CAMRA London Pub Density Analysis.

The 'CAMRA Good Beer Guide' is an annual publication, containing ca. 4,500 brief reviews of public houses in the UK serving at least one ale. (A Public House that doesn't serve at least one ale does not warrant consideration in the eyes of the 'Campaign for Real Ale', or indeed my own). The 2009 guide has helpfully divided London and its surrounds by postcode district, which permits analysis of the city and its facilities with particular focus on the needs of the middle-aged alcoholic. Plots of the number of CAMRA-approved drinking establishments by postcode district for the NW, N, E, EC, WC, W, SW and SE postcode areas are shown in figures 1-7 (the districts on each graph are arranged from left to right, in order of increasing distance from the city centre).

Figure 1-Number of CAMRA-approved pubs by EC postcode district

Figure 2-Number of CAMRA-approved pubs by NW postcode district

Figure 3-Number of CAMRA-approved pubs by N postcode district

Figure 4-Number of CAMRA-approved pubs by W/WC postcode district

Figure 5-Number of CAMRA-approved pubs by E postcode district

Figure 6-Number of CAMRA-approved pubs by SW postcode district

Figure 7-Number of CAMRA-approved pubs by SE postcode district

Several observations can be made:

North and East London exhibit a relative paucity of ale-houses, compared to the South and West.

The WC and W areas exhibit the highest mean density of pubs per district (4.7 pubs/district), while the SE and SW areas exhibit the largest numbers of pubs overall, although account must be taken of the considerable geographic expanse of the SE and SW areas (for example there are 37 pubs in the South-East of Greater London, but this area encompasses the entirety of Orpington, Bromley and Croydon, and thus does not equate to a particularly high pub-density).

The most pub-dense inner London district is SW1, which contains 13 CAMRA-approved establishments.

Consideration of the geographic arrangement of the pub-dense districts suggests that the ideal base from which an ale-appreciator should operate is in or near SW4; this district contains 4 CAMRA-approved establishments, is less than a mile from SW1, and comparatively close to the pub-dense W postcode districts.