I want to keep this blog about beer, so only makes sense to also look at places I can learn from, drink at, and enjoy their environment as well. On Saturday we went on a round of breweries located along a mile under the renovated rail arches at Bermondsey.
The Bermondsey brewery mile has become quite a phenomena is south east London, and it offers the chance to try and buy beers from 5 local craft breweries: Fourpure, Partizan Beer, The Kernel, Brew By Numbers and Anspach & Hobday. I won’t go into long explanation about each of them, you can look them up on their site, or check this great review by London Beer Guide that helped us on our tour.
What I do want to go into is about our experience, and a touch about some of the flavours that we found. we also got a nice collection that we took home with us, so I will try and write about the beer quality at my own pace at some point.
In short:
Fourpure – good American style craft beer, with the bold flavour you can expect from such a brewery. The colourful cans and the open “roam as you will” place are very inviting, and it is a place to spend a few hours of leisured drinking. They also have a great deal of 6 cans for £10, and that means stocking well for home.
Partizan Beer – More towards the artizan beers, good variety of session beers, but the corner was a little crowded to my preference. The experimental air of the brewery fits well with the beers they offer, and it is a great place to introduce the idea of beers with unusual flavours. My favourite was a very surprising Belgium Ale.
The Kernel – was closed. They close by 14:00, so plan your timing carefully. We will get there some other time.
Brew By Numbers – had a sell only day, so no beers on tap. The place didn’t seem to offer much space to sit so doesn’t seem to be a great loss. The beers had great recommendations, so we took 7 different beers to try at home – about them later.
Anspach & Hobday – small corner of a brewery with 2 brewers with different styles. The beers were ok, a little flat to my opinion, and the place suffered from too much popularity due to the proximity to the Bermondsey food market. The prices matched the location too, but the atmosphere is great and the food market around the corner offers a nice street eating and drinking style of a developing neighborhood.
All and all a great day, and good to see that people are coming, trying and buying. We would try and get to the Kernel some other day, as it has been on our radar for some time, and go back to Fourpure – my favourite of the day, to sit or to take home.
If you are in London, go and visit, if you live around zone 1-2, visit often. I’d even dare to say that visitors to the city should try and get to see the breweries (only on Saturdays!) and a part of the city that usually is known.
This a very nice crawl to be done in south east London, and I hope to be able to get there more often. Any recommendations for other places to visit in your area?