The Jolly Butchers
Pete Brown wrote this pub up on the day it opened in April 2010, and his line was that he used to take a two-hour train to drink Thornbridge Jaipur on draught and now walked five minutes to the end of his street1.
Why go
Before the relaunch this was a room with a 3am licence, a bank of gaming machines and racing on the televisions, trading as Father Ted's and Bar Stokies and reportedly losing thousands a week before it shut. The rebuild stripped the walls to brick, moved the central bar to the side, built an open kitchen into the corner, and uncovered the Victorian wrought ironwork and stained glass that had been boarded over. It reopened with ten handpumps and Schlenkerla smoked beer, De Koninck, Brugse Zot and Mort Subite Kriek on draught. Sixteen years later CAMRA's live record lists three cask lines, two of them changing, with Timothy Taylor Landlord as the regular (CAMRA). The reason to come now is the pairing: Booma Kitchen cooks Indian food in the back corner Monday to Saturday and the pub prints notes telling you which beer to drink with it. Sunday is roasts.
Order this / avoid
- Order: whichever cask is changing, with the tasting notes the bar writes out, then a curry from Booma and whatever the pairing note points you at. If the Belgian and Bamberg taps are still running, drink the Schlenkerla.
- Avoid: turning up on a weekday hoping for lunch, since the kitchen does lunchtime meals at weekends only, and bringing cash, which the pub no longer takes.
What locals & experts say
- Pete Brown, beer writer, on opening day (22 April 2010):
There are ten handpumps, combining beers from London's late-to-the-party but finally emerging range of craft brewers, plus regular beers from Thornbridge and Dark Star, real cider from Gwatkin's and a perry. Apart from the ales, there's smoked beer Schlenkerla on draught, as well as De Koninck, Bruges Zot, Mort Subite Kriek, Vedett, Erdinger and Meantime Helles. Yes, all on draught.
1 - Pete Brown on the landlord's motive, which is the honest note in the piece: Martin
enjoys a decent pint, but talking to him you realise first and foremost he's a businessman,
and Martin's own line wasIf this doesn't work, that means I don't understand pubs.
1 - CAMRA, North London branch, on the bar as surveyed:
a bar featuring up to five cask beers and two ciders/perries at any time (either on handpump or in boxes from the fridge. The range changes constantly. Nicely presented beer and cider menu with tasting notes.
That survey is from May 2022; the same record's live beer data now lists three lines.2 - Londonist (9 December 2013), Ruth Hargreaves, with the criticism attached:
The back corner of the pub is home to the Booma Kitchen, serving Indian food at reasonable prices. The pub even supplies pairing notes, so you can couple your curry with the right beer.
And:The ultra-critical may carp about the lack of comfy seating or secluded corners.
3 - The venue's own claim, unverified: its site says the pub was "CAMRA nominated after only one year in business and one of the Guardian's Top 10 pubs in Britain." The CAMRA local listing is real and checkable. No Guardian list carrying this pub could be found, so that half is recorded as the pub's claim.
Good to know
- Where: 204 Stoke Newington High Street N16 7HU, around the corner from Church Street.
- Timing: no per-day hours are published anywhere reachable. The kitchen serves evening meals through the week and lunch at weekends only, with roasts on Sunday.
- Booking: walk-in. One big room, and it fills.
- Payment: card only. The pub stopped taking cash.
- The building: locally listed and registered as an Asset of Community Value, three storeys of red brick with cast iron detail, original tiling behind the bar, and the Victorian ironwork and stained glass that the 2010 rebuild uncovered.
- Who owns it: the pub calls itself an independently run free house. CAMRA's record names the operator as London Village Inns, the freeholder as Walsh Properties Investments Limited and the leaseholder as an individual.
- Hygiene: FSA rating 2, improvement necessary, from a Hackney inspection on 24 January 2026. The component scores are worth reading, because on the FSA scale a lower number is better: food handling scored 0, the top mark available, while structure scored 15 and confidence in management 10 (record). The building is what is pulling the rating down.
- Dietary: none published. CAMRA records the regular cask, Timothy Taylor Landlord, as neither vegan nor gluten free.
Verdict
could-visit — Go if you are in Stoke Newington, and go for the pairing. When this reopened on 22 April 2010 it had ten handpumps, Gwatkin's cider, a perry, and Schlenkerla, De Koninck and Mort Subite Kriek all on draught, which in London at that moment was close to unheard of. Pete Brown wrote that day that he used to take a two-hour train to drink Jaipur on draught and now walked five minutes. That pub mattered. Today CAMRA's live record for it lists three cask lines, two of them changing, and the room's real draw is Booma Kitchen in the back corner, an Indian kitchen the pub writes beer-pairing notes for, with roasts on Sunday. The building is locally listed and registered as an Asset of Community Value, the Victorian ironwork and tiling are still there, and Hackney gave it a hygiene 2 in January 2026 on the structure rather than the food handling. Come for a pint and a curry, and do not cross town for it.