Picture of Mason And Taylor, E1 6LA

Historical version 1 of Mason And Taylor, E1 6LA (view current version)

A bar at the top of Brick Lane with a good range of craft beers and real ales. It's run by the same people behind The Duke of Wellington near Dalston. It used to be the Green and Red Mexican restaurant.

This corner site has large floor-to-ceiling windows which let in plenty of light during the day. There are wooden canteen tables set up inside along the windows, as well as some booths near the door, and a few seats outside by the front entrance. A downstairs bar area is opened up on Friday and Saturday evenings (and can be booked), as well as during the occasional beer festival, and obviously gets far less light, though covers plenty of space in an L-shaped room, with large couches in several corners.

Although this is very much a bar, there are three handpulls on the bar, along with occasional extra ales on stillage at the end of the bar. Ales change regularly, and there are also guest craft and foreign lagers. The bottled beer selection is also extensive, with a regularly-changing menu and guest beers available. On Ewan's September 2011 visit, Magic Rock Dark Arts (a stout) was on handpull, along with a couple of other interesting choices.

There's a good food menu available as well, which focuses on small plates (each around £5-6), and is good quality. The only bar snacks available are pork scratchings (but these are made in-house and are far superior to the packet variety).

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Last visited by Ewan and friends, September 2011. Opening hours taken from website, October 2011.
OS X co-ord: 533813 OS Y co-ord: 182394 (Latitude: 51.524106 Longitude: -0.070928)
This is version 1 (as of 2011-10-05 11:57:35). View current version.