Once a mellow backstreet local, the George now swarms with privately educated fashion students, freelance creative directors and sundry other Hackney characters looking like they’ve just walked out of a Socks House Meeting meme, to the point where on busy nights you’ll struggle to find standing room to smoke your imported Vogues in the beer garden out front, and the landlord has even hired a bouncer.
As the George’s popularity has risen, so have the prices. But catch it on a quieter night, and this remains a great pub, a mixed coterie of longtime Dalstonians and recent arrivals shooting the breeze over pints of Guinness, a jukebox-led soundtrack of classic cuts and hipster-friendly obscurities, and a roaring fire on cold winter afternoons.
On the bar, you’ll find a rotating cast of local brews and European beers (Czech lager Litovel is a mainstay) while the kitchen serves up hangover-curbing burgers, a decent Sunday roast and you guessed it!) a mixture of small and large plates.
The raffish decor (yellowing walls, stuffed animals) will be familiar to anyone who’s drunk at Stoke Newington’s Shakespeare or The Virgin Queen in Hoxton, two of the dozen-ish pubs under the same umbrella, but the George retains its own identity to the last.