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By Euan Ferguson
The Cock Tavern is the sort of place you walk into and think: This is a bloody good pub. It’s dark, uncomplicated and resonant with merry conversation. Put simply, it’s a room for grown-ups to stand in and drink beer. The owners of the Southampton Arms in Gospel Oak – another bloody good pub – recently took it over. And, to their credit, they kept the original name – there are puerile unsophisticates who will snigger and make innuendo, but this reviewer is not one of them. So let’s keep things above the belt.
It’s nice inside. The walls are of buffed wood the colour of Burton mild, decorated with no more than a few old beer signs. The floor and furniture are comfortably scuffed. It’s timelessly classic: aside from the Victorian beards on the bar staff, it could be any era between 1920 and 2013 in here.
As for size, it’s not too big, not too small – the perfect size, really. A sign advertises ‘Hackney’s tiniest beer garden’. It is tiny – that bit’s accurate – although only an estate agent would recognise it as a garden. Still, it’s better than smoking on Mare Street.
It’s almost all the way up Mare Street. Handy for Hackney Central. In an area not blessed with destination pubs, it’s clearly a big draw.
It’s usually rammed here - positively engorged. And it’s mainly down to the fabulous beer and cider. The pub cellar is now home to the Howling Hops microbrewery, whose output is mostly drunk in the Cock. Try the lively Pale XX, or Smoked Porter, rich and black as the knockings from a drayman’s pipe. A few guests pop up too among the 22 taps, but with a home-brewed selection this good, you might not need them.
To fill you up there’s gloriously simple food. A bartop cabinet displays Scotch eggs and pork pies, and there’s a jar of pickled eggs.
It really is the perfect package. Have you got all the way through this review of the Cock Tavern without any smutty puns coming to mind? Then give yourself a hand.