The Lyric

Up to ten cask ales and two or three ciders on handpump, with over twenty craft keg taps behind them, a hundred and fifty meters from Piccadilly Circus (CAMRA).

Why go

Eight of those ten cask lines change. Only two stay: Harvey's Sussex Best Bitter, which CAMRA's beer-scorers have logged here thirty-five times, and Oakham Citra at 4.2%. The brewers that fill the rest most often are Exeter, Siren and Tring. That is a buying operation, not a beer list, and it sits in a small bay-fronted corner room with a tiled panelled interior. The building started as two 18th-century taverns, the Windmill and the Ham, merged into the Windmill & Ham, renamed in 1890 and rebuilt sixteen years after that. It nearly went: West London CAMRA's branch remembers it "boarded up and showcased on BBC London, a poster child for Ghost Town Britain" before the beer range brought it back (CAMRA West London). One thing to know about who runs it: the pub calls itself the area's oldest independent free house, while CAMRA's record names Morgan Pub Company as the operator and Soho Collection 1 Limited as the freeholder.

Order this / avoid

• Order: Harvey's if you want the constant, then work along the changing eight. Ciders run on handpump alongside the ale, two or three of them. The keg wall on the bar-back is where the unusual stuff hides. Upstairs there is a dining room doing fish and chips and Sunday roasts, and the kitchen runs to 10pm Monday to Saturday.
• Avoid: drinking outside if you want to sit down or hold a glass. CAMRA is blunt about it: "customers wishing to drink outside will have to stand and settle for plastic glasses." Do not read the free-house line as ownership. And if stairs are a problem, note that there are "no toilets on the ground floor" and low steps at both doors.

What locals & experts say

• Matt Brown, Londonist, 28 October 2014: "Soho is noted for its pubs, but it's not really a happy hunting ground for unusual ale. Most of the bars hereabouts are chained to mainstream suppliers, and it's rare to find anything you haven't seen a hundred times before. Thank the hop god, then, for The Lyric." His verdict on the range: "the bar stocks the best range of beer in the area (six on draught, a whole platoon of kegs, who can say how many bottles), putting it up there with the Harp in Covent Garden as a rare West End refuge for the seeker of interesting ales." His draught count is a 2014 number and CAMRA's is higher now. ref
• CAMRA's West London branch record (updated 22 July 2026) repeats a judgment it does not attribute, that "the array of beers here has been described as 'beyond excellence, verging on the exemplary'", and makes its own: "This is an unusually authentic 'real pub' for one so close to the traditional heart of London at Piccadilly Circus, and for all beer drinkers, cask ale fans or not, there are often some unusual beers to be found and enjoyed." ref
• CAMRA West London branch, Pub of the Year, third place: "Today, this beautiful Victorian gem has earned itself third place in the West London Campaign for Real Ale branch Pub of the Year competition." Branch chairman Les Maggs presented the certificate on Great Windmill Street. The page carries no date. ref
• The Soho Society, Pub of the Year 1992, quoted in the same piece: "Well, we thought this year that the Lyric Tavern of Great Windmill Street ought to have the limelight..." ref
• Nothing has been written about the beer here since 2014 in anything reachable. Londonist, Time Out, the CAMRA branch site and the London Region node were read on 30 July 2026, and CAMRA's own last survey of the pub is dated 3 February 2020.

Good to know

• Where: 37 Great Windmill Street, Soho W1D 7LT, just off Shaftesbury Avenue. Piccadilly Circus is 150m, Charing Cross 750m.
• Timing: Monday to Thursday 11am to 11.30pm, Friday and Saturday to midnight, Sunday noon to 10.30pm. Kitchen noon to 10pm Monday to Saturday and to 9pm Sunday per the venue, which is later than CAMRA's recorded food times, so trust the pub on this one.
• Booking: walk in. The function room takes 20 seated or 50 standing.
• Access: "Low steps at both outside entrances, but there are no toilets on the ground floor."
• Hygiene: FSA rating 5, Westminster, inspected 20 March 2024, FHRSID 413770. Component scores 0 for hygiene, 5 for structural, 5 for management, and in this scheme lower is better. ref
• In the room: real fire, Sky and TNT sport, dogs and families welcome, wi-fi, pavement drinking in plastic.
• Christmas: CAMRA notes the pub normally runs a Christmas Day menu, and that turkey is optional.
• If you are choosing between West End cask pubs: Londonist pairs this with The Harp in Covent Garden, which is carried in this database as temporarily closed. Check The Harp before you plan around it.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: none. Jeff's saved-places export carries no note for this row. The master CSV's "Cask and craft beer pub save" line was written by an earlier enrichment pass, not by him, so it is not quoted here as his words.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

should-visit — Worth crossing the West End for, which is not a sentence you write about many Soho pubs. CAMRA's record has up to ten cask ales and two or three ciders on handpump plus more than twenty craft keg taps on the bar-back, with eight of the cask lines changing and only Harvey's Sussex Best and Oakham Citra staying put. Londonist put it with the Harp as one of two West End refuges for anyone after interesting beer, in an area it describes as chained to mainstream suppliers. The room earns its half too: two 18th-century taverns merged into one, renamed in 1890, rebuilt in 1906, bay fronted with a tiled panelled interior, and boarded up and on BBC London as a symbol of dying high streets before it came back. West London CAMRA put it third in its Pub of the Year and the Soho Society had already named it Pub of the Year in 1992. Food hygiene is a 5 with a zero on the hygiene component. What keeps it off the top rung is currency: CAMRA last surveyed it in February 2020 and nobody has assessed the beer in print since 2014.