The Dodo Micropub
Five changing casks poured by gravity from a cellar room Lucy Do deliberately put on the far side of the floor from the bar.2
Why go
Do took redundancy from marketing in 2015, borrowed the idea from The Just Reproach in Kent, and opened in Hanwell in 2017 after walking away from a better-off pitch in Northfields because it had no community feeling.1 The pub holds fifty people, employs five, and takes up to five casks at a time, almost always with one from a local brewery, plus cider, organic natural wine and spirits.2 Regulars call themselves The Hanwell Massive and wear the T-shirt to beer festivals. At the 2025 CAMRA Ealing Beer Festival one of the three bars carried the name The Dodo Bar, with no sponsorship behind it, alongside bars named for Wetherspoon and for Five Points.
West Middlesex CAMRA has voted it branch Pub of the Year four times, in 2018, 2020/21, 2023 and 2025.2 The turning point Do names herself was different: Pub of the Year at the 2022 BeInclusive Hospitality Awards, won just after the Good Beer Guide left the pub out.
Order this / avoid
- Order: whatever is on gravity, and ask which one is local, because CAMRA records that there is almost always one on. Come on a Sunday for the free cheeseboard, which Do buys herself.1
- Avoid: Monday and Tuesday, when it is shut, and the first fortnight of January, when the pub closes entirely. Card only.2
What locals & experts say
- Lucy Do, in Pellicle (17 November 2025), on the layout that makes staff walk the room for every cask pint:
I wish I laid it out slightly differently. We create more work for ourselves.
And on what a micropub is:Micropubs are fiercely independent, supporting not only breweries but producers from graphic designers to crisp makers.
1 - Lorraine Copes, founder of BeInclusive Hospitality, on Do:
She is creative with bringing people through the door, and makes beer accessible. A prime example of why I love hospitality.
1 - CAMRA, West Middlesex branch, on the offer:
The Pub proudly supports independent breweries with up to 5 changing cask beers, that almost certainly includes one from a local brewery served on gravity dispense from a temperature-controlled cellar room at the rear.
2
Good to know
- Where: 52 Boston Road, Hanwell W7 3TR, a short walk from Hanwell station on the Elizabeth line.
- Hours: closed Monday, closed Tuesday except for private hire, Wednesday and Thursday 5pm to 10pm, Friday 4pm to 10.30pm, Saturday 3pm to 10.30pm, Sunday 2pm to 7pm.3
- January: the pub usually shuts for the first two weeks.2
- Payment: card only.
- Garden: a small one at the rear since 2022, on limited hours.
- Food: none of its own. Food popups and beer-pairing evenings run through the year.
- Status: Ealing Council owns the freehold and the pub is listed as an Asset of Community Value.
Verdict
should-visit — Lucy Do runs a fifty-capacity micropub on Boston Road with up to five changing casks poured by gravity from a temperature-controlled room at the back, and she put that room across the floor from the bar so the pouring happens in front of everyone. West Middlesex CAMRA has made it branch Pub of the Year four times, in 2018, 2020/21, 2023 and 2025, and it won Pub of the Year at the 2022 BeInclusive Hospitality Awards straight after being left out of the Good Beer Guide. Sunday brings a cheeseboard she pays for herself. The measure of the place is that the 2025 CAMRA Ealing Beer Festival named one of its three bars The Dodo Bar, unsponsored, next to bars named for Wetherspoon and Five Points, and this is one woman with a team of five. It stops short of the top rung because no source describes how the beer actually drinks, and because the pub keeps short hours: shut Monday and Tuesday, and shut entirely for the first two weeks of January.