One of London’s favourite craft breweries is, at the weekend, also one of London’s busiest. Possibly because the tap room’s only open six hours a week, and as well as being the cheapest venue to find a pint of Neck Oil, Gamma Ray or Lupuloid, is the best place to drink Beavertown one-offs and seasonals, such as their DIPA collaboration with Lervig, at £2.50 a half.

Walthamstow’s Wild Card do easily one of the best IPAs in the capital, and on (almost) any given Saturday, this amber spicy caramel number is right here, flowing from the taps. Bear in mind this is no massive operation, so quantity isn’t oceanic, but there’s a certain consistency that resonates throughout their five core beers.

The Duke’s Head in Highgate has a solid reputation for hosting street-food residencies, but it’s worth visiting for the beer, as much as who’s in the kitchen. The bar has 20 lines, all from homegrown British brewers, with a cask-keg balance (10 a piece) that’ll keep both real ale lovers and West Coast hop hunters happy.

Beer Merchants have distributed on behalf of European breweries ­— Belgian ones especially ­— for the past 30 years. That history has culminated in a substantial taproom around the corner from Hackney Wick Overground station, from where beers that are a challenge to find on draught elsewhere are being poured: Cantillon, De Dolle, De La Senne, to name but a few. Hundreds of others stock the fridges, while the taproom will soon have its own “blendery” — the first of its kind in Britain.

From the line of massive steel tanks behind Howling Hops’ Hackney Wick bar, beers (both the brewery’s core and seasonal) are served unpasteurised straight from tank to tankard without touching a keg, can, or bottle on the way. Clearly, visitors don’t hold back — in the late evenings, the taproom erupts into a disco of sorts, with limb-throwing patrons all too willing to get involved. Until nightclubs start serving their own lemon goses and US-hopped pale ales, this is the next best thing.

Angel’s nightlife is a heavy hitter, and the Three Johns is a big reason why. It’s open until 1am at the weekend, and that means the pub’s as loud as it is impenetrable on a Friday night, so if you’re hoping to enjoy a quiet pint of Warpigs’ IPA or Anspach & Hobday’s New World Gose, best visit when the rest of N1 isn’t.

Mother Kelly’s wall of fridges is a beautiful thing. Six of them, shoulder to shoulder, shelves full of anything from Amundsen to Wild Beer Co. Pair that with 23 taps on constant rotation, and it’s fair to say this tap room has one of the most extensive beer ranges in London.

This two-time CAMRA award-winner just outside Old Street Tube features a list of 20-odd keg and cask beers from some of the best brewers in the country. Dark Star, Tiny Rebel, Siren, Kernel and Redemption are often well-represented on the bar top.

Hanging baskets, leadlight windows and a collage of pump clips adorn this West End Fuller’s pub. Yes, it’s traditional, indeed iconic, through and through. And, with ten hand-drawn beers on tap, is certainly one of the best places to take your favourite cask ale fan.

Ten years ago, owners of the Rake were told the pub wouldn’t last its first Christmas. Now, it’s easily one of the top drinking holes in the London Bridge area, with ten beers on draught, and 130 bottles and cans in the fridge. The shoebox-sized bar has recently been renovated, though its trademark wall of visiting brewers’ signatures has persisted.

Tiptoe up to anyone who knows the UK beer scene, ask for their top four London breweries, and BBNo is more than likely to be up there. Much of the brewery’s philosophy is about exploring traditional Belgian brews, like saisons, tripels and blondes, though their fresh and juicy IPAs and pale ales seem to prove more popular at their tap room.

This is a Meantime pub so, as you’d expect, the brewery’s frontline beers are on most of the taps. But once you get chatting to the staff, they’re more interested in finding something you’d like, Meantime or not. Indeed, the pub’s beer menu is a welcome distraction from London’s usual: five pages’ worth of Trappists, wheat and abbey beers, plus a fridge full of lambic and gueuze.

No one quite knows how it’s done, but Camberwell pub Stormbird manages to serve up quality pints of cask beer — we’re talking Dark Star, Marble Brewery, Five Points et al — for £3 a go. Their 16 draft lines are well priced too — sometimes under a fiver.

Granted, there are pubs with more room to manoeuvre than beer shop and “tasting room” HB&B. But then, not many pubs offer the kinds of nectar every beer hound wants to get her sticky paws on. Beers such as Cloudwater’s DIPL, Gypsy Hill and DEYA’s Ramblers, and the very small batch Mill’s Brewing & Oliver’s Cider Foxbic.