Situated near the bustle of Fleet Street, the five barrel Essex Street Brewery is hidden beneath your feet in the cellar of the Temple Brewhouse. Vanessa de Clac is in charge; one of a handful of brewsters in the Capital. In common with some other brewers, she is part of the influx of people from outside the UK who are bringing us their own traditional beer styles, sometimes with their individual take on their beers.
Vanessa’s background is an interesting one for a brewer. She comes from Rioja in Spain, more famous for its wine, where she studied chemistry and microbiology. She came to the UK fifteen years to study garden design. When she finished, she did some bar work, loved it and her interest encouraged her to remain in the industry. She was working for the City Pub Group as a support manager when, five years ago, the company bought the Temple Brew House, with the brewery due to open a year later. When she heard that there was going to be a brewery, she applied to be brewer and got it! While the brewery was being built, CPG allowed her to work four days a week in her normal role with one day a week training which was with Brew Lab in the North East. She is Essex Street’s only brewer, brewing all on her own without any assistance: ‘I have muscles’ she said. Vanessa quipped that her size may have had something to do with her getting the job: ‘I’m small and there isn’t much room in the brewery’. What she lacks in stature she makes up for with her enthusiasm for brewing, with her excitement showing through as she talks about her beers. Two regular beers have been brewed since the beginning, Tempale and Temp APA. These have since been joined by a gluten free Porter but, like all brewers, she likes to experiment. Take the Seaweed Gose; there can’t be many brewers who would go to collect all the seaweed on her own. The beer was then brewed in the company of 15 women as part of International Women’s Day.
Most of Essex Street’s beers are designed for quaffability, usually below 5% ABV. Vanessa explained ‘If someone comes in and has a 6% ABV beer, they are likely to have only one. Lower alcohol beers encourage people to try a couple’. Vanessa took the London Tasting Panel through a range of her beers, both cask and keg and, when asked if anyone would like a nightcap, the overwhelming request was for her Intercity Stout , a creamy 6% ABV complex brew with creamy milk chocolate and roasty coffee notes. Enough said!
Christine Cryne