March: Bread, Helles, Stars and Swearing
Bread Winners
Good Company does not feel like a brewery taproom. It looks more like an art gallery café, with its angles and exposed pipes and bold, blocky colours on the wall. At 11am in the morning, gentle elevator jazz is playing - tinkling piano and the strum of acoustic guitar - and the whole place smells like coffee.
But then Toast, the brewing company that runs this space alongside Change Please Coffee, is not like most breweries, and it hasn’t been since it was founded in 2016. It’s explicitly ‘mission-focused’, determined to highlight the global scandal of food waste, and has always existed at a slight remove from mainstream beer, be that craft or otherwise.
That feels like a sensible approach, now more than ever. Toast recently raised £2m in funding - some of it from Heineken - and opened this café-bar, in Regents Place, just north of the Euston Road, at the start of March (its offices are next door). It doesn’t own a brewery, preferring to contract (at SEB in Broadstairs, for now) and it doesn’t sell much beer on draught in pubs. It’s popular in restaurants and supermarkets and, according to CEO and co-founder Rob Wilson, more women buy it than men.
“The majority of our customers - 55 to 60 percent, where we can track it - are women,” says Wilson, 39, although he admits the data is limited and skewed by the fact that, in many households, women are still responsible for doing the shopping. “But I think it would be more balanced [than for an average brewery] anyway because it’s a value-based decision, rather than a purely beer-based one.”
Their target customer is someone who’s more exercised by the fate of the Amazon than by trying the newest Yuzu Sour. She or he is, as Wilson puts it, the type of person who would buy a Patagonia cap or a Finistere hoodie instead of an Adidas one, who eats Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, who gives Ella’s Kitchen food to their kids (he concedes there’s a fair amount of overlap there with the average craft-beer drinker).
Toast’s value-based culture (Wilson insists the key thing is how the beer tastes, and I believe it - but it’s what the beer stands for that sets it apart) has, I think, made it more accessible, easier to grasp, for those not in the beer world. It’s very popular in non-pub hospitality of all kinds, from Wahaca to Sadler’s Wells to British Airways. For restaurants in particular, Toast makes a lot of sense: a good quality beer which demonstrates the operators have a social conscience, and doesn’t interfere with the serious business of the wine list, where the profit margin lies.
Toast’s interaction with the mainstream beer world has consisted largely of collaborations, from Guinness to Northern Monk to Utopian. While the impact of bread on the flavour of the beer is limited (typically, bread replaces 25 percent of the malted barley), I’ve always thought the implied message of Toast, that you can make great beer out of old bread, was a difficult one for the brewing industry. What happened to the ‘finest malt and hops’?
It’s a challenge for Toast, too. “How do you communicate that in a desirable way?” says Wilson. “We haven’t come up with a silver bullet as to how to do that. We shied away from it for a while.” No longer, it seems: the beer glasses at Good Company are decorated with images of loaves, a reflection of the fact that those who drink Toast’s beers are at ease with the idea of surplus bread being used to make it. In common with most people, I suspect, they don’t really care about malt and hops. They just want something nice to drink.
And Toast’s beers are nice to drink. Their four core beers (Lager, Pale Ale, Session IPA, American Pale Ale) are joined on the bar at Good Company by collaborations and beers brewed by similarly progressively-minded producers - like Oxford’s Tap Social, for example. This week there were two delicious, elegant beers (a grapefruit pale ale and a 6.2% blonde) brewed alongside Gebrouwen Door Vrouwen, a Dutch brewery run by sisters Tessel and Do De Heij that is 100% female-staffed.
This is a small but growing business. Toast currently makes about 7000 hectolitres a year, on a 50/50 retail/trade split. The next step, Wilson says, is to get their product into more pubs. At the moment, they only have a dozen or so draught listings, almost exclusively in the South East.
Beyond that, things simplify: Toast wants to change the world. What does that look like? A billion slices of bread that would otherwise have gone to waste used to make beer, Wilson says (they’re currently somewhere between 3 and 4 million). You get the feeling he would be very pleased if every beer in the world was made with surplus bread - or surplus breakfast cereal or potatoes, or “lots of other starch-based things”. Potato IPA? That really would launch Toast into the craft-beer mainstream.
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Helles for Heroes
Some breweries are great at shouting about what they do; others, not so much. Pillars, Walthamstow’s lager brewers, could until recently have been put into the second camp. It was only on the recommendation of two well-informed London pub types that I decided to try their beer, and I’m glad I did. It is excellent.
The reason they’re no longer so diffident has much to do with Pete Kennelly, the affable Dubliner who has been head of sales for just over a year. With a background in beer that takes in Brewdog and Siren during more than a decade in London, and great contacts, he is just what Pillars needs.
I went to meet him in mid-February at the brewery in Walthamstow, on a day when the company’s canine mascot, Murphy - a Boston Terrier, naturally - was trying and failing to find a warm spot for a nap on the concrete floor. At the back, the brewing team was bottling this year’s Icebock, a 12-hour task. “The longest day of the year,” smiled Samie Razaq, one of four founders; the others are his brothers (Eamonn and Omar), plus their pal Gavin Litton. The brewery opened in 2016.
Time is a fundamental part of the Pillars story, as for any lager brewery. Pillars’ flagship beers, Pils and Helles, spend six weeks in tank, more than twice as long as ale would. Pils represents about 80 percent of the brewery’s annual production, but Helles, which recently got a new recipe, could soon be eating into that.
Out have gone American hops (Centennial, Citra), to be replaced by more classical Teutonic flavours: Tettnanger, Mittelfruh, Hallertauer Traditional. The result is a balance of sweet malt (all English, from Crisp) and the prickly, lemony spice of German hops. It’s an excellent beer, just what you’d expect from the style, and a sign of the times, too, as London’s star-spangled craft-beer world shifts towards more elegant, classical flavours.
Pillars, which is based on one of London’s more appealing industrial estates - next to cider-focused bar TRAP, Wild Card’s barrel store, across the road from God’s Own Junkyard and close to the chi-chi shops and restaurants of Orford Road - is growing. Last year it made 2000 hectolitres of beer (capacity is 6000), a modest total but an increase of 130 percent on 2019, the last pre-Pandemic year.
Two more units are about to be added, and investment has been made in equipment, too, from horizontal conditioning tanks (added last summer) to a reverse osmosis kit for water treatment. They’re working smart, too: Kennelly tells me about a hook-up with Five Points and Crafty Apple cider, which will see them invest in a T-Bar font at the soon-to-reopen Queen’s Head in Limehouse in return for guaranteed space on the bar. It’s the sort of thing big breweries do all the time, and it’s well past time for smaller operators to collaborate in response.
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Desi Pub of the Month: Boulevard Bar, New Southgate
In his latest column, David Jesudason, author of the soon-to-be-published Desi Pubs, finds a club-turned-pub at the heart of its community
One of the common stories of a Desi Pub is how they went from safe spaces for British-Indians to culinary hotspots for all. This is a Punjabi story of landlords (always men) first serving beer to working class Desis (mainly men) and then realising there was a wider market for quality Indian-style food, such as sizzling mixed grills.
In London, though, this wasn’t always the case. In the ’80s and ’90s Desis needed safe drinking spaces but they also wanted to eat Shish Kebabs and Chicken Tandoori. The regulators saw these establishments as restaurants and refused to give a wet licence or a food licence allowing bar drinking. This led to the “membership” club - although when I interviewed an old landlord about this quirk they laughed and said everyone was a member!
The Boulevard Bar in New Southgate is one such former venue. It’s run by Kalpesh Shah, who is a Hindu born in Kenya, and the Boulevard has all the hallmarks of the club past including blacked out windows, long bar and table dining. But it’s such a pub: when I visited a woman called Debbie Stevens-Ely (above, left) told me, “I can’t imagine life without this place. I would be devastated if it closed,” and residents of a street who normally communicate on a WhatsApp group were having a night out.
There were Mixed Grills but Shah had stamped his personality on the menu with dishes such as Patra, and was the exquisite host to his super diverse crowd. None of whom, of course, were members.
David’s book, Desi Pubs, comes out in May. Pre-order it here
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Eastern Promise
If you Google the Carpenters’ Arms in Bethnal Green you’ll soon discover that, in 1967, it was bought by the Kray Twins for their mother Violet. Apparently they spent a lot of time here, doing gangster stuff. The last time I went in - probably a decade ago - there was a picture of them on the wall.
Soon, hopefully, it will be notable for better reasons. Adrian Kinsella, landlord of the Bank of Friendship pub in Highbury, took it on in December and is currently doing it up, with the aim of being open on Easter weekend. Kinsella plans to sell all London beer - London Black but no Guinness, Five Points Best as a permanent cask ale, lots of other good stuff - and is very keen that the place be a welcoming, comfortable space.
This feels like part of a greater move towards old-fashioned hospitality in London pubs at the moment, with Irishmen like Kinsella leading the way. “I think that old-fashioned idea of the pub - great hospitality, great beers, comfort, warmth, a sense of being part of something - has gotten lost over the years,” he says. “People have gone from one thing to another in a desperate bid to survive. For us, everything is about the customer.”
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Ment to Be
The London Brewers Alliance has launched a mentoring scheme. Open to all staff of LBA member breweries, it aims to provide opportunities for junior brewery staff to partner with experienced professionals and to encourage more opportunities for less represented groups within the brewing industry.
Mentees will have the opportunity to learn from experienced professionals, gain valuable insights into the business, and develop new skills to help them progress in their careers. “The launch of the scheme comes directly from feedback from our members, and we're excited to be partnering with a number of key providers to ensure the success of the program,” says LBA chair Gawain Cox. To apply to be a mentor or a mentee, fill in this form.
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Two Pubs, One City
The Prince’s Head, Richmond, and The Nag’s Head, Peckham
A man is swearing, on the table next to mine. I count five fucks in 20 seconds, including a final, flamboyant ‘faark all’ - delivered in the sort of old-fashioned South London accent that just about survives in a city where most kids speak MLE. It’s a bravura performance, clearly sincerely felt but not, from my perspective anyway, intimidating.
I’m in the Nag’s Head, a pub in Peckham. Older readers - that’s most of you, let's be honest - will know that a pub called the Nag’s Head was the local in Only Fools and Horses, the most popular sitcom of the 1980s, set in the then very working-class neighbourhood of Peckham (even if it was filmed largely in Bristol). The Nag’s Head was, if not quite the centre of the action, then second only to the Trotters’ flat.
Only Fools And Horses was not unusual. Many of Britain’s most popular sitcoms and soaps have revolved around pubs: The Queen Vic, The Rover’s Return, The Woolpack, The Nag’s Head, The Grapes. Given the centrality of pubs to British life, even now, this makes sense - which is almost certainly why Ted Lasso, an American series about a fictional football club, AFC Richmond, revolves around The Crown and Anchor, an actual pub called The Prince’s Head, by Richmond Green.
What is interesting, to me anyway, is how being on TV affects pubs in real life. Do they become more like their fictional depiction, life imitating art? Does stardom go to their heads?
On a Thursday afternoon, and despite persistent drizzle, The Prince’s Head is undeniably a star, at least on the outside. Covered in white render, Fuller’s branding from the early 20th century, a paved area in front, even a couple of red phone boxes - this is Richard Curtis territory. You can see why the Yanks liked it. It’s exactly how many Americans imagine England to be, frozen in 1950, forever stiff-upper lipped over a glass of room-temperature brown beer.
The pub’s interior is not quite as enchanting. It’s nice, sure, but standard: a dark blue painted bar, hard floor, wooden furniture, section at the back set aside for diners. There are lots of dogs, including one that keeps on barking at the others, much to its owners’ evident embarrassment. I order London Pride (£5.15, perhaps a touch flabby) and find a seat in the corner of the pub.
If you didn’t know, would you realise Ted Lasso had been based around the pub? A quick look at the front room would suggest not. Yes, there’s a couple of AFC Richmond scarves behind the bar, but there’s also a rugby ball, and my London Pride glass is advertising a national rugby competition. If you look online you’ll find plenty of excitable Lasso fans who’ve taken pictures inside the pub, but there’s not much permanent that immediately screams Lasso.
There are a couple of 60-something Americans on the table next to me, but they don’t seem like Lassomaniacs (as I believe they’re called). They’re more interested in the dogs, particularly one huge beast which exits the pub soon after my arrival. Apparently it’s an American Bully. It looks like it could take your arm off with one toothy tug.
After I finish my pint, I take a quick turn around the back to see if there’s anything I’ve missed, Lasso-wise. There is: a shrine of sorts, right at the back, featuring a shirt and a couple of other bits. It’s a bit apologetic, I think, a little bit hidden away. There’s a vague sense of embarrassment here over the Lasso link. The Prince’s Head just wants to be a bourgeois boozer but the Americans won’t let it, the swines.
“If it’s a choice between Richmond and death,” Virginia Woolf once wrote, “I choose death.” Richmond has surely changed since the 1920s, but its bourgeois lethargy still feels a long way from Peckham. This is a much livelier place, home to hipsters and dozens of West African churches, the site of not just Only Fools and Horses but the equally joyous Desmonds, and this year’s big new rom-com, Rye Lane. The Britain of tomorrow is slowly being born here.
In The Nag’s Head, though, yesterday takes precedence. On a Friday afternoon, this single room pub is packed out with old geezers, most of them white, drinking a motley variety of lager and keg ale brands. There’s a mobility scooter parked outside. There are five screens - including an absolutely huge one - showing horse-racing. The music is strictly British classic rock, largely The Rolling Stones, from Under my Thumb to Jumping Jack Flash. One man, dressed in drinking suit, grey hair slicked back, sipping a glass of John Smith’s Smooth, sits alone by a table in front of the big screen, eyes trained on the action. He leaves using a zimmer frame.
But don’t get the wrong idea. An LGBT flag hangs in the corner, and there are young punters scattered here and there too. And, to my middle-aged delight, there’s one cask ale alongside the big brands: Southwark Bankside Blonde, served in almost perfect nick (it’s a touch cloudy, but the flavour and texture is spot on), for just £4.15.
I sit by the window and stare towards Peckham Rye itself. This is a great London view: red buses and people of all backgrounds, movement and life and colour. A man on rollerblades, tugged by a staffie, races past on his way up Rye Lane. Inside, the swearing man admonishes his friend: “Fucking ‘ell Jude, that was 40 years ago!”
40 years ago, Only Fools and Horses was in its pomp - and this pub was called The Morning Star. It existed under that name for more than a century, featuring in Muriel Spark’s Ballad of Peckham Rye, before it became The Nag’s Head perhaps 20 years ago, according to this account. It was named after the pub in Only Fools and Horses, a whimsical evocation of the perfect working-class South London pub.
And, to be honest, it works. The Nag’s Head could be the Only Fools pub, except 40 years’ on. Just as I’m leaving, one old bloke gets up to go and have a fag outside. He stops by the adjacent table for a chat.
“You alright?”
“Yeah, you alright?”
“Always better to see you …”
“I was just about to say the same!”
Chuckles all round.
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Brewer’s Acre
Guinness’s arrival in Old Brewer’s Yard, Covent Garden is set for the autumn, planning quibbles notwithstanding. It’s an auspicious time for the world’s greatest beer brand to return to the British capital given that it has rarely been more popular this side of the water, but it’s not the only auspicious thing about what they’re doing.
This corner of Covent Garden is drenched in beer history, ancient and modern. Belgo, cathedral of the 1990s fashion for Belgian beer, existed until recently on Earlham Street. Across the road at the start of the current century was the Soho Brewing Company, which became Bunker in 2003, a German beer hall/brewpub-type arrangement I remember with perhaps undeserved affection. That building had once been part of the Combe brewery, a huge pre-Victorian concern so significant that the Prince and Princess of Wales dined there on steak and porter in 1807, or so legend has it.
That’s not all. Belgo may have left this corner of town, but it’s going to be replaced by Biershenke, a new German beer hall arrangement, albeit with lager imported from Germany. There’s something in the water, surely.
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Kops Out
Lucky Saint’s new pub is now open and operating in Marylebone. Good luck to them; their solitary beer is an excellent product. It isn't, though, particularly new - London has a history of non-alcoholic beers that stretches back into the Temperance era, at the end of the 19th century. The most notable non-alcoholic London brewery of the time was the Kops Brewery, founded in 1890 and based at 20 Townmead Road in Fulham (the structure is still there, with its faintly oast-house style roof and a blue plaque explaining what it once was).
It’s hard to work out how Kops made their beer - some form of early vacuum distillation, perhaps - but it was clearly somewhat popular. Founded by the Polish-born Henry Lowenfeld, it advertised itself as “The Great Temperance Beverage’ in newspapers such as The Woman’s Signal, and lasted until the end of the First World War. Forgotten now, largely, but that’s true of all beer brands in the end - except maybe Guinness.
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