Cask Pub & Kitchen

Ten handpumps that change, twenty-two keg lines that go German and Belgian, and a cellar the pub says holds two thousand rare bottles going back to the 1950s (CAMRA West London).

Why go

CAMRA's West London branch made this its Pub of the Year in 2025 and handed the award over on 28 April (London Drinker). It won the same branch title in 2019. That is the useful kind of credential, because a branch Pub of the Year is a verdict on what comes out of the handpumps rather than on the building.

There are ten of those, all guest ale, and CAMRA's own record files the pub under "10 changing beers" (ref). The same record adds the caveat you want: "although there are ten handpumps for cask ale, at quieter times not all may be in use." Twenty-two keg lines run alongside, and CAMRA describes them as "unusual German, Belgian and American craft beers", which is where this pub separates itself from a straight cask house. Brewers come in to run nights.

Then there is the cellar, and the honest way to put it is as the pub's own words. The venue advertises "over 2000 exceptionally rare beers, including some of the last bottles in the world", built since 2009 (venue site). CAMRA writes the same thing with the word claims attached, and adds the pub's assertion that it is the largest collection of beer for sale in the UK, going back to the 1950s. Nobody independent has counted it.

The building is a Grade II listed former estate pub, Historic England reference 1246693, under the red brick of Lillington Gardens, and it used to be called the Pimlico Tram. It opened as Cask in the summer of 2009, which made it one of the first pubs in Britain built around craft beer. The founding team went on to open the Craft Beer Co pubs. This one stayed independent, on a Westminster City Council freehold.

Food is one good burger. The meat comes daily from PJ Frankland & Sons and the bun from Chas & Momo. Pork pies and scotch eggs sit on the bar, and there is a roast on Sundays until late afternoon.

Order this / avoid

• Order: work the handpumps in thirds so you reach more than two of the ten. Then a Belgian or German keg, which is the part of the list a cask pub usually cannot show you. Ask the staff about the cellar, since CAMRA singles them out for knowing the range. The burger if you are eating.
• Avoid: assuming all ten pumps are on, because CAMRA says quiet periods run fewer. The weekday kitchen gap between 3pm and 5pm. Coming for the room, which is plain by design.

What locals & experts say

• CAMRA, West London branch, record updated 17 July 2026: "The pub celebrated its fifteenth birthday in mid-2024 and was branch Pub of the Year in 2019 and again in 2025." On the beer: "this corner house has been transformed by the current operators into a destination beer pub. Office workers, locals and tourists from nearby hotels enjoy guest ales on 10 handpumps." ref
• Laura Reynolds, Londonist, 20 January 2014: "Ten hand pumps serve beer from British microbreweries. Now, we drink a lot of beer, and hadn't encountered any of these tipples before." And the critical half, about the room: "An unassuming frontage is almost crushed beneath the vast red-brick Lillington Gardens estate. Inside, too, you're not immediately struck with wonder by the relatively spartan, decidedly not-cosy furnishings." She also logged one member of the party paying thirteen pounds for a cherry beer. ref
• The pub, about its own cellar, quoted as the pub: "Discover over 2000 exceptionally rare beers, including some of the last bottles in the world." That is marketing until somebody counts it, and it is the reason this entry stops where it does. ref

Good to know

• Where: 6 Charlwood Street, Pimlico SW1V 2EE, under the Lillington Gardens estate. Pimlico is the nearest tube.
• Timing: bar Monday to Saturday noon to 11pm, Sunday noon to 10:30pm. Kitchen Monday to Friday noon to 3pm and 5pm to 10pm, Saturday and Sunday 12:30pm to 9:30pm.
• Booking: reservations taken by phone, email and online, which is unusual for a beer pub and worth using on a Sunday.
• The cask caveat: ten handpumps, not all of them running at quiet times, per CAMRA.
• Awards: CAMRA West London branch Pub of the Year, 2025 and 2019. West London is one of several London branches running their own titles, so this is the branch award and not a Greater London or national one.
• Hygiene: FSA rating 4, Westminster, inspected 12 July 2023, FHRSID 412122. Components read hygiene 0, structural 10, confidence in management 0, where lower is better, so food handling and management scored perfectly and the mark is entirely the building. The inspection is three years old. ref
• Sites: one. The Craft Beer Co pubs in Brixton, Covent Garden, Farringdon and Clapham came from the same founders and trade under a different name, so nothing written about them describes this bar.
• Names: the hygiene register calls it The Cask Public House, and before 2009 the building was the Pimlico Tram.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: none. His saved-places export carries an empty note for this row. The master list's line "Craft beer stalwart save" came from an earlier enrichment pass, not from him.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

should-visit — Rearrange the afternoon if you drink cask. Ten handpumps of changing guest ale is at the top of what any single London bar runs, and CAMRA's West London branch made this its Pub of the Year in 2025, presented on 28 April, which is the second time after 2019. That award is the right kind of evidence for the right thing: a branch title is a judgment about cask quality, not about the building. Twenty-two keg lines sit alongside, and they go where most cask houses do not, into German, Belgian and American beer. The pub opened in Pimlico in summer 2009 as an early bet on craft beer in Britain, in a Grade II listed corner house that used to be the Pimlico Tram, an estate pub under the Lillington Gardens blocks. Laura Reynolds was honest about the room in Londonist: an unassuming frontage, spartan and decidedly not cosy inside, and then you reach the bar. Food is a burger, ground by a named butcher on a named baker's bun, plus pork pies, scotch eggs and a Sunday roast. It holds at should-visit rather than climbing because the one thing here you cannot get anywhere else, a cellar the venue says holds two thousand rare bottles going back to the 1950s, is the venue's own claim and CAMRA repeats it as a claim. Verify that and the argument changes.