicy Pale Ale | 4.0% | £6–£6.80 | Sunny Saturday in a beer garden when someone suggests ‘just a quick one’ before the match. | Soft, fruity, and gone in about 4.7 minutes on average, according to my extremely scientific sample of me. |
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3 Gamma Ray | Beavertown Brewery | American Pale Ale | 5.4% | £6.50–£7.50 | Mid-evening when the group chat derails and so does my sense of ‘I’ll be up early tomorrow’. | Big hops, comic-book can, and just enough oomph that you start giving tactical advice to Premier League managers on TV. |
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4 London Lager | Meantime Brewing Company | Helles-style Lager | 4.5% | £5.80–£6.80 | Pub lunch when I have to pretend I might go back to the office and be useful. | Crisp, clean, and about as controversial as saying the Tube is ‘a bit warm in summer’—but that’s exactly why it works. |
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5 London Pride | Fuller’s | Best Bitter | 4.1% | £5.80–£6.70 | Sunday roast with the family, where switching to craft cans would be considered a cry for help. | It’s the 4-4-2 of ales: classic, unfussy, and somehow still gets the job done against fancier opposition. |
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6 Punk IPA | BrewDog | IPA | 5.4% | £6.50–£7.50 | Busy central London bar where the tap list looks like a password and I just want something I recognise. | Used to feel wildly edgy; now it’s more like that mate who still tells the same ‘gap year’ story, but you keep inviting them anyway. |
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7 Jupiler | Brouwerij Piedbœuf (AB InBev) | Belgian Lager | 5.2% | £6–£7.20 | Watching Belgian or European football in a vaguely continental bar, pretending I understand their ultras culture. | Dangerously drinkable; feels like Carling’s cooler older cousin who went on Erasmus and never really came back. |
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8 Guinness Draught | Guinness (St. James’s Gate) | Irish Dry Stout | 4.2% | £6.20–£7.50 | Any time I’ve had a long week, short patience, and exactly zero interest in trying to ‘explore the tap list’. | Like rewatching your favourite box set: comforting, a bit ritualistic, and you always swear you’ll stop after the next episode… then don’t. |
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