A few beers in London...

I visited The Bricklayer's Arms, 32 Waterman Street SW15 1DD (facebook) a couple of months ago when I was in Putney (blog), and again last week, and confirm that it has certainly returned to form under the guidance of the new landlord Chris, nice one! 12 handpumps, one for cider, and on our latest visit there was a choice between 11 different cask conditioned ales.

We started with the 'East London Brewed' Five Points (website) XPA (4.0%), brewed with Citra and Galaxy hops. I wrote about the Citra hop just yesterday (blog), a hop from the USA with a complex lineage, including Hallertau Mittelfruh, Tettnanger, Brewers Gold and East Kent Golding, and providing 'citrus, grapefruit, lime, and tropical fruits' flavours (hopslist). The Galaxy hop is from Australia, descended from the German hop Perle, producing 'citrus, peach and passionfruit' in the aroma and taste (hopslist). This is a very pale bitter, I since noticed that wheat malt is used in addition to extra pale malt, hints of citrus indeed, but very subtle fruit flavours, a very refreshing and easy to drink session ale, with a nice dry bitter finish.

My brother stayed on the XPA, having just a half (he assured me there were a couple of bottles of Westmalle Tripel at home to enjoy in his garden later!), but I had another pint before we left the pub, this time of the Five Points Best (4.1%), which pretty much does what it says on the label. Brewed with Fuggles hops, a very traditional hop from Kent, named after a Mr Richard Fuggle in 1875, and a very English hop indeed (hopslist), although has been grown around the world, and is also in the lineage of many hops from the USA, eg a parent to Cascade and Willamette. An amber colour, and I also noticed later that wheat malt is used for this as well as darker malts, obviously a favourite of the Five Points brewers. A traditional best bitter with hints of biscuit and the required bitter finish, I've nothing to add, 'tis a nice best bitter. 👌

The next day we visited The Market Porter, 9 Stoney Street SE1 9AA (website), by Borough Market, near London Bridge, which opens between 06.00 and 09.00 weekdays (market licence), before closing for 2 hours and then reopening 11.00 to 23.00; opens at 12.00 at the weekend... We were there on Thursday, but didn't get there until after noon. 😁 Mostly, because we were going to see a matinee performance of The Comedy of Errors at Shakespeare's Globe theatre (website). More of in my alter ego's blog, but to the ale...

We drank the York based Brew York (website) Make It Columbus (4.6%), a single hopped APA style bitter. The Columbus hop (USA) was 'originally bred by Chuck Zimmerman as part of a USDA* breeding programme' in the 1970s, with a herby citrus aroma and flavour (hopslist). Brew York appear to love using the Columbus hop, and so we came to drink this ale of theirs. Very pale golden, certainly a hint of citrus in the flavour, dry and bitter, and very decent! 👍

Cheers m'dears! 

 * United States Department of Agriculture

2 Brewery's Ales during Visit London Visit & USA link too!

This was actually the second ale I drank over the last few days from a brewery I'd never drank a beer from before. I'm discussing it first because I preferred it, it was significantly stronger, and it cost less! 👍 This ale was from a quite new brewery with a great history too, thanks to the American lad who has been the creator of Forest Road Brewing Company (website) with not a little help from family, friends and others; see Pete Brown's blog The Road to Forest Road, which I shall give a very brief summary of, but the whole blog is well worth the read.

Pete started out brewing at home with brewkits in a flat in Queens, New York, in 2008. He then moved to Denver in 2010 and worked behind a bar for 6 months before convincing Eric Erman of Wynkoop Brewing Company (website) to help them brew once a week. In 2012 he sold his car and moved across the Atlantic, then getting experience working for London Fields Brewery, which has since been bought out with a joint purchase by the Carlsberg Group and Brooklyn Brewery. 8 months later he moved to Camden Town Brewery (website), which was taken over by AB InBev in 2015; and whilst there Pete completed 2 brewing diplomas at the University of Westminster. That year he decided to set up his own brewery.

Pete moved into a house in Forest Road, East London, where he convinced his housemates to start up a brewery, and the first brew devised was Work a 'malty low bitter IPA' 60 litres brewed in the garden. They became a 'cuckoo' brewery, including using the facilities of a Belgian brewery, then Forest Road Brewing Company was formed in 2016. Again, read Pete's blog for more detail, I cannot do justice to the story here, but in 2019 they ended up buying a 4-vessel brewkit from Russian River Brewing in California (website), shipping it through the Panama Canal and across the Atlantic Ocean to London in 2020! They now have a brewery and taproom in South Bermondsey (2020/21 - website) as well as the taproom in Hackney (since 2016 - website), and I haven't even mentioned the money raising, and tactics used during the pandemic!

To the ale... I recently wrote about the 'C' hops and American beers (eg blog and blog), well, the Forest Road Work India Pale Ale (5.4%), the brewery's 'flagship' ale, has Cascade, Centennial, Chinook and Columbus hops in the brew. This is a pale amber brew with hints of malt and citrus and tropical fruits in the taste, quite subtle, with a bitter aftertaste, not bad at all, and costing a relatively cheap £5.20 a pint in a well known London pub...

We drank this in an old favourite pub that we hadn't visited for quite a while, but glad we did on Friday! The Market Porter (above - website), 9 Stoney Street SE1 9AA, which is positioned opposite Borough Market (website), a wholesale fruit and veg market early doors and a popular trendy market for various cuisine later in the day. A pub has been on the site for at least 400 years, previously called the Harrow until the 1890s, and has sold food and drink early doors to market porters knocking off from their jobs, now between 6.00 and 9.00 am, when it closes until lunchtime. Great interior, we enjoyed the non-intrusive music too, and well worth a visit!

The other ale from a brewery I'd never drank a beer from before was from Wimbledon Brewery (website), which is situated in nearby Colliers Wood, on the site of Merton Priory, where beer was brewed throughout the Middle Ages, until the priory was demolished in 1538, thanks to Henry VIII. The logo of the brewery includes a phoenix emerging from an image of the tower of the former Wimbledon Brewery that was destroyed by fire in 1889, nice touch. The latest Wimbledon Brewery was set up in 2015 with a 30 Brewers Barrel plant.

The ale we drank here was the Wimbledon Brewery SW19 (4.0%), a Blonde Summer Ale, brewed with Waimea, Rakau and Cascade hops grown in New Zealand and English Fuggle and Goldings hops. For those who don't know, SW19 is the postcode for Wimbledon. The SW19 Blonde Ale has quite a pale colour, with a subtle malt and citrus flavour, very easy to drink, but didn't leave too much of an impression on me; costing £5.65 a pint didn't help!

Oh yes, where was here? Well, drinking in Wimbledon probably influenced the price, that is, at The Crooked Billet (website), 15 Crooked Billet SW19 4RQ. The Crooked Billet was built in the early 18th century, becoming a pub in the 1850s, the name coming from the pub sign that was a crooked piece of wood broken from a tree, I think, but there are many interpretations! Anyway, apparently, the name of this small local part of Wimbledon Common, and the road, was taken from the name of the pub; so not a chicken or egg situation 😉 It's a pub I have visited off and on for many years, as also is the nearby Hand in Hand (website), where I first drank Ruddles County whilst Ruddles Brewery was still an independent brewery, many years ago...

Anyway, bye for now folks, and cheers!