London Brewers’ Alliance festival
The LBA’s latest festival was held at the Bird House Brewery in Herne Hill over four days in September. As the event guide pointed out, it’s a very special year for the LBA as they celebrate their 15th anniversary. Over 80 beers covering a very broad range of styles were available from 32 member breweries, including eight cask beers. There were three from Windsor & Eton (Guardsman, Knight of the Garter, Canberra Autumn Ale), two from Fuller’s (Vintage Ale, Red Fox) and one each from Sambrook’s (Powerhouse), Wimbledon (Keller Helles) and Bird House (Amber). I visited on the Thursday and the cask beers that I tried were in great form. The festival was very well laid out with plenty of tables and seating, with room to move between the bars. There was also a good selection of food. The event was very well attended, including a good number of younger drinkers. The brewery tap, originally the home of Canopy Brewery, is worth a visit. The brewery is very close to Herne Hill station. Turn left as you exit. For opening times and other details see https://birdhousebrewing.com.
Martin Butler
Brockley Brewery – Raising the Bar
Like many small independent breweries, Brockley has developed into a cornerstone of its community through forging strong links with nearby businesses and schools, supporting local campaigns and collaborating with cultural events. In November, to further embrace their ethos of being a community-led enterprise, the brewery launched a crowdfunding campaign called ‘Raise the Bar’. All proceeds will be used to establish a brand new taproom that will include a dedicated area for local artists, musicians and young creatives. Brockley’s co-owner, Carl Lawrence, says, “This isn’t just about raising money, it’s about growing together. For more than ten years we’ve seen how powerful this community is and this campaign is our way of giving everyone the chance to shape what comes next.” The campaign runs until Christmas. If you are interested, visit https://crowdfunder.co.uk/p/brockeyraisethebar. Contributors are being offered a number of different rewards, ranging from various bar tabs through to (I’ve been informed) ten years of unlimited Brockley beers from the taproom.
Colin Hillier
(CAMRA Liaison Officer for Brockley Brewery)
Gipsy Hill on the move
Gipsy Hill, which is now part of the Sunrise Alliance Beverages group, is to move the majority of its brewing to another Sunrise site, the Curious Brewery in Ashford, Kent. They had wanted to stay at their current site in Hamilton Road but there are rent increases on the horizon which, even though they have been trading well, make this impossible. Production will transfer once the new versions of the beers have been matched to the originals. The rent increases primarily affect the storage and warehousing areas. The adjacent tap room will remain and be expanded. Some experimental beers may still be brewed at Hamilton Road.
International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day
The theme for the 2026 competition has been announced. It will be Unite Belonging. This is intended to be a global call to create a kinder, more inclusive world through the power of our beer communities. In this spirit, the brew days will celebrate the power of belonging, because no one should feel like an outsider in beer, in our communities or in the world. For the first time, posters are being produced for the event, run in partnership with the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates (SIBA) and Women On Tap CIC. Printed copies will be sold to raise funds for the campaign and it is hoped to make the posters an annual collectors’ item. Applications opened on 31 October. For more details go to the Women On Tap CIC website and social media.
Portobello go for tanks
News of another Sunrise Alliance group member. Portobello Brewery has agreed a partnership with the Big Easy restaurant chain to sell Portobello London Pilsner (4.6% ABV) in Big Easy’s five sites in London. Tanks holding 880 pints are being installed in the restaurants and the beer will be delivered fresh from the brewery.
Signature collaboration
There are, as usual, quite a lot of green hop beers around at the moment. One of the more interesting ones is a collaboration between Signature Brew of Walthamstow and Cornwall’s St Austell Brewery. Signature were invited to go west by St Austell’s brewing director Georgina Young and the outcome was a 3.4% ABV green hop pale ale called Never Mind the Dry Hops. The beer featured at Signature Brew’s Harvestfest event on the Blackhorse Beer Mile and is also available at certain St Austell pubs.
Spanish Eagle
Readers will recall that the Eagle Brewery in Bedford, once home to the Young’s & Wells Brewery Company, was bought, along with its brands, by what was then the Carlsberg Marstons Brewing Company. It was subsequently sold to Spain’s largest brewers, family-owned SA Damm. This is their first venture away from home. Damm are looking to turn the site into the largest independent brewery in the UK. The plant has been modernised, doubling the packaging capacity and installing equipment for making soft drinks. A number of new jobs have been created. They have not ruled out brewing cask beer. Now that Carlsberg Britvic, as they are now, have closed the former Banks’s brewery in Wolverhampton, those cask beers that remain from the Eagle portfolio are being brewed at the former Marstons brewery in Burton-on-Trent.
Wimbledon Brewery
The brewery held their autumn beer festival at the brewery tap over three days in September. It was billed as the ‘Beer Festival of Champions’ and formed part of the brewery’s tenth anniversary celebrations. It featured twenty cask beers in a good variety of styles plus 24 keg beers, likewise. Included were beers from Rodenbach and Cantillon, a selection of speciality and rare European bottled beers and three ciders from Against the Grain. The festival was well attended with most beer sold.
During the event, the brewery were kind enough to host the London & South East round of CAMRA’s Champion Beer of Britain for the ‘speciality beers – differently produced’ category. Six beers selected by a combination of CAMRA members’ votes and county tasting panel scores were subjected to a blind tasting by a panel selected from both the trade and trained CAMRA volunteers. The results were as follows:
- Gold: London Brewery Co; Beer Street
- Silver: Langham; Saison
- Bronze: Portobello; Market Porter
The gold winner will go forward to the next round where it will be judged against the category winners from the other regional rounds. The winner from that goes into the final round of the overall Champion Beer of Britain competition.
Martin Butler
(CAMRA Liaison Officer for Wimbledon Brewery)