Where there’s a will: creativity in the London brewing scene

Pretty much every brewer I’ve ever met has that innate resourcefulness that you seemingly need in order to make good beer, professionally. The big macro producers are no-less talented, of course; even with their larger kits and increased automation, getting something exactly right time after time with limited room for variation is equally impressive. But the majority of brewers I meet are smaller of scale; micro, nano, pico and home. All have developed a seemingly innate ability to trouble-shoot, problem-solve and work-around. It’s not something that can be taught, this resourcefulness – you could say it’s experiential.

As a non-brewer, of any calibre, this ingenuity constantly amazes me. Most of the time, when looking around breweries, I struggle to ask technical questions when presented with a latticework of brushed steel, aside from pointing at pipes, gubbins-boxes and mechanisers and asking what each of them does (before nodding and hopefully looking suitably impressed). I’m essentially the beer writing equivalent of the Star Trek set designers, with their tubes stencilled with technical-looking ‘G.N.D.N.’ notation (urban myth claiming that this actually stood for ‘Goes Nowhere. Does Nothing’). It’s constantly impressive to me, this brewers’ wit.

Take the brand new Dragonfly microbrewery, in the newly re-modelled George and Dragon pub, in Acton. Even a cursory visit would have you thinking ‘How did that get there?’ or ‘Oh, so where’s the…’. Talking to Jason, the bar manager, about how they got their brand new brewkit into an eighteenth-century coaching inn is quite amazing. It took a dozen men, with doors off hinges, walls removed, and the entirety of Acton High Street closed to traffic, to get the vessels in place; all done at 3am to mitigate transport disruption.

Although the Inn has some decent space, it’s not exactly fit for purpose for a brewpub; yet all the gear is there, working away. All winched into place, by hand, as cranes couldn’t get under the eaves. Cellar space is not employed underneath; the beer is stored adjacent to the bar in the old stables, with the lines snaking across. The space the Inn has is to the ceiling, so they’ve utilised that instead, stacking the six conditioning tanks in a way I’ve never seen before; on top of each other, in 2×3 formation. Jason admitted it’s pretty tough to clean, but of course, do-able.

The head brewer at Dragonfly is Conor Donoghue, ex-of the Lamb Brewery in Chiswick (and current SIBA Champion Beer in Keg holder, for his 5% Oatmeal Stout). When M&B took over the Lamb from the previous tenant, the microbrewery was ditched, and Conor ended up out on his ear (with Jason following suit after six months of apparent frustration). Now they are both in Acton, an area of London without the booming beer scene enjoyed by other boroughs and districts; although, ironically, the majority of the beer Conor is set to produce will be delivered to east London and the thirteen other pubs owned by the new Dragonfly backers (including the Reliance on Old Street and the Sutton Arms near the Barbican).

It will get there, apparently, in either a friendly Fuller’s lorry or the Dragonfly’s own vintage drey van; reversed up the coaching alley to collect casks and kegs, a covered corridor where once stagecoaches would have loaded passengers before departing for Oxford. I contemplated the fitting nature of this, as I was sat on a leather Chesterfield sipping a pint of the 4.3% Early Doors Pale Ale – surely only an original-era horse-drawn drey would somehow be more fitting. Sometimes, of course, that brewers’ ingenuity works perfectly with the space they have in which to operate; it’s not all about cranking things with wrenches, and knowing how to stack vessels like tins of beans.

—

Later on that same day, I ended up in the Cock Tavern in Hackney, a small-fronted local next to a Cartridge World, just down from the confusing, non-aligned multijunction of roads under the railway lines at Hackney Central. This brewpub is home to the Howling Hops Brewery, and a chalkboard at the right-wall of the pub denotes which beers are conditioning, and how long you can expect to wait before seeing them on the bar. ‘Brewed beneath your feet’ is the tagline; although you would never know it, the creaking floorboards look like any other in that area of London; part abandoned dancehall, part Victorian millhouse. A chance comment to the effusively-bearded barman, and he asks if I’d like to see the kit, under the floor. How can you say no?

So, round behind the bar, and through a smoked glass door, then down the tightest, steepest staircase I’ve traversed since scaling the Scott Monument. Underneath, the friendly barman – who’s name I unfortunately never caught – showed me round, the need to not ask technical questions obviated by the fact that there’s just so much stuff down there, in the way. Everything Goes Somewhere, and Does Something. It’s like an Aladdin’s Cave – an old whisky barrel lies on its side, under a tarp; the conditioning tanks shoehorned in, almost touching the ceiling; hand-cut lids allow for the negligible clearance. A lively beer foams out of a fermenter, froth staining the underside of the floor people creak about on, overhead.

Howling Hops run everything to the limit, just to get things done, bottling when they can, juggling brewdays when they have space; what it must be like down there, when everything is running, I can only imagine. I once did a brewday at Ayr Brewing Co, in an old garage (as in, car port-sized garage, not Audi dealership). That was a warm day; I imagine the Cock Tavern is a very cosy place to be in winter, if they have a brew on downstairs. The barman offers me a taste of their new rye Gose from the CT; the reason I ended up down the stairs in the first place. It’s still working, but tastes really, really good, nonetheless. I’ve had a few of the new rush of salt and shake beers, but adding rye gives it a rounded, deeper element.

Once the tour ends – and it really doesn’t take long – mind the head and up the stairs, then over to sit on a reclaimed church pew, which co-incidentally happens to be covering the wooden cellar door, where the tanks went in. Lowered down a space designed for far smaller metal barrels, the 4bbl brewkit and vessels went through with 4mm clearance on either side. Hold each thumb and finger that far apart, and then move your arms as far out as you can, as if you’re hugging an invisible tree; 6ft high steel brewing tanks were moved, through there, into the cellar, with that to spare. It’s really quite something.

Chewing on that thought, it was time for the rest of the Howling Hops range, which peak with the sublime 7.6% Belgian Dubbel; one of the best beers I’ve had for some considerable time. Rich, sweet and raisiny, it’s an absolute belter. As the bar staff close up at 10:40 (c’mon England!) and eat takeaway pizza, I can’t help thinking that this is undeniably craft, what the Howling Hops and Dragonfly guys are doing. Engineering answers to questions of scale, scope and aspect. Finding a way to make things work. But this isn’t craft as a movement, or a way of life; this is true craft – the creativity of brewing, following calculated ingenuity of set-up. This is how beer should be made.