November Newsletter: Dusty brewkits, thirties boozers and Big Juicy
A monthly newsletter about London beer and pubs
Call me Ahab
Moby Dick, as you will no doubt recall, is the story of one man’s obsessive hunt for an elusive white whale. For the past half-decade or so, I have pursued my own white whale - admittedly in slightly less dramatic circumstances - in the shape of a brewhouse that may or may not have been purchased 10 years ago, that may or may not have been used, and that may or may not be about to finally enter into production.
The story begins in Camberwell. Antic, the South London-based pub company founded in 1999, which has subsequently expanded, contracted and expanded again across the city (how many other pub companies include a list of places they used to run on their website?), was based there until about eight years ago. One of the most admirable aspects of Antic’s operation, then and now, is a desire to provide affordable options, from budget Bangers and Mash to a pint of Best Bitter, brewed from British ingredients, for £3.30.
It was this desire that led the company, which is owned and run by 52-year-old ex-Army man Anthony Thomas, to announce in 2011 that it was constructing a brewery in their then-premises, on Valmar Road in SE5. Stephen Lawson, a former Firkin brewer, was hired in June 2011. Planning permission to convert the premises into a brewery was granted in 2012. And then?
Not very much. We know that, despite what was reported in several publications in 2011, they didn’t buy Meantime’s old kit - I asked Rod Jones, Meantime brewer at the time, and he said it went to Pennine Brewery in Yorkshire. And they didn’t brew in Camberwell, either. Des De Moor, indefatigable compiler of Camra’s London beer guide, repeatedly enquired on Twitter when the brewery would be in operation - but it never was. Finally, in 2015, Antic took over the Clarence and Fredericks brewery in Croydon, renamed it Volden, and began pumping out a range of traditional beer styles.
Industry rumour, though, has long had it that Antic did buy a kit in the pre-Croydon days, and that it had sat, gathering dust, ever since. De Moor, who doesn’t normally get things wrong, writes on his website that a 32-hectolitre kit was purchased. If it did exist, and it wasn’t sold, why was it never used? I kept meaning to find out, but more important things - life, work that would actually result in payment - got in the way.
Now the full story can be told. Earlier this year, I spotted a selection of fermentation vessels, stored in the open air outside Antic’s current base in Malham Road, Forest Hill - vessels that, those in the know tell me, look quite different from the equipment inherited from Clarence and Fredericks. My interest was re-piqued, so I got in touch with Antic.
It turns out there was a brewery, British-built and 32hl as De Moor says, purchased for the Camberwell site. According to Thomas, who I spoke to via email, the site was almost ready to go in 2013 when the brewery’s “bank funder” went bust - meaning they had to vacate Valmar Road and put the brewery into storage while Volden began in Croydon. The business’s offices eventually landed in Malham Road, but on the other side of the road, where they couldn’t get planning permission for a brewery - so, when the opportunity came in 2020, they crossed over to a larger, more suitable site.
The same year, Antic closed the Croydon brewery and announced they would soon be brewing in Forest Hill, although that hasn’t happened yet. (The beers have been contract-brewed, at Portobello and Wimbledon). There has been plenty of work going on at the site, though, and Lawson says that a combination of the two brew kits, from Croydon and Camberwell, will soon be installed. Beer is promised in early 2023. It’s been a long road, but the white whale of London breweries could be about to come up for air.
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Winter of Discontent
It’s going to be a tough winter for many operators; the closure of Canopy, amongst others, shows that. I’m interested to hear from pub and brewery owners who are facing difficulties this winter, and what you plan to/can do about it. Please get in touch at londonbeercity@gmail.com.
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Partizan Serenade
THE title of ‘nicest person in beer’ is fiercely debated, but one strong contender is Andy Smith, the self-effacing founder and owner of Partizan. This Yorkshire-raised ex-chef has guided Partizan to its tenth birthday based not on social media interaction but a potent recipe of restaurant-world customers, beautiful labels and, of course, excellent beer.
Andy et al, who began brewing on The Kernel’s old kit in a railway archway close to South Bermondsey Station back in 2012, will be celebrating their first decade at their current home on Raymouth Road on Friday 25th November. I recommend you join them.
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I’m well aware that this newsletter is very white-male heavy (to be fair, so is beer), and I’m keen to include everyone involved in our city’s beer culture. If you have any suitable stories, big or small - particularly those that haven’t featured elsewhere - let me know at londonbeercity@gmail.com.
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Two Pubs, One City
A regular series about pubs and modern London
The Man of Kent & The Old Nun’s Head, Nunhead, SE15
“She was here a minute ago. I think she’s gone for a fag.”
The Man of Kent, a huge brick-built thirties boozer, is a treat for the traditionalists. Post-War plainness made homely, and scruffy, by the passing of time; clutter; lots of mainstream lager on the bar; ageing male lunchtime clientele; brown wood throughout. Despite the name, The Man of Kent is an Irish pub, so there’s Guinness advertising, too, plus amplifiers in the corner, there in readiness for that evening’s live entertainment.
At 1.20 on a Friday afternoon in October, though, the music comes from the digital jukebox on the wall: The Verve, Martha and the Vandellas, other stuff I can’t identify. There are five people here: three old blokes at the bar, their accents the classic London Irish mix of Cockney and Celt, a younger woman serving, and me. I’m taking a snap of one unusual bit of old Guinness marketing when she appears from the garden. “Like the sign, do you?”
The Guinness (£4.70) is as good as Guinness ever is: more texture than flavour, pleasant enough, nice to look at. I take a seat in what seems the best spot, with a good view of the main bar, in the largest of three rooms.
There are two TV screens, muted, showing horse racing. A parade of ruddy-faced, tweed-clad men appear and disappear.
One mirror is daubed in an advertisement offering five bottles of beer for £10, another with an inducement to try the filled rolls.
There are a few reminders of The Man of Kent’s previous life as a Truman’s pub; most pleasingly, the word “Mild’ on one of the windows.
The crisps are Taytos, after Guinness the most symbolic and fiercely defended of Irish comestibles.
Gentle chat ebbs and flows. One of the old lads - the one who warned me the barwoman was having a fag when I arrived - is not sure about his Fosters: “Taste funny, does it Ronnie?” Quickly mollified, he goes back to reading the paper. A man leaves, another arrives. He orders a large bottle of Moretti. They all know each other. They all sit at the bar.
If The Man of Kent could have existed any time in the last fifty years, then the Old Nun’s Head, 200 feet away across Nunhead Green, is very 2022 (the website, for example, describes it as a ‘multi-functioning safe space’). Although it’s similar to the Man of Kent in some key ways - solid thirties structure, lots of dark wood - in others it’s a world apart.
When I arrive, the genial bearded barman has his hands full of various foodstuffs, including a huge box of Maldon Salt. “What you after?” Five Points Best (£4.95), which tastes like cask ale often tastes in London pubs: a bit flat, a touch flabby. Disappointing, but not undrinkable. It is very bitter after the Guinness.
There are seven people in this pub - or, to be more accurate, there are seven people using the pub. Three women are outside, two young men are peering at a laptop. I sit in the room on the left as you come in, a gastropub-y space. (There’s no food on at lunchtime, though, which perhaps explains the slim crowd.)
Here the clutter is on the walls. A selection of Britney Spears bits and bobs is displayed behind the bar, close to a sign saying 'Ask us which gender affirming surgery we are supporting this month, and how you can help.’ There are at least two murals featuring nuns, plus a random patch of wallpaper. The doors, in contrast to the Man of Kent, are propped open.
The Nun’s Head’s community is based around progressive values; at The Man of Kent, it’s more a matter of turning up and seeing who’s there to chat to. The fact that they’re so close and yet so far apart, culturally speaking, gives the lie to all the old guff about pubs bringing people together. On the other hand, that they can happily coexist says a lot for modern London.
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Desi Desire
Here’s something to look forward to. South London’s very own David Jesudason is publishing a book about Desi pubs, those centres of British-Asian culture where Chicken Tikka is as important as Best Bitter. It’ll feature over 200 pubs around the UK, including a number of excellent examples in the capital, such as The Gladstone Arms in Borough. Out in May 2023.
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Covent Garden Beer Exhibition
Cask ale is having a bad time of it, with small breweries switching to keg and can. Anecdotally, too, it seems like a lot of pubs which, pre-Covid, served cask ale more out of a sense of duty than passion have cut back or stopped since, which is bad news for producers if not for unsuspecting drinkers. One well-informed cask-ale insider told me recently that sales ‘have fallen off a cliff’.
In tourist London, where pubs are geared up for one-time visitors, cask ale is still hugely important. Visitors to our delightful city expect to see handpumps on the bar. A recent stroll around Covent Garden, the throbbing heart of tourist London and the home of Camra’s first ever national beer festival back in 1975, found that all visited pubs were serving cask, and plenty of it. Please enjoy this informative table:
I was interested to see that The Freemason’s, a Shepherd Neame pub, had Whitstable Bay on three of the pumps, and Spitfire on two, so there were only actually two cask beers available. The Prince of Wales, owned by Greene King, had five pumps - but three offered IPA and the other two Abbott.
Cask is a fundamental part of the English pub’s global reputation, and our family breweries understand this enough to make sure it’s prominent in their tourist boozers. But too much can be too much. In Covent Garden and elsewhere, it’s well past time to put quality above quantity (except for at The Harp. The Harp can have 20 handpumps).
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They Wear It Well
One way modern breweries differentiate themselves from traditional producers is merchandise: t-shirts, hoodies, keyrings, glasses, jockstraps, etc, all emblazoned with key messaging & branding. Look at Camden Town and Beavertown, for example: these places were planned with merch in mind. No surprise that they’re now supermarket fodder, having been rapidly picked off by the big boys.
Of London’s still-independent breweries, few do it better than Signature - naturally enough given that, like Beavertown, their founders’ background is in the sweaty world of gigs and guitars, where merch has long reigned. A recent dispatch from the Walthamstow brewery - intended to promote Piercing Pils, a recent collaboration made with American behemoth Dogfish Head - resulted in a clatter of heavily-branded clutter, including pin badges, stickers and a lanyard, landing on my kitchen floor. Most intriguing of all, the package included a wallet-friendly card emblazoned with the beatific smiles of founders Tom Bott and Sam McGregor. A bold move. Could the multinationals be in touch soon?
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All Quiet on the Westbourne Front
This is a city of optimists. At a time when pubs are facing the toughest winter since the last one, there are still operators investing considerable sums in opening new places. One worth considering is the Quiet Night Inn, which opened in the former Metropolitan in Westbourne Park last week.
The owner is Forest Road, a brewery that is now contemplative where it was once combative. Founded in 2015 by Pete Brown, a Bostonian brewer who honed his skills at Camden Town, they spent a few years getting into a series of ill-advised online beefs. Those days seem to be behind them: they’ve bought a brewhouse previously owned by Californian giants Russian River, sailed it through the Panama Canal, and installed it in the remnants of an old tea factory in SE14. American beer legend Doug Odell is a regular visitor, so perhaps it’s no surprise that the beer is tasting good. Judge for yourself at the Quiet Night Inn.
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Rare Scot
What’s the rarest beer available in London? My bet is on an unexpected contender: Scotland’s behemoth, Tennent’s Lager. I’ve been told it’s only available at the Scottish Stores on the Caledonian Road, where I enjoyed it recently (dry, clean, bitter on the finish; very decent for a multinational lager). Is this right? Does anyone know of another outlet for ‘Big Juicy’?
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Dark Days
Two seasonably-appropriate beer events in the next few weeks: Dark and Heavy (Nov 16-19) at the King’s Arms in Bethnal Green, and Domestock (Nov 16) at Anspach & Hobday’s Bermondsey archway, featuring a host of Nitro-poured beers.
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Beer of the Month: Fight Like Hell
A double IPA, Fight Like Hell has been brewed by Queer Brewing - which has recently put down roots, taking on warehouse and office space in London - to mark Trans Day of Remembrance on the 20th of November. Proceeds will go to Transmissions, a trans community space based downstairs at East London’s Dalston Superstore. The beer itself is 8% ABV, hopped with Citra and Simcoe, and fermented with Voss Kveik yeast. Find it at all good retailers.
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London Beer City is written by journalist Will Hawkes. If you’ve got a story or an observation, contact me on londonbeercity@gmail.com. If you’ve been forwarded this email and you enjoyed it, you can sign up here. Thanks for reading.