There’s something rather fitting about starting a programme of work for the City’s oldest ale-tasting office with an actual taste of ale.
2026–27 is shaping up to be a year with real ambition behind it: supporting the City’s pubs and bars, putting the office’s seven-century history to modern use, and finding new ways to champion customer safety and good hospitality across the Square Mile. More on all of that as it takes shape.
As part of laying the groundwork, Monday saw what’s believed to be the first time in many years that all four City of London Ale-Conners have sat down together with City Corporation officers at Guildhall, comparing notes and testing ideas. A useful hour, and a good sign of things to come.
Suitably invigorated afterwards, I took the short walk down to the Lamb Tavern, one of the true jewels in the City’s hospitality crown, where I was kindly invited behind the bar to carry out a spot of ale-conning in the field. A public duty, entirely unavoidable. I’m pleased to report the ale was bright, well-kept and thoroughly delicious. Honest work, honestly rewarded.
Even seven hundred years of tradition has to make its peace with modern conveniences, and the Assize of Bread and Ale had rather less to say about contactless payment than one might hope. The bright pink card reader propped beside the pumps suggests the Lamb has moved with the times somewhat more readily than its Ale-Conner.
The Lamb is marked on the pub map, along with some 180 other reasons to linger in the Square Mile.