Raking it in

Nigel Huddleston visits the smallest beer bar in London

London’s Borough Market has found a new lease of life in the past decade with visitors attracted from across the city and beyond by the fine produce on sale from small producers.

So when the first new pub within the confines of the market for more than a century opened its doors in the summer, it was appropriate that it was billed as London’s smallest.

The Rake has been founded by the people behind Utobeer, the market’s punningly-titled beer retailers and wholesalers.

The Dove in Hammersmith retains the title for the single smallest bar room, at 4ft 2ins by 7ft 10ins, but it has plenty of other drinking accommodation under is roof.

But The Rake, in the shell of the former Jubilee Café, is just 13ft by 7ft in total. What’s more impressive is that it claims to have the city’s smallest bar with the biggest beer range.

It’s the only place in the United Kingdom where you’ll be able to buy Thomas Hardy Ale in cask form, although with only four nine-gallon barrels a year being custom brewed by O’Hanlons for The Rake, you’ll have to get your timing right if you want to try some. Just before Christmas should be a good time.

There’ll also be one United States Sierra Nevada ale on draught – not a UK exclusive but still something of a rarity.

The house wheat beer is Germany’s Maisels Wiesse, while Veltins from the same country is the stock pilsner lager.

Other draught beers will be on heavy rotation.

“Last week we had Kwak and Liefmans Kriek,” says The Rake’s Richard Dinwoodie. .....

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By Nigel Huddleston

Section : Spotlight

Page number : 20