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Gipsy Wedding

It comes down to kegs, Sam McMeekin says. In an era of spiralling costs and deep-pocketed big-brewery rivals, kegs provide the simplest explanation as to why the brewery he co-founded in 2014, Gipsy Hill, has decided to enter a “strategic partnership” with a group called Sunrise Alliance Beverages. 

Brum Rush

PANDEMONIUM, if press reports can be believed, broke out in the family room at the 1990 Great British Beer Festival. A rabbit leapt from a magician's hat; 20 children, plus organiser Pat Waters, went in increasingly hot pursuit around the family room.

It was “one very lively bunny,” Pat later told reporters, no doubt with a rueful shake of the head.

Is Small Still Beautiful?

Last month’s newsletter drew the usual postbag: thoughts, assertions, random abuse (thanks Mum). But amongst the odds and sods in the LBC inbox, one London brewery worker’s email stood out. It was written in response to the predictable beer lists at London stadia and at Cahoots, a 1940s pub in Soho, and the wider post-Covid problem of bar space being monopolised by multinational beers:

A Gentle Orbit

Change is constant on the Walworth Road, although that’s hard to believe on a lethargic Wednesday morning. Red double-decker buses chug ever so slowly up South London’s central artery, as they always have, but around them things are moving on. The northern end is now home to a large Latin American community and towering blocks of modern flats; Walworth Town Hall, opposite the former Labour Party headquarters, is being converted into a ‘dynamic cultural community and workspace hub’; and, most earth-shakingly of all, Marks & Spencer closed in June, having served the road for 111 years. 

Untied

4 July is Independence Day across the Atlantic, a jamboree (so I’m led to believe) of meat-grillin’, star-spangled caterwaulin’ and random whoopin’. This year, though, our American cousins are not going to have the fun to themselves: there’ll be a degree of joy in Bermondsey, too, albeit in a more restrained form. 

On that day, Anspach and Hobday’s six-month lease of the St James of Bermondsey pub runs out, and - as co-owner Jack Hobday puts it, albeit in not so many words - not a moment too soon.

Contract Hit

Last year Todd Nicolson, beer industry veteran and co-founder of lower-calorie brand Lowrise, was contacted by Trading Standards. “I got a 12-page letter saying we weren't allowed to use the term ‘low-calorie’,” he says with a chuckle. “But right at the end, at the bottom of the last page, it says ‘but you could arguably get away with lower’ - so we just changed all our marketing stuff to lower.” 

Kick Off

Two untidy piles of football scarves sit by the door at The Volley, London’s soon-to-be new football pub. One is a mishmash of colours representing different clubs and nations - Scotland, Rapid Vienna, a silky 1980s Roma effort - and the other is almost entirely green and white, the colours of Celtic FC. 

Mark Hislop, co-founder and Rangers supporter, points to the second pile. “Do you know anybody who might want these?” he says with mock exasperation. “I’m not putting all of them up on the wall.” He pauses. “I’ll put one up.”

Message In A Bottle  

It’s raining in East Dulwich, which seems a bit much given the property prices. At Hop, Burns and Black, the neighbourhood’s excellent bottle shop, manager Nathan Taylor is stationed by the espresso machine, serving up delicious coffee and genial cheer through the shop’s hatch to any Dulwich and Peckham folk brave or foolhardy enough to be out and about on a day like this. 

How London Pubs conquered Facebook

MARK is drinking Thatchers Cider at a pub in Ruislip. Thomas is lamenting the “long gone” Fountain in Lower Clapton Road. Jon has just been to Kensington’s Churchill Arms (“Nice collection of chamber pots”). An anonymous tied-pub landlord is interested to know what people consider an acceptable price for beer. Tom seeks advice on which two or three pubs to visit in Camden on a flying visit to town. Ian is heading to Twickenham for the rugby, and needs a pub that won’t be too mobbed. Nicky just wants to say what a great group this is.

It’s the 28th of February, 1950, and Jean Llante, Resistance hero turned Communist politician, rises to address France’s National Assembly:  

“Monsieur le ministre, they are selling a drink on the boulevards of Paris called Coca-Cola … This is not simply an economic question, nor is it even simply a question of public health - it’s also a political question. We want to know if, for political reasons, you're going to permit them to poison Frenchmen and Frenchwomen.”

Perfect Pubs

When it comes to pubs, the news is invariably bad. They’ve been fighting a forlorn rearguard action for decades, battered by governmental indifference - at best - and preyed upon by opportunistic developers. Dozens have closed: a 2017 report by Lewisham Council, for example, discovered that half of the borough’s pubs were no more, most of them having given up the ghost in the previous 20 years. 

A London Education

London is a huge generator of brewing talent. Hundreds of enthusiastic young people have come to the city over the past dozen years to find work at one of the city’s 100+ breweries - and, London being London, lots have then left, taking what they’ve learned. They’ve then set up their own breweries, or have become very senior in the breweries they work for.

Eko Park

Anthony Adedipe is worried about the weather. It’s a Thursday afternoon in early November and rain is rattling down on the roof at Unit 2A-2, Copeland Park, Peckham, Eko Brewery’s new home and bar. Anthony says he’s been chatting to other traders on the estate, and afternoon rain, they tell him, is very bad for evening trade. “I hope it stops,” he says, more in hope than expectation. 

Brew Dogs

“Warning,” a printed note on the door of Travis Mooney-Evans’s West Hampstead office reads. “Dogs Running Free.”

It’s no joke. As soon as Travis opens the door, two Collie crosses - Viola, 13, and Isabella, one - bound towards me. Of the two, Isabella is by some distance the more persistent, rewarding each faint flicker of interest with leaps and licks and an insistence that we play a fetching game with her ball. Viola gives me a regulation sniff and heads off for a nap.

Wiesn Season

On the face of it, organising an Oktoberfest event doesn’t seem too complicated. What do you need? Lots of German beer, bratwurst and pretzels, a crowd of thirsty punters willing to dress in lederhosen/dirndls and crash glasses together, and long tables for them to sit at/stand on. Otto’s your uncle. 

The Centre

Dockley Road Industrial Estate in Bermondsey has changed since I was last here. Then, pre-Covid, it was a scrappy collection of industrial units occupied by some of London’s best small food producers; now the same space is filled by soaring blocks of black and beige flats, with glass-fronted shop units at ground level housing many of those same producers.

Donostia Beer

14 years on, I can easily recall José Ramón Elizondo, the former owner of Aloña Berri in San Sebastian. He was in his mid-sixties, straight-backed and smartly dressed, with a lavish white moustache and a genial, encouraging catchphrase whenever a customer ordered from the elegantly arrayed selection of dainty pintxos on the bar: muy bueno, muy bueno. 

Liquid Lunch

On a sunny Tuesday lunchtime in late June, business at 10 Greek Street is brisk if not bank-busting. Groups of Soho types - well-dressed, 30-something, a touch on the loud side - are merrily deciding what to to order: Gloucester Old Spot Pork, Borlotti Beans & Sea Vegetables (£28), maybe, or Sea Bream, Fennel, Olives, Capers, Samphire (also £28)? The city hoots and hums outside. 

The New Saints

What remains when a brewery dies? Promotional material, mostly. Arch 382, Mentmore Street, E8, until recently used for storage by London Fields brewery, is full of marketing junk, all of it rather ugly. Bottle openers, keg badges, pallets of out-of-date cans, tarpaulin posters, bar runners, promotional items that defy simple description, all branded London Fields, which was closed by owners Carlsberg Marstons in late 2021. Once fussed over, now destined for a skip in the yard.