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A pint on New Year’s Day is a unique thing. Choose the wrong venue or drink and the next 12 months are doomed. It’s like accidentally killing an albatross before a big boat voyage. You’ve fucked it.
But when you get it right? When you get it right, you all but guarantee a solid-gold year ahead. Your January 1 drink sets the agenda. A picture-perfect NYDP, where the drink and the vibe and the company are all on point, is the greatest omen the gods can send.
So you have to nail this one, basically.
Here are some things, off the bat, that can ruin your NYDP. I don’t have time to explain why, but do yourself a favour and make sure none of these come within cheers-ing distance of your January 1 day out: birthday parties (all ages); solemn religious meet-ups; Man City fans (nothing personal); journalists of any description; people who haven’t been to bed; people who have been to bed and are really smug about it; any live music apart from folk; sticky floors; deflated balloons; funny hats; any and all social media platforms including the one where your neighbours report lost cats and share borderline-racist observations about local bike thefts.
The last one is crucial. Your pint is meant to be a break between this year and the last. A momentary pitstop between laps. It won’t feel like a blissful respite from anything if you’re doomscrolling through inflation headlines and mean-spirited Shrek memes. You suck on the hate-saturated sponge of social media all day every day. Today’s the day you don’t. Those funny ‘galaxy brain’ photos will still be there when you get back!
Choose a venue that doesn’t remind you of your job, your friends, your family or yourself
In terms of drinks, please steer clear of anything aggressively carbonated. Nothing triple-hopped or nitrous-fuelled. The classic NYDP is a Guinness. Or if you can’t rock with stout, then some kind of amber-coloured, meditative glass of ale. Look for Camra-approved beers called things like Crafty Goatherd or Bearded Pilgrim. If in doubt, simply ask for the flattest and warmest thing on tap.
Because the NYDP takes place, spiritually, far away from your everyday life, it’s preferable to choose a venue that doesn’t remind you of your job, your friends, your family or yourself. If you’re heading somewhere close to home, opt for a place you don’t normally go. Then, if the bar staff ask what you do for a living, you can make up an exciting lie and not risk being found out. Why not tell them you’re an ‘air vet’ or hyper-rare tree surgeon? During a New Year’s Day Pint you are reborn as whatever you want to be.
Off the top of my head (and the obliging heads of my colleagues), here are London pubs Time Out believes to be perfect candidates for your NYDP. They’re peaceful, calming zones that seem to exist outside of our plain of existence:
Myddleton Arms, Highbury
Clapton Heart, Clapton
The Harlequin, Clerkenwell
Ye Olde Mitre, Holborn
The Hand of Glory, Clapton
Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, Holborn
Forest Road Taproom, Hackney
Ivy House, Nunhead
Old Fountain, Old Street
Lord Tredegar, Bow
The Grapes, Limehouse
Tapping the Admiral, Kentish Town
The Pineapple, Kentish Town
The Kenton, Homerton
George Tavern, Stepney
Princess of Wales, Lee Valley
What with things being the way they are I strongly advise you phone these places to see if they’re open on the day. Anything can happen right now. I’d hate for you to be stood outside a closed pub in Limehouse on January 1.
After the year we’ve all had, you owe yourself a transformative, baptismal NYDP. Take with you that novel you never started, any decent crossword and an empty 2022 diary. I mean, you won’t look at or write in any of them. You’ll be too busy staring into the middle distance while silently swilling your glass of Honest Brown. But it’s good to have something to aspire to.
The 100 best, Time Out-approved, pubs in London.
Great stuff for you to do on New Year’s Day.