Eight huge shining silver silos are the first things that strike you on the approach to Signature Brew. Based on a trading estate off Blackhorse Lane in Walthamstow, this might not be in keeping with the image of a brewery that has twice won SIBA’s Brewery Business of the Year award but is a reflection of a modern craft brewery, which melds the modern with the traditional and adds in a few musical overtures to round things off.
Signature started in 2011 when two cousins, Sam McGregor and Tom Bott, got fed up with drinking ‘rubbish beer’ at music gigs and decided to do something about it. They started cuckoo brewing to supply venues with ‘beer with taste’. The pair were well placed to do so. Sam’s background was in music and Tom’s family have been brewing for forty years; his father and uncle set up Titanic Brewery in Stoke on Trent. The ethos was to work with bands and venues to produce ‘own label’ beer thus helping to ensure that venues took Signature’s beer.
Tom and Sam did this until 2015 when they decided it was about time they set up their own brewery rather than relying on others. They opened their first brewery in 2016 when it was still just the two of them. Tom said, “We gradually started to get the brand established, including at festivals and other outlets. We helped to found more recognition of uniting people with the idea of great beer and great music; everything from jazz to rock.”
Signature left their original home in Leyton in 2018, to move to their new home which was crowdfunded, as was their first brewery. The old kit was sold (to Ascot Ales), allowing the new brewery to have a complete step change. As the world opened up after Covid in 2021, they put in a new stand-alone tap room at the front of the brewery, complete with a roof terrace. Tom said of the pandemic, “It was the small packaging that kept us going during lockdown. We only furloughed the events and tap room staff with the rest helping us pack boxes on rows of tables! We are also pleased that we were able to help musicians during this time. We introduced the ‘Pub in a Box’ with musicians delivering the packages.”
The London Tasting Panel were keen to look around the sparkling modern brewery and so Tom Unwin, the head brewer (and son of one of the founding members of London CAMRA) showed the Panel around his empire. Tom has brewed with a number a breweries, including Brodies and most latterly with Stockholm Brewing Company for four years, before joining Signature in 2017, becoming head brewer the year after.
Tom U started his tour with the silos. “Two of the silos are for malt, Super Pale Malt and Pale Malt with the other six, which are 200 hectrolitres in volume, solely for producing our lager. They are temperature controlled and the beer is kept there for five to six weeks. We start at 4o C reducing it to 0o C about a week before the beer is finished. The weight of the liquid helps the beer to drop but we also centrifuge to ensure clarity.” Signature use various dry yeast strains. Tom U explained, “We currently mainly use dry yeast but we are investing in a lab that would help us move more towards wet yeasts.” All the ales use top fermenting yeast, with a Californian yeast being the most used due to it contributing a low flavour profile.
The water is treated using reverse osmosis (something many London breweries would die for) before brewing starts in the 32 hectolitre plant. The water is then treated with acidulated malt to adjust the pH. Brewing takes place three times a day, five days a week, using hop pellets and, more unusually, their own milled malt; the small mill is on the first floor at the back of the brewery. “This enables us to control the size of the milled grain so that we can maximise the efficiency of the brewing” said Tom U.
The hops are mainly used in the whirlpool with a little being added in the copper which allows the aromatics to be retained rather than boiled off. The finished beer (except the lager) is then put into one of the ten tanks. They also have a pilot plant with a 118 litre brew length along with four one barrel conical fermenters, which, Tom explained, replicates the main kit well.
The core beer range is Roadie, Signature Lager and Backstage IPA with a split of 70% keg, 20% can and 10% cask. There is still a commitment to keep cask beer going and they recently installed two handpumps in the Tap Room (they can be found to the far left on the bar).
Tom Bott was asked if, looking back, there was anything he would have done differently. He replied, “The first few years when we were cuckoo brewing were fun, meeting the bands and attending gigs but if we had started our own brewery earlier, we would be further along our journey.” But the days of music gigs are by no means over. The brewery doubles as a music venue, so you can watch a band and have a beer among the fermenters!
And to leave the last word to Tom Bott as regards Signature’s ethos, “We are well plugged into the history of beer. Sitting with people and drinking beer is one of the best things that exist. If this isn’t fun, we shouldn’t be here.”
For details on the music events and tap room opening hours see www.signaturebrew.co.uk. For tasting notes (and more photos) see the brewery section of the London Regional website www.london.camra.org.uk.
Christine Cryne
Signature are part of the Blackhorse Beer Mile, which also includes the taprooms for Exale, Beerblefish, Hackney Brewery, Wild Card and the Truman’s Social Club.