Last time (https://www.londonbiermeister.co.uk/blog/a-biermeister-s-progress-surveying-the-riches-of-british-craft-beer ) I did a whistle-stop tour of British craft beer. Somewhat weakly, I said “oh yeah, and the Blackhorse Beer Mile… so I’m told, although I haven’t been there”.
The fates aligned this weekend: my determination to put this right, a glorious sunny Sunday (with a Bank Holiday Monday to recover) and the second birthday party of the Blackhorse Beer Mile.
The Beer Mile was indeed declared to be a thing on 5 May 2022. This followed an organic process over a few years as a number of small craft breweries - having started elsewhere and thrived - moved to larger premises on the industrial estates off Blackhorse Lane. As a piece of branding goes, it was a calculated response to the pull of the other and older Beer Mile - Bermondsey.
I would say that Bermondsey is still the senior partner of the two. Partly in terms of having got there first, partly in terms of the sheer numbers of venues, but also once you put together the likes of Kernel and Anspach & Hobday (and, cheating slightly, Cloudwater’s London outpost on Enid Street)… But this may be my South London resident bias speaking here, so I will move swiftly on and recount a very pleasant afternoon up North.
I emerged from Blackhorse Road tube around noon and strolled off in the direction of the action. I had half envisaged the party being in full swing as soon as you leave the station, but it doesn’t quite work like that. You have to know where you are going and plan the sequence. These were not fancy bars, but proper breweries on industrial estates with basic taprooms set up.
I basically settled on two clusters of action. Firstly the Uplands Trading Estate, where I finally managed to navigate myself to Exale. A lovely relaxed vibe, maybe because I had got there promptly at around noon with only a few customers. But the bar was open and the Black Cactus company were starting to prepare food. One of the features of the taprooms is that they often lay on amazing food, and this was no exception. I enjoyed a Prime Rib bun with roast beef that positively evaporated in my mouth, and started on the beer, notably
Then round the corner to Signature, which had expanded out to take over the road outside and had three bars running. Signature has a long and distinguished connection with rock music, including various collabs with bands, so their pitch for the day was beer combined with music. First on the bill after a somewhat rudimentary sound check was the excellent Matilda Cole who was whatever the opposite is of a diva (“hi, yes, so I work here… so if you come later and say that you liked my music then I might give you a beer.. But don’t tell the boss that”). After starting in the main bar I had a menu put on my table which signposted the “Brewers Bar”. This was through a little barely visible door next to the stage. Inside was a wonderfully enthusiastic barman who managed to get me to try the dangerous stuff. He was not getting many customers, so was diligently hand-drawing a cardboard sign to wave outside his door saying “Strong Beer Here”. My tally at Signature was
I would have been happy to stay at Signature, drink beer and listen to music for much of the afternoon, but the Mile called. So the next stop was to retrace my steps a little to Pretty Decent, where I enjoyed
After the event, a reply to one of my tweets alerted me to the fact that I had missed out on Beerblefish, which was just next to Exale. Sorry, Beerblefish. Next time.
But then, a few minutes walk further up the road and I hit the Lockwood Estate. On my left as I turned into the road was Wild Card. Another place where I could quite happily have stayed the whole afternoon, as I would put them way up there in my table of UK breweries. I have enjoyed many of their beers from my local Clapton Craft. As I have already waxed lyrical at length about the qualities of their head brewer Jaega Wise (https://www.londonbiermeister.co.uk/blog/tv-review-beer-masters-contains-spoilers ) I will let my admiration for the lady rest there. They were doing a very good trade with a long but efficient and fast moving queue. I limited myself to
And also buying a wine bottle of Cuvee Saison and a Sticky Toffee Stout (6.1%) which I will enjoy at some point once I have recovered.
Then, finally, on the right there was Hackney Brewery. Lockwood Estate was heaving by now although, again, the queues were being processed rapidly. I decided to beat the queues by buying beers two at a time, so ended up with
Eagle-eyed readers may be spotting by now the flaw in my plan. Nine is a lot of beers. Especially given the variety and in some cases strength of what I consumed. This is the problem of doing a Beer Mile - you could simply drink pints of lager and give your system less of a challenge, but what would be the point in that? The variety was amazing. I decided just to go for it and worry about the consequences later. And I was sufficiently conscious the following day to remind myself that this was what I had done. It was worth it. The beer was really very good. Worth a second visit, and I will probably not wait a year.
So I have my Wild Card takeaways for a quiet moment over the next couple of weekends. I am also working my way through an amazing Innis and Gunn special offer back - six of their limited edition exotically casked beers for a ludicrous £30. The offer has now unfortunately expired but as a lesson it is always worth checking for so-called short date beer from the top breweries - beer has to have a best by date on it but it is usually completely irrelevant. Enjoy.