Known in the 19th Century as London’s Larder, the riverside neighbourhood of Bermondsey has recently developed a new claim to fame: its mile of top-notch, artisanal microbreweries.
In hindsight, Jack Hobday wishes he had made just one decision
differently. Along with lifelong friend Paul Anspach, in the span of 14
whirlwind months, the 26-year-old had gone from home-brewing hobbyist to crowd-funded
co-founder of London microbrewery Anspach
& Hobday. First, their spring 2013 Kickstarter campaign to raise £3,000
for a single-barrel brewing kit exceeded its goal by £2,000; then their
home-brewed porter earned a silver medal in the “Stouts and Porters” category
at the 2013 International Beer Challenge, where competitors included
international companies like Sam Adams and Thornbridge.
The next step was finding a brewery space. After a five-month search, Hobday
and Anspach found themselves in Bermondsey. It was a move that wouldn’t
surprise London’s cutting-edge cadre of brewers: spilling from the southern
banks of the River Thames with a western border informally marked by the Tower
Bridge, Bermondsey historically was such a key production centre for food and
beverage that, by the mid-19th Century, it had been dubbed “London’s Larder”. Yet
in the early 20th Century, industry began shifting to other
districts. German bombing raids during World War II hastened Bermondsey’s
decline.
In recent years, however, this residential area has quietly reclaimed
its niche, due in part to the arrival of six buzzed-about microbreweries, including
Anspach & Hobday, all clustered together within a roughly 1.5-mile radius. The Kernel Brewery, founded in
2009, was the first to arrive; Anspach & Hobday, the latest, began brewing
in November 2013.They came for a variety of reasons, including the amount of available
space, particularly in the Bermondsey railway arches that support the London
Overground (five of the six are housed beneath an arch). This serendipitous gathering,
though, has become an epicentre for London’s beer revival.
When I caught up with Andy Smith, the founder of archway-located
brewery, Partizan Brewing, he and his small staff of part-timers were
busy packaging their latest creation, an easy-drinking saison brewed with
mangoes and peppercorns. Reflecting Smith’s former career as a chef, many of
Partizan’s beers are designed with food pairings and distribution to
restaurants in mind. Five to six cases of pale ale per week, for example, are
reserved for Soho steakhouse Flat Iron,
while Indian restaurant Gujarati Rasoi
in Dalston favours the lemongrass saison. “Loads of people always say ‘IPA and
spicy foods,’ but there’s nothing worse than heat and bitterness,” Smith said.
“Heat with acidity or sweetness works very well, but suggesting curries with
IPAs purely because the beer has ‘India’ in the title is a little silly.”
Half a mile down the road at the Bermondsey Trading Estate, an
industrial park where neighbours include tool suppliers and an ambulance
service provider, Fourpure Brewing Co is
the area’s only brewery not housed within a railway arch – a decision made for
reasons of having more space and accessibility for receiving and shipping goods,
said Daniel Lowe, who co-founded Fourpure with his brother Tom in 2012. The
capacity of Fourpure’s warehouse, which is roughly twice the size of the other
breweries, means that on Saturdays, the only day of the week when all six of
the Bermondsey breweries are open to the public, Fourpure can more comfortably
accommodate visitors; there’s even room for a ping-pong table. They also have
more space for stock, and Lowe is happy to share in times of need. “We
intentionally have a completely open-door approach with other breweries,” he
said.
That sense of mutual respect is palpable among the Bermondsey brewers. Evin
O’Riordain, founder of The Kernel Brewery,
even donated his old brewing kit to Partizan to help the company get started in
2012. And all of the brewers are complimentary of one another’s work. Hobday
called The Kernel “the number-one craft brewery in London”; Lowe praised
the saisons from2012 Bermondsey arrival Brew
By Numbers. “Each of the breweries is now sort of finding themselves
something special,” Lowe said.
Still, in such a small, nascent community, it can be easy to misstep –
as Hobday learned. Running the newest brewery on the Bermondsey block, Hobday
was understandably eager to promote his brand, so when London food-and-booze
blogger Matt Hickman coined the term “Bermondsey Beer Mile”
at an Anspach & Hobday pre-launch party, Hobday seized upon the idea. “I
recognized how powerful it could be,” he said.
He was right: within weeks of his launch of the “Bermondsey Beer Mile”
website – which had little more than a map of the area’s breweries – crowds
suddenly boomed. And clientele changed. “After the Beer Mile launched, about a
week later we saw stag parties,” Smith said. “There were two or three
distinctive weekends where we had 40- to 50-minute queues. Some of my regular
customers turned up, saw what was going on and left without having a drink.”
In response, the brewery principals called a meeting and decided to pull
the website down a few weeks after its launch. “As a beer lover myself, if I
had a weekend off I’d want to go to Bermondsey and drink at several of the
breweries, but not necessarily at all of them the same day,” says Hobday. “I
don’t think it should be a ‘beer challenge’, which is maybe the connotation a ‘beer
mile’ could take on.”
Indeed. On Saturday afternoons, when each brewery is open until 5pm (The
Kernel until 2pm), don’t think of it as a race. Consider it a weekly opening
reception for six artists’ latest exhibitions – and an opportunity to discuss,
and savour, the materials with the people who created them.
Such an approach also allows visitors to enjoy more than just beer in
Bermondsey. At Spa Terminus,
butchers, bakers and cheesemakers are among the local food producers with
Saturday open houses. The Maltby Street Market:
Ropewalk offers some of the tastiest street food in London, not to mention
pop-up stands for London meadery Gosnells, honey-beer
brewers Hiver and local craft beer
purveyors The Bottle Shop.
Without the publicity of the Beer Mile website, Bermondsey’s weekend
crowds are growing more organically. “The crowds seem to be swinging back
towards people that want to engage with the area and the food,” said Smith. That’s
the essence of this burgeoning scene: even as these entrepreneurs hope for commercial
success, it’s that kind of engaged clientele – and authentic experience – that
truly makes buzzy Bermondsey thrive.