For a fine selection of beers and ales check out The King & Co Clapham

BY BILL LACY

In a freezing mid-February during lockdown, it may seem pointless to be thinking about pubs, which is exactly why I do so.

While the date etched on parents’ minds is March 8 – when schools may reopen.

For the pub industry it is March 3, when the Budget will reveal the support package available for pubs and brewers to help them survive and get going again when some semblance of normality returns.

This is a critical time. Plus, it will be nice to have a pint again!

One of the last “normal” pub experiences I had was at The King and Co in Clapham.

I “killed time” (translation: I made a special trip) before dinner at a friend’s house locally.

The first thing that registered with me was the name. Stuffy and traditional as I am, I preferred the previous name, The King’s Arms.

I thought King and Co was a story about a governess in Thailand. But my prejudices melted away as I soon stepped inside.

Yes, it’s modern. Yes, I can see why someone told me it’s not really a stop on a pub crawl (although I disagree), but it had a good feel pub feel about it all the same.

It still retained an atmosphere of the good old South London pub, but with families and good beer and food (another prejudice I am slowly overcoming is thinking that a pub is not “proper” if it doesn’t have an air of menace about it).

The beer selection is excellent, with 12 keg and six cask lines. The bar staff know their beer.

On my second pint, the bartender spotted my beer notebook and asked if I wanted a tankard.

In addition to the beer lines there is a fine bottled selection including Belgian and German beers.

They also sometimes have discounts on real ale, which brings in the real ale crowd and moves King and Co a level up on my internal pub rating scale.

The bar is fairly basic and isn’t somewhere to linger so I retreated to a wooden table near the bar. The pub is well-furnished with lots of tables and chairs and sofas; it is definitely a sitting-down kind of pub.

But of course this is the way pubs must be these days anyway, and I understand that King and Co have adapted well to Covid-compliance (not a given, in my experience).

The food has a good reputation and there are occasional “kitchen takeovers”.

While I’ve long become accustomed to more than just peanuts and crisps, if I can twitch even at a pub name, the concept of a “kitchen takeover” completely flips my script.

Impressively, King and Co have maintained this even during lockdown, with the January Sunday roasts giving way to February’s “Da Ja Streetfood” (the pub is open for takeaway food – booking ahead essential – on Thursdays to Sundays).

I made my dinner event that evening, a short walk around the corner, but amidst the small talk my mind kept wandering back to this splendid pub.

The King and Co Clapham, 100 Clapham Park Road, SW4 7BZ.