please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
I used to think this pub was great - central, right next to the tube station and good beer until I left my bag in their last night. Luckily the staff found it and said I could pick it up the next day although I did find it weird that they wouldn't look for it until the pub closed but put it down to the pub being busy. So I travelled all the way in from Staines to pick it up - the staff said they couldn't find it, that none of the staff on were there the night before and that the manager was busy on a conference call / meeting. So I asked them if they could call the manager who was on the night before. The startling answer I received was that they couldn't call him because he wasn't on duty and that 'it would be a personal call'. So I asked them if they could speak to anyone else who was on the night before, and turned out one of them had been on the night before but he didn't remember anyone finding a bag. It wasn't until my girlfriend phoned up and we threatened to call the police that they went up and got the manager down who went downstairs and came back with my bag in his hand. I will never drink there again!!!
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Arsenall 228 you should realise this is greene king. If you write to them about the manager they will probably give him a bonus for hitting GK managers "being an arsehole" target
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visited this dump last monday (14/4/14) and ordered cider, what i got was a form of cherryade, bright red and not tasting anything like cider, apparently it was 'wild berry' cider? i complained but the manager ( a weasily skunky sort of chap) would not offer me a proper replacement drink and insisted it tasted ok, it tasted like cherryade, and he was correct in his observations that it tasted ok for cherryade, but not as cider. so only drinking one small mouthfull of this dire sludge and at a cost of almost £5, me and the wife left after exchanging a few choice words with the said weasily skunky chap. he will not have to bother about me darkening his doorstep again and i intend writing to greene king about him and his stinking attitude to customer satisfaction....avoid this dump at all costs while this manager is still in charge.
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Everything you expect from a Leicester Square pub. Full of Japanese tourists taking photos of their plate of £14 fish and chips. Naturally it gets unbearably crowded quickly and the beer is badly kept. Bar staff are efficient.
No reason for anyone from London to visit except as a convenient meeting spot for the tube station etc
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This pub has young and polite staff, a clean interior and is in the heart of London. The beer and wine selection is fairly standard for a Greene King pub and my pint was pulled of Stella Artois was pulled well. Although our table was wobbly, the interior was clean (possibly too clean with the spray and wiping tables a bit too close to us!) and we sat in the corner looking out onto the main street.
It's a standard pub that's a step up due to it being in Leicester Square. Would visit again for a drink but was too quiet to spend a long time there.
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I would never go back to this pub. I had a Gin and Tonic, which tasted really strong and a horrid. I thought maybe it was a double but was assured by the person who bought it that it wasn't. I only drank a little bit and couldn't drink any more as it tasted so disgusting. I don't know what they had done to it as there isn't a lot that you can do wrong with G&T. Also I had an awful hangover the next day that was disproportionate to the amount I had drunk, so, I suspect with hindsight that there was something very wrong with this drink.
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Popped in on a recent afternoon session. Uninspired by the choice of Speckled Hen or the instantly forgettable GK IPA opted for a Becks Vier which was fine. Pub smelt of furniture polish or similar cleaning products, staff bored and disinterested, toilets the same as every other pub in the area - small, dirty and involving a staircase. A somewhat bland tourist-trap, we were away to pastures new within 20 minutes.
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Popped in on a recent afternoon session. Uninspired by the choice of Speckled Hen or the instantly forgettable GK IPA opted for a Becks Vier which was fine. Pub smelt of furniture polish or similar cleaning products, staff bored and disinterested, toilets the same as every other pub in the area - small, dirty and involving a staircase. A somewhat bland tourist-trap, we were away to pastures new within 20 minutes.
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Love you to tempest
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mprince. just have a look at kevmac's recent posts; he is a moaner - one to be ignored
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I have to say mprince that is one hell of a bizarre post.
Is there any chance you could re-post and,
a) Use coherent language
b) Stop shouting in your posts, it makes you look a complete muppet
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AS I'M NOT A REGULAR VISITOR TO LONDON. THE BREWMASTER LEICESTER SQUARE, IS A PLACE I WOULD NEVER VISIT AGAIN, THE DOOR MAN WAS RUDE , YOU WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IN ALL THE 20 YEARS HE HAD BEEN DOING THE JOB , HE WOULD HAVE LEARNT SOMETHING , THE MANAGER HAD NO REGARD FOR CUSTOMER CARE. AS LONG AS YOU WERE THERE TO BUY A DRINK NOTHING ELSE MATTERED. HE DIDN'T CARE WETHER YOU CAME BACK OR NOT . I SUPPOSE AS IN MY SITUATION YOU CAN ONLY VISIT THE PLACE ONCE AND NEVER AGAIN.
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Very busy on a Saturday night so the service was slow and no seats available. Usual Greene King suspects available.
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Typical west end pub. Doesn't have to try to hard for custom. Not a place to stay for any length of time just useful for a drink at the start or end of an evening out. A Greene King pub so the choice of ales is limited. Greene King and Speckled Hen were the two available on my recent visit. Haven't tried the food so can't comment. Not overly impressed by the place.
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Basically a meeting place or last one before the train. It is very typical of a railway station pub; not really clean, loud and full of bevied up punters.
Unremarkable in any way. An interesting gang cheered the place up as they were playing pub golf on a night out.
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This is a long review, so as a summary;
- unprofessional, lazy and rude staff
- bad food
- ruined my day
Would never go back here. As a student I came here for lunch with a friend as a treat, it was reasonably priced and seemed nice on the inside. We sat down and ordered a few drinks. We asked for baileys and hot chocolate and mulled wine, both of which were advertised on the menu and outside, they refused to give us these on the pretence that the manager "couldn't be bothered to make either right now" we then decided on food. For starters we shared olives, bread with balsamic vinegar and prawns. They all were ok, although the sauces which came with the prawns look like they had just come out supermarket. My friend wanted the steak(with chips, onion rings, tomatoes and a fried mushroom) I asked for the bangers and cheesy mash(with onion gravy, in a large Yorkshire pudding and with peas). When ordering I asked if we could replace my friends mushroom with something else, the cheerless, impolite waitress said that we probably couldn't get anything else and it just wouldn't come with the mushroom - this attitude did not impress me, as a waitress myself I know that you at least ask the chef. The "rare" steak came well done, the rest of my friend's meal was cold and mediocre, with no extras and no mushroom. My meal also came cold, the Yorkshire pudding was stale and burnt, the peas were overcooked and the onion gravy had no onions! I have never complained about a meal before, I normally just get on with it, but I could not even eat this meal. I complained, the Manager was very grumpy, but he came, took my meal and asked if I wanted a refund or a new meal, I asked for the refund. He gave me my refund and as he was leaving our table he mentioned loudly that I should have told him when he came round and asked about food(about 30seconds after we'd been given it). I found this extremely unprofessional, rude and quite embarrassing. We stayed for more drinks and as I walked out of the bar with my friend I looked round and saw the manager mouthing "tw*t" at me. I had not been rude or out of order at all during this visit. I went back in and told him what I thought about him to which he looked very bashful. This was a terrible pub and I would not recommend it.
They also asked us to pay upfront rather than after the meal, I found this rather strange. Also they did not bring condiments OR cutlery to our table, which they did to other tables.
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Visiting London for the weekend we came into the Brewmaster for a sunday roast but the whole experience was very disappointing. We checked first that they were doing a sunday roast and that there wouldn't be too much of a wait as we had cinema tickets in an hours time opposite, and were told they did roast beef and roast chicken and they there wouldn't be a wait.
Well, we waited over half an hour, had to chase it,
to which we got quite a surly response, then were delivered the wrong meal, a roast beef yorkshire wrap with chips rather than the proper roast beef dinner. We informed them it was wrong, that we'd been waiting 40 minutes and I had to wait at the bar for a while til the manager would come out. He was very rude, reminded me it wasn't fast food (no kidding at 45 minutes and waiting) and then he disappeared again.
Other meals arrived at nearby tables in the meantime and it was 50 minutes in total til our food arrived. I said that as we'd only have time to eat half, that we only expected to pay half for the food. They did give us this refund of half off the food and a free drink, but there was no time to drink this as this wasn't immediately forthcoming (I saw the manager chatting at the bar, rather than delivering the drink first).
Now to the food, the mean was very tough, the carrots and cabbage had a very strange taste and the yorkshire was flat and in pieces. We ate the roast potatoes which were fine, and then had to go as the film was starting. It only occured to me later, that they'd probably just unwrapped the beef and yorkshire pudding wrap they brought first time and switched the chips for roast potatoes. Poor food and insulting service. The other staff were polite and apologetic but couldn't really comment on how rude the manager was. I sat through the film hungry and then went to the nearby Wetherspoons and had very good service and quite a tasty meal, wish I'd gone there in the first place! When I'm next in London I will give the Brewmaster a wide berth.
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Rotten beer, even worse customer service. I visited this pub for the first time recently, on a mid-week evening and ordered a pint of Greene King Royal London Ale. As many other reviews mention the pub is fairly typical of boozers around Leicester Square, i.e. it�s quite small with too many tables crammed in and the whole place (floors, tables etc) is slightly sticky.
It wasn�t busy however so there were plenty of tables free. There is some outside space mentioned on a sign inside the pub but it actually is an ally. The big problem and the reason I will never return was down to the quality of the beer and the customer service of the staff.
I have been drinking real ale for 15 years, and although not an expert, I am able to tell when I get a bad pint. It has only happened to me on a few occasions, I don�t know if it is because its stale, the lines haven�t been cleaned properly or the beer has not been kept correctly but their pint of Royal London Ale was rank. I have tried Royal London Ale on several occasions elsewhere recently and know what it should taste like. Fair enough however, a pub can serve a pint which isn�t right for some reason and it isn�t the end of the world. For example in the Lloyds bar up the road I once had a pint which definitely didn�t taste right so I took it back and they gave me another pint without any problem.
However, in the presumably ironically named Brewmaster, the young and stylish European barman assured me that he drank this particular beer all the time. He then took (a very small) sip and said it was absolutely fine and there was nothing he could do. I said I really wasn�t happy with it, was there someone else who could check the beer was alright. He suggested that I could speak to his manager, who was coming back to the pub shortly. Whilst waiting I spoke to one of the barmaids who was quite rude to me.
After about 10 minutes of hanging around, obviously without a drink, I spoke to the barman again to ask when the manager would be returning. Eventually he showed up, only for him to take (a very small) sip of the beer and declare that it was fine. I said that there really was something wrong with it however they were unwilling to do anything. I was left with no option but to leave a very nearly full pint of beer on the bar and leave the pub. I have never received customer service like it in a pub before and will certainly not be returning.
tw470 - 11 Sep 2010 13:38 |
Have been here twice at lunchtime. Food is good quality, well cooked and value for money. Real Ales are well kept and staff are friendly and attentive. The only thing is, lots of others know this so the place is always busy (unless you have lunch at 10:30am!) On our second visit a party of 14 ordered their food immediately before us, yet we were still served within 15 minutes!
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Greene King IPA and Old Speckled Hen were available during my visit along with a selection of standard lagers. The staff were ok, but the background music left a lot to be desired. There is seating in the alley out the back and there is an upstairs bar that was closed at 10 and was wafting a pungent smell of polish around the rest of the pub. Maybe more effort should have been used to clean the toilets.
I�ll not be returning here in a hurry.
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This is a typical West End pub, appearing soulless and uninspiring. The real ales on were GKIPA (at �3 per pint) and Old Speckled Hen. The furniture has seen better days; the surface of the table at which I sat looked to be caked in assorted detritus. But it serves a purpose I suppose, as others have commented that the food seems to be OK. There are better pubs within a short stroll, but I have been to worse. So, hardly worth going out your way to visit, but if you do happen to find yourself in here you will at least get a pint of a GK ale at the sort of price that is now the going rate for London.
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Not a bad little pub for a swift one as you get out of the tube station, a nice pint of Speckled Hen on tap and an upstairs seating area if required. Staff were fairly friendly and the food looked alright, although I didn't try any, but the beer was well kept and I was pleasantly surprised.
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I've lived in London for 20 years and walked past this place hundreds of times without actually venturing in - largely because it looked ghastly inside.
Earlier this week though I went past in the daytime and thought - "Why not". It was ok - relatively quiet and the food my neighbours were eating looked appetising.
There's no way I'd go anywhere near this in the evening but was acceptable for a quick lunchtime pint
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Average city pub, beer average, food average, staff average. OK for a quick pint if everywhere else is full, but you wouldn't want to have a session there.
BobOs - 23 Aug 2008 10:18 |
Run-of-the-mill central London pub, but the upstairs bar is probably the better bet. Despite what 'rampantwurzel' said below, it does have real ales on sale (3 on my last visit), but given that these are all Greene King offerings then that is nothing to write home about...
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I had my handbag stolen in this pub, and the girl sitting to my right had her credit cards stolen as well. I think it's a magnet for professional theives, be very careful with your stuff if you go here. Generally otherwise an ok pub, nothing special, just the kind of place a tourist who had just arrived in London would go
CathB - 28 Mar 2008 15:15 |
Brewmaster sounds like the kind of superhero I'd hang around with on the off chance he used his 'special powers' and turned my tepid stale beer into a really nice pint of well looked after beer.
Alternatively, Brewmaster is the king of all beer making, and hence he owns this pub 'specifically' to make only the finest beers known to man to sell to the mass of tourists in Leicester Square
Alas, Brewmaster is just a crummy pub in the centre of London with the joke being - no real ale. Sick. Not only that, it's charging 3 pounds for the Brewmasters 'extensive brewing experience' which consists of attaching pumps to fizzy lager and bitter.
An absolute shambles, and an embarassment
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Visited this pub last week. It's right next to Leicester Sq. tube station, so a great place to meet with friends before moving on somewhere. I recommend the upstairs bar as it's usually quieter and you can normally grab a seat. The times I've been there I've always had good service from the bar staff, very pleasant and friendly. Prices are what you expect in centre of London but not the worst around this area.
On the down side though, we decided to grab a bite to eat on our last visit. Avoid at all cost. The BBQ Chicken, cheese and bacon, although advertised in the menu as being a double breast of chicken, when it arrived turned out to be some kind of reconstituted chicken strips, poorly warmed up in a microwave. The Ham and Eggs looked like the ham had seen better days and the eggs were luke warm. Chips were quite nice though! On the whole, fine for a quick pint, but grab a bite to eat somewhere else.
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ok pub,nothing special,like many pubs in the area,souless
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Situated just opposite Leicester Square, The Brewmaster is a tourist-filled, two-floored, slightly scruffy pub with slight traces of character. I paid a visit last Friday evening (May 18th) and whilst it is perhaps a little bland, it obviously suites many. Prices are dear of course, but so is practically everywhere in the area. The barmaid was friendly, yet every pint of Guinness I ordered came with a half-pint head. That wasn�t quite the case of course, yet top-up�s may be required on a visit here. I�m not entirely sure about the name �Brewmaster� either. I only noticed a couple of ales on the second floor. Maybe there is a better selection downstairs. This certainly isn�t a bad pub and everyone seemed jolly enough, I was just a little disappointed.
HTM69 - 20 May 2007 13:32 |
A really useful place to meet people unfamilliar with the area. Friendly efficient service, always bustling. beers not bad either.
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Possibly the most misleading name of any pub I've seen. "Any place called Brewmaster," you'd think, "must have some pretty good beers!" Right? Wrong. It's the bog standard choices you'll find in 99.9% of pubs across the country.
Calling this place The Brewmaster is like calling Wimpy's a Steakhouse.
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This pub is like a scuffed up old Clarkes shoe. It's a bit tatty and is pretty standard but you still get a sense of comfort out of it. During the summer it's probably a tourist-filled nightmare, but on a windy wednesday night in February it's pretty decent. The beer selection is OK and the standard pub grub does exactly what it says on the pub grub tin. Nice little winding staircase, comfy sofas and an upstairs lounge bar which most people seem to be oblivious of. Incidently if you sit in one of the window booths upstairs you get a lovely view of the Angus Steak House opposite! It's a bit tired and I wouldn't want to spend all night there but The Brewmaster is a good place to start a night especially as it's situated right slap bang next to Leicester Square tube. Full length locking toilet door too!
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Nice lounge upstairs to while away the time. Service fast and friendly and location handy for all the action.
anonymous - 13 Feb 2006 13:15 |
We just sat for a couple of drinks. The bartender looked very professional / efficient. Nice atmosphere although decor not exceptional. Prices were good. Would go there again.
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What happened to Froggy? Damn good barman.
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two story pub with the toliets on the landing inbetween.
Food was unremarkable but the waitress was cute.
Drink prices were about normal for the area.
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I visited this place a couple of weeks a go and I thought the whole experience was bland. The chicken was tough as old boot to say the least, service bad. Save your money and go to the Porcupine instead. I have to agree with Nick.
Edward - 12 Jul 2004 16:25 |
The brewmaster used to be a lovely pub.It was dark,scruffy and full of character.Mark the old barman was a great laugh,then the brewery in their wisdom totally renovated the place and turned it into a tacky,chracterless venue that just sucks.Awful pub and an insult to its former glory.
nick hamer - 10 Apr 2004 16:34 |
This is my fave pub in Leceister Square. The food is fantastic and a great price. Great atmosphere,plenty of room to move and a good range of drinks on offer.
Emma - 20 Jan 2004 14:40 |
We were on a trip to london with our school. We think the best pub in london is "the brewmaster". Good service, it is nice to have 2 floors in a pub, nice people, good beer.
raymond - 7 Apr 2003 21:20 |
Very nice pub. Has 2 floors. Downstairs is always crowded.
Upstairs has nice sofas and has a nice relaxed atmosphere. Nice drink selection and if you're lucky you may bump into a fit German barmaid!
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I love this pub! Great, almost hidden bar upstairs, which is a fantastic find. Great barstaff, great beer, great pub!
Josh - 3 Mar 2003 23:05 |
