Craft Beer Cabin

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Perfect for snuggling up on a Sunday afternoon with a broadsheet*, the Craft Beer Cabin is a pint-sized, living roomy setup, bringing much-needed craftiness to the denizens of South Norwood.

On a Saturday evening, it was ram-packed with babies, dogs and even the occasional bearded hipster. Bide your time, and you'll work your way up to the best seats in the house — a first-floor hideaway peppered with rustic tables, houseplants and photos of wildlife. (Once in a while, Londoners should remind themselves that wildlife exists.)

Craft Beer Cabin is the brainchild of two folks who started out driving a craft beer black cab around town (they still do), and for that alone, they deserve for this venture to succeed. Service is friendly, and even though the bar gets mobbed, the locals are mild-mannered and won't ask you what business you've got in the likes of South Norwood.

The on-tap selection isn't mahoosive, but it is versatile: on our visit we found an unctuous porter, a fruity sour and a damned good Boxcar IPA, which we ended up drinking all night.

A fridge fills in all the gaps, with a colourful cornucopia of cans (around a stonking 100 types actually), meaning that if you don't like anything in this taproom, you should skulk off to locate a Carlsberg pronto.

There's craft gin, plus bottles of wine which look well-curated (as in not the slop that so many London pubs pass off). We couldn't miss the sign for something called Balls of Wonder, which we've made a note to enquire about next time we're in.