It all started when Rob Vote decided that he would like to know how to brew and attended a one day course at London Fields Brewery. It turned out to be a very beery day and Rob said that, after the event, he felt he could only remember a small amount of information. Despite this, Rob knew he was hooked.
The next step was the purchase of a 20 litre all grain kit and his home brewing career began. Rob got himself trained, persevered with the brewing and found that people liked his beer. “There was one I did in wood that really went down well,” said Rob. “I thought about doing something bigger and eventually purchased a 100 litre kit from Powell Brewery. Fortunately, my parents had a large shed at the back of their house and I took up residence there, installing the kit and getting my first beer into a pub in October 2019.”
The brewery is compact and every bit of space is used, with fridges at the back to store beer and hops. There is a 130 litre kettle, two fermenters, which have glycol cooling jackets, and probably the tiniest heat exchanger ever. “I buy 25 kg of malt a time and use ‘Get ‘er Brewed’ (a brewery supply company), whose services are targeted at home brewers and tiny breweries. I have made my own gizmo for sparging,” Rob explained. He also has a home made cask cleaner! Rob uses both pellets and whole leaf hops. The water is from Thames Water. “I have to treat the water as it is very high in carbonates. Fortunately, it is fairly stable so I only test it every couple of months.”
All of the draught beer is real ale and is sold mostly in firkins with a few pins. Mutineers also does bottles, which are hand filled, and Rob has trialled mini kegs as well. However, this didn’t help during lockdown as the brewery does not have an off licence.
Rob tends to plough any profits into the business, continuing to invest and improve the brewery. Rob’s wife is a chiropractor and they have two children so a steady income is important. Consequently, despite his love for brewing, Rob still works four days a week for the BBC as an engineer and brews every Friday. He starts brewing around 8pm, which is late for most breweries. “I would start earlier,” said Rob, “But I am usually assisted by Adam Miller, who is the manager of the Cockpit in Chislehurst, and so, with his late finishes, he needs his rest!”
The Cockpit is a micropub and is CAMRA’s Bromley Branch’s Pub of the Year for 2023. The pub shares the space with a florist (no quips about floral hops!). Adam recently brewed his very first own beer which has a really quirky name: ‘Hopman Versus Cybernetic Space Apes’. The beer’s name is in keeping with Mutineer’s ethos of naming most of their beers after rebellions, battles and those who challenge the status quo. These include Suffragette, Emu War, Black Flag, Bill Stickers and Filibuster. The designs have recently been changed and updated; they are now all black and white. “My aim was to distinguish them from the multi-coloured labels that abound,” said Rob. He designs them himself and then passes them to a friend who does the artwork.
Rob is looking to develop a core range and, in due course, may consider getting his more popular brews contract brewed to allow him to use the tiny brewery to keep experimenting. But Rob wants to keep his outlets local. He loves talking to people. So, almost four years on, what does Rob make of his business? “It’s a hobby that went terribly wrong,” he said.
CAMRA’s London Tasting Panel had a delightful visit to the Cockpit and Mutineers’ tasting notes can be found in the brewery section of the regional website, www.london.camra.org.uk. To find out more about the brewery, go to https://mutineers.beer and for the pub www.thecockpitchislehurst.co.uk.
Christine Cryne