It’s not unusual for brewery owners to fit in brewing with other jobs but Spartan take this to a different level. Set up by Mike Willets and Colin Brooks, Spartan occupies Partizan Brewing’s former premises (in Almond Road, SE16) and they have been there since 2017. They met at Warwick University through its real ale society and, like a lot of people who have gone on to become brewers, they became avid home brewers, graduating finally to a ten litre kit in the back garden. When the fridge began to be dominated by hops rather than food, Mike’s wife got fed up and suggested that he either stopped brewing or got the process out of the house! They decided on the latter, starting with a few brews at UBrew. They weren’t happy there and had problems with wild yeast, so they decided to look for their own premises, eventually ending up in Bermondsey in a property owned by the Arch Company.
Mike said, “Hop Stuff approached us and offered us their kit but it wasn’t right so we started from scratch with a new ten barrel plant. Brewing at UBrew was useful. We got to know lots of people in the trade and we learnt a lot through various mistakes. One of the hardest things was coming up with a name. We kept coming up with ideas and within two weeks, we’d think it was naff. We wanted a name that wasn’t tied to a particular style or place.”
The name they eventually came up with was Spartan so, despite neither of the owners being classics scholars, the beers have names related to ancient Greece. Mike works in a risk department and Colin is a software engineer. ‘Works’, because unlike many brewers, neither has given up their day job and there are just the two of them. “Our initial plan was to quit our jobs but we are not in the business to become a BrewDog and we wanted to enjoy ourselves and I have four children at home”, explained Mike.
Perhaps keeping the day jobs was a good call. Mike commented, “We brew the beer we like without the stress if we’d been brewing full time. Like others, we had to put a lot of beer down the drain as rules changed at short notice thanks to the pandemic. We’ve noticed that customers are now more cautious in ordering. We tend to sell directly to pubs although Eebria also take our beer. Selling through wholesalers means we have to increase our prices to allow for their percentage so we end up looking expensive. We generally don’t do much small packaging and so it’s a different market but we have a number of regular customers.” Many of the outlets are supplied direct by Colin as Mike doesn’t have a car.
Spartan brew once or twice a fortnight, taking it in turns to do the brewing. Mike likes to brew mid week, finishing in the early hours of the morning while Colin prefers to brew after the Tap Room closes on a Saturday and “he sings while he does so”, quipped Mike. Certainly, when the London Tasting Panel visited, music was very much in evidence, although the Panel was not treated to a serenade.
They would like to brew 100% cask but that is not feasible at present. However, irrespective of any addional car-bonation, all of their beers undergo secondary fermentation in the container. When the brewery had to close due to Covid, they experimented with a lager, lagering it for six weeks. ”The current lager we brew uses UK hops and it splits people. It’s usually well liked but we did have a customer who said it had too much taste.”
Whatever the future holds for Spartan, the pair are determined to carry on enjoying life and brewing the sort of beer that they want to drink. If you would like to try their beer for yourself and say hello to these enthusiastic and nice guys, their tap room opens every Saturday 1pm to 8.30pm. There is seating on the mezzanine. Go here for details. For notes on the beers tasted, go here.
Christine Cryne