“Economically, the easiest period has happened. We’ve had the support now: when that’s taken away, it’s going to be much tougher”

Partizan, one of modern London brewing's pioneers, has ridden out three months of lockdown - but owner Andy Smith is not celebrating yet 

Bermondsey is the heart of modern London beer. This central neighbourhood of lock-ups, housing estates and flimsy-looking new-build flats - yours for just £1.25m - is home to the city’s greatest concentration of breweries and, on Saturdays, excitable beer drinkers. Or at least, it was. Like anywhere else in the UK and around much of the beer-drinking world, the fun stopped in March.

Smith, many years ago

Andy Smith, the 38-year-old founder of Partizan (which opened here in 2012), has mixed feelings about the Bermondsey Beer Mile, but he’s a realist. It’s an important revenue stream for breweries like his, and it’s a stream that has been abruptly turned off.

But it could be back on, very soon. The government has belatedly confirmed that pubs and bars can reopen on July 4, a Saturday, which means Bermondsey could be a bar-hopper’s dream once again in just over a week’s time. 

Smith, though, is concerned, largely because of the challenges of social distancing. “A lot of Bermondsey is in very close quarters,” he says. “It’s a bit of a cattle market. If you try and extend queues, they’re going to be really long queues, stretching down those roads. And then there are the toilets: that’s a big challenge.

“For me, it depends on how well it is policed. It is a really challenging decision to be open on that Saturday … Why have they done it on a Saturday? Everyone is going to be so geared up. It’s good for restaurants, where you can get everybody seated properly. But the Bermondsey Beer Mile? It’s a real challenge, but I don’t want to close - it’s not good for the business, and I don’t want to be responsible for creating more carnage elsewhere.”

The financial imperative to open looks less compelling for Smith now than it did three months ago. Partizan, like many breweries, set up a webshop during lockdown, and sales have been good: 50 per cent higher per month than they usually take over the bar. 

“It’s been really surprising,” he says. “It’s really pleasant to have direct relationships with customers. I’ve been doing it all myself … lots of little handwritten notes to customers, and I was doing deliveries for a long time, too, on my way home (Smith lives in South East London; deliveries are now by courier or Dam Tasty Beer, a craft-beer delivery company).

“We do loads of business in Peckham, Camberwell, Bermondsey.” The hipster market? “Not quite hipster! Wealthier hipster, maybe.”

This is the first of these interviews that have been carried out face-to-face - in a south-east London park, at a suitable distance - and Smith bears the impact of lockdown. His hair has grown into an impressively stately quiff, and he frets about the impact on his waistline of sitting at home - although, to be honest, he’s a fair way behind this author on that front.

He seems relaxed, too, but that’s his way. While others have pushed hard to grow on the back of hype and trend-chasing, Smith has gone down a different route. Growth has been steady -  Partizan made 3000 hectolitres last year, aiming to push on towards 5000 in the next few years - and his biggest market is London’s magnificent casual dining scene (Smith is a former chef). 60 per cent of Partizan’s beer is small pack; 90 per cent of that goes to restaurants like Kricket, Flat Iron Steak and Perilla.

Like pubs, of course, these places have been shut over the past few months. It hasn’t been a disaster for Smith, though. A mixture of local and national grants, the furlough scheme, a three-month rent holiday on his railway arch, a tax rebate and the success of Partizan’s online shop means the brewery has made what Smith calls a “very modest profit”.

It could have been much worse. Before the furlough scheme was announced, Smith held one-on-one chats with his seven members of staff, to find out what they needed each month to pay the basics: rent, bills, food, etc. A number of them, he says, offered to go without pay for a few months. He’s delighted that didn’t prove necessary.

Partizan entered March with lots of stock in the brewery - January and February are the year’s slowest months - and didn’t brew initially. Overall, they’ve only brewed ten times in a period when they’d normally brew 30 times. This year, Smith says, they expected to be profitable for the first time since moving to their current home, an arch on Raymond Road, two and a half years ago. (Although the company made an EBITDA profit in 2019). That obviously won’t happen now.

There are bigger problems. The arch costs £9800 a month to rent. At the start of lockdown, the owners, The Arch Company, only offered rent deferrals, before finally accepting tenants wouldn’t be able to pay: rent has been free for the three months running up to and including July. There could be problems, Smith says, if they decide to go straight back to full rent.

“We have no idea what they will do; they’re still being cagey about that,” he says. “I know if they go from zero to everything, [that] so many people that will close. They have to come up with something else.”

The bar has been open as a bottle shop the last three Saturdays; it’s running at about 15 per cent of normal sales. There is keg beer in the brewery, some of it quite old (it’s normally two weeks old when it leaves the brewery), but all within its six-month date to sell, but Smith doesn’t expert to see a sudden rush. “I think it’s going to be a very slow month,” he says. “I think people have got loads of stuff in their cellars. I think cask will have a much bigger pick up. There is still some keg out there and people will be reluctant to throw it away.”

The most difficult moment is still to come, he thinks. “Our fate isn’t in our hands as much as I’d like to to be,” he says. “If there is a second wave … how well will the pubs be able to manage it? How quickly will pub trade ramp back up anyway? I think the easiest period economically has happened, and we’re going into the hardest bit now. We’ve had all the support now and when that gets taken away, that’s the toughest moment for businesses.”