One of the things that Covid impacted on was the ability of the London Tasting Panel to visit breweries to update their tasting notes. It was therefore a great delight finally to get to Boxcar after two years of waiting and the hospitality did not disappoint.
Tucked into two railway arches a very short walk from Bethnal Green, Boxcar has its main brewery in one arch and the tap room in the other. There is also a diddy experimental brewery in the corner by the dartboard and two well used armchairs. Space is at a premium with pallets piled close together and a small canning plant along the wall which is inaccessible unless you want to do some climbing or moving around the pallets, taking the Spiderman approach.
Sam, the co-founder, simply said, “We know we need more space but we appreciated getting a lockdown loan for the canning line. It really helped when the pandemic had an impact. It now represents a third of our volume with the rest being predominantly keg.”
Sam set up Boxcar with Stephen Finch in 2017. “Stephen arranged the finances. He is the business guy and worked for Deloittes as well as setting up Vagabond Wines, which has a number of outlets in London”, explained Sam, who is the driving force in the brewery on a day to day basis. His background is more in line with Signature Brew than some other London brewers. He studied music and sound recording at university and then worked in a sound studio. “I didn’t get paid much so I worked in pubs as well. This was around the time of BrewDog and others really getting going and the rise of American hops. I started home brewing before eventually getting a tiny 100 litre brewery in 2016, which we put into a railway arch close to where we are now.”
Some of this tiny kit is stored on the shelf above the toilets and provides a contrast to the size of the current 15 hectolitre plant next door, where there are also four 30 hectolitre fermenters and one 30 litre ‘bright tank’.
Sam’s ethos for producing beer is to try for a diverse range. He said, “I’d like to do more, including more cask, but we are so tight on space. Regardless, we’ll do the cask mild at least once a year plus the occasional beer that we will put in cask as well as keg, maybe two casks out of a batch. We have also been doing some unusual takes on our mild. Last year we did a double mild at 6.3% ABV and this year it was a triple mild at 9% ABV.” The ‘ordinary’ dark mild is a full flavoured traditional mild, with the stronger versions having more of a kick.
Unusually for a brewery of this size, Boxcar uses a blend of two strains of wet yeast in most of its beers. These are both English and chosen for their fruity character. They are replaced after seven or eight generations. Sam explained, “The yeast is at its best after three generations. It’s just happier once it has a chance to settle down. We generally mature the beer for between one and three weeks depending on the beer and our lager is kept for six weeks.”
The core range includes the Dark Mild, Native Place, Born Slippy (lager) and Stormbird, an American IPA at 6% ABV which is named after a pub which was one of their original customers. Looking forward to the future, Sam said, “Our desire is be a high quality producer of beer, mainly American and Pale Ales plus lagers. We would like to continue to have a range of different beer styles and produce traditional beers with a modern twist.”
Sam clearly would like to move to somewhere bigger and he said that he didn’t mind where, which implied that it might be out of London, so maybe this year is the time to visit and don’t all rush for the armchairs!
The brewery and taproom are at Unit 1 Birkbeck Street, E2 6JY. Go to hello@boxcarbrewery.co.uk for details.
Christine Cryne