It was a restful Sunday, mild, a bit of blue sky, so I wanted to get some fresh air. Living as I do on the Thames at Battersea, I have become slightly blase about the stretch of riverbank between Battersea Power Station and Putney (yeah, first world problems, I know). So I jumped on the bus to London Bridge with the intention of taking a walk along to the east. Because it was a Sunday with work the following day, and because I had been to the excellent Teddington Beer Festival the weekend before, I told myself sternly that there would be no breweries.
It was all the fault of Google Maps. The bus dropped me in Southwark, and as I checked out my route to the east, for some reason it started pulling me towards the Golden Beermuda Triangle of Bermondsey, by flagging up on my screen potential stopping points. Before I knew it I was on Druid Street.
First stop was the London Beer Factory Barrel Project. I enjoyed a Half Dome West Coast IPA, which was very nice. I was just a bit disappointed as my memory of the Barrel Project was that it had the wacky Barrel Aged options on tap, and it didn’t. I moved on. In my disappointment, I forgot my promise to myself that if I couldn’t stay away from breweries I would just stick to one of them.
As I walked down Druid Street, the next place that hove into view was Anspach & Hobday. So time for a London Black to start with - a drink that is really growing on me in terms of session porters. Then I saw that they were selling a 7% porter called “45 Days Later” produced in collaboration with the Danish nomads To Ol. The third part of my resolution - that I would stay away from the strong stuff - crumbled. It was absolutely delicious, so I purchased some to take away.
For reasons that will become apparent next time, I asked the A&H team about their festbier and whether it could stand comparison to the German giants. The guy thought for a bit and said modestly “well, ours is pretty good, but that’s a bit of a tall order. If you want an English festbier I would try Pillars. They’re lager specialists”. I tried the A&H Festbier and concurred. So I did indeed seek out Pillars Brewery of Walthamstow, courtesy of the excellent Hop Burns and Black shop in Peckham Rye. More on this anon.
Google Maps insisted that I should then go under the railway bridge and head onto Enid Street, in the direction of Cloudwater, Kernel, etc. But the day took an unexpected turn as I walked past “It Ain’t Much if it Ain’t Dutch”. I opened the door more out of curiosity than anything else, not expecting much, but it turned into a very profitable interlude indeed. This is the taproom of PR Dutch Drinks, which specialises in the importation of Dutch craft drinks. I knew there was such a thing as Dutch beer. I had never really tried it. It was really quiet in there (note: Sunday lunchtime is quite a good time to do the Beer Mile for that reason), so the highly enthusiastic West Australian behind the bar was able to dedicate some time to educating me in the possibilities on offer. He explained how the beautiful city of Haarlem (which I knew from a previous family holiday) was a hotbed of good brewing in the form of Uiltje and Jopen.
I started with an Uiltje Farmhouse Ale called “Better Safe than Sahti”. Sahti, apparently, is a Finnish style of farmhouse, produced using a mixture of malted and unmalted grains, often with juniper. “This one’s more malty than your average farmhouse”, explained mine host. 7.2% and, indeed, more malty than I had come to expect from a saison - less sharp, more depth. Then I was told that I really needed to try the Ginger and Lemongrass Tripel from De Molen. This was powerful stuff - 9% and really intense flavours - so a third was perfect. (De Molen are from Bodegraven, about half way between The Hague and Utrecht. I hadn’t realised - education again - that they produce “La Trappe”).
I realised that I was approaching beer capacity, but since I was in this part of south east London I concluded that this was the time to tick off one more place on my bucket list. The Shirker’s Rest has been kind enough to follow me on social media ever since my early hesitant efforts in writing nonsense about beer. It was time to go there and have a drink. I found a bus down to New Cross and crossed the threshold. It was smaller than I expected - more a little cafe than a pub in vibe - but the selection of beers was everything I had hoped for. There will be another time for a proper session at the Shirkers, but for now I chose with delight a 6% “Bright IPA” - a collab between Reading’s Elusive (one of my recent discoveries - see https://www.londonbiermeister.co.uk/blog/the-siren-call-of-reading ) and Duality Brewery of Sheffield. Then, for a gentle finish, their Bexley’s Amber.
I staggered out and somehow made it home. All good intentions and resolutions broken, but marvelling once again what bliss it is to be a beer drinker in today’s Britain.