The Bear Pub.

The Bear Pub

Martin Hayes put the cask handpumps where a drinker cannot miss them. Writing his own history of the Craft Beer Co, he says of the Paddington pub that the cask is by design the first thing you see when you walk in the door (London Drinker, January 2023).

Why go

It opened on 1 December 2022 in an old bank that had spent years as a wine bar, trading before that as the Cork & Bottle and the Gyngleboy (London Drinker; CAMRA West London). Six cask handpumps run rotating small-batch beers, 29 keg lines rotate alongside them, and the bottle and can list runs past 200, with Belgian bottles, alcohol-free beers and whiskies behind the bar. Hayes and Peter Slezak have owned the company outright since Hayes opened CASK Pub and Kitchen in Pimlico alone in summer 2009, and the buying rule is why the list reads the way it does: we have never bought on price and we have never done any deals with anyone; every beer we sell is a beer we stock simply because we think it is good or just unusual and worth trying. The food is short and locally supplied. The kitchen makes burgers each day from meat and free-range poultry delivered daily by PJ Frankland & Sons, a family butcher three miles away in Vauxhall, on demi-brioche and vegan buns baked by Chas & Momo in southeast London (venue site). The room is a former banking hall with a wooden bar, antique lighting, banquettes and booths, and there is a second smaller room downstairs by the cellar, which has a glass door.

Order this / avoid

• Order: cask, first, off the six rotating handpumps, which is the whole argument of the pub. Then work the keg wall, or go into the Belgian bottles from the 200-plus list. Eat a burger, made that day in-house on a Chas & Momo demi-brioche, or graze the bar snacks: pork pies, Scotch eggs, cheese boards (CAMRA West London). Ask the staff before you commit to an expensive line. A London Beer Guide contributor rates that habit above everything else here: they will always warn you when you order an expensive beer. So many places will pour it and then expect you to pay.4
• Avoid: counting on the toilets if you use a wheelchair. The Craft Beer Co page states the premises is accessible to wheelchair users, then says plainly that "the WCs are not accessible to nor adapted for guests who are wheelchair users or have significant reduced mobility."

What locals & experts say

• Matt Brown, Londonist (25 November 2024): This is, by a country mile, the best pub in the area for those after an interesting pint. The next best is the Brewdog on the basin... but that's a Brewdog, and lacking in cask (among other perceived faults). He also flags the geography as an advantage: Set back a fair ways from Praed Street, the Bear also lacks the transient crowds from the station and hotels, hence you're likelier to get a more civilised drink.2
• CAMRA, West London branch (record dated 5 July 2026): Local CAMRA branch Pub of the Year 2026. The branch also relays an early review of the pub, without naming the reviewer: This is simply the best outlet for real ale in Bayswater and one of the best in the borough of Westminster.3
• London Beer Guide (Fred Waltman's site), contributor note: This is one of the best Craft Beer Co pubs: there's one long room with the smart and attractive bar to the right; and another smaller room downstairs by the cellar. There's lovely art deco lighting. It's a former bank and could well have been the second CBC location after Cask in Pimlico but early discussions 12 years ago didn't work out.4
• The operator's own claim, Martin Hayes in London Drinker (January 2023): the Bear is what we think is the best pub we have ever created, out of a group that started with CASK in Pimlico in 2009 and named the Craft Beer Co on Leather Lane in Clerkenwell, where opening day drew over 500 people onto the street.1
• Local rec: none. This one is Jeff's own save, filed as a craft beer pub. REAL.

Good to know

• Timing: noon to 11pm Monday to Saturday, noon to 10.30pm Sunday. Not a late-night option.
• Booking: walk in. A reservation page exists at thebearpaddington.com/book if you want a table held.
• Groups: the basement room, The Den, is available for private hire. The venue's own site says up to 36, CAMRA's record says about 25, and the December 2022 launch listing said 24. It doubles as overflow seating when the pub is busy.
• Getting there: Spring Street runs off Praed Street directly opposite Paddington station, and the pub sits far enough back to miss the station traffic.
• Access: step-free entry, but the WCs are not adapted for wheelchair users.
• Dietary: a veggie burger is on the menu and Chas & Momo deliver vegan buns daily, per the venue. Nothing is published about coeliac handling, so treat gluten as unknown.
• Hygiene: FSA rating 5 at the Westminster inspection of 14 November 2023 (FSA).
• Naming: the pub takes its name from Paddington Bear, and it is not the Mad Bishop and Bear inside the station, which is a different pub (Londonist).

Craft signals (beer: rotation stated, awarded and structurally recorded)

Two signals, both about the glass rather than the fittings. CAMRA's July 2026 entry records six cask ales explicitly described as rotating small-batch beers, twenty-nine rotating keg lines, and only one regular in the beer log, with Park, Siren and Titanic named among the changing sources; the founder is quoted on the record about curating rather than buying on price3. The second is West London CAMRA's Pub of the Year 2026, a cellar-condition verdict rather than a room one. The previous culinary score here measured the burger; on the primacy reading it should measure the beer, which is why it moved.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: "Craft beer pub" REAL.

Verdict

should-visit — Worth the detour, and worth an hour you did not plan to spend near a terminus. What is in the glass is the argument: six rotating small-batch cask ales, twenty-nine rotating keg lines and over two hundred bottles, bought under an operator policy of never buying on price. Martin Hayes puts it on the record, that the company champions smaller breweries and spends as much time as ever picking the beers, and the cask lines are explicitly rotating small-batch beers rather than a house lineup. West London CAMRA made it Pub of the Year 2026, which is a cellar verdict, and Londonist calls it the best pub in the area for an interesting pint by a country mile. The staff warn you before pouring an expensive one. Food is a house-made burger and a pork pie, good but not why you came, and the art deco former bank it sits in is a bonus rather than the reason.