With all the doom and gloom of 2024 and its multiple brewery closures, it’s great to find a brewery surviving and thriving for over ten years. Orbit Beers in Walworth, south east London, was set up in the summer of 2014 and is still doing well today. The London Tasting Panel visited them shortly after they became established, so we thought it was about time for another visit!
The brewery was founded by Robert Middleton and, like a lot of breweries, there is a tale to tell as to how this happened. In 2012, he decided to journey around his native Scotland visiting every brewery in the country, around 75 of them. At the end of the trip, Robert decided that he loved both beer and the people who worked in the industry, having found them welcoming and collaborative. He gave up being an actuary and investigated the possibility of setting up his own brewery. Eventually Robert found a railway arch, installed a ten barrel plant with three fermenters and got going.
Robert had a clear beery vision. He decided not to be a slave to the trend for highly hopped American style beers but to take inspiration more from European beer styles instead. In addition, Orbit’s beers have a link to Robert’s love of music which was reflected from the start with a record player taking pride of place in the brewery. Orbit started with three beers. There was Nico (4.8% ABV), a Kölsch style beer named after the singer from the Velvet Underground who came from Cologne. This remains one of their staple brews. Next was Ivo, a pale ale (4.2% ABV), named after Ivo Watts-Russell, the co-founder of the record label 4AD, and Neu, an Altbier. This is named after Neu!, a band from Düsseldorf who are an offshoot of Kraftwerk. These days, visitors to the tap room can bring in their own vinyl to be played. The name of the brewery however has no link to music, coming from Robert’s childhood nickname.
Robbie Sykes, Orbit’s general manager, hosted the Panel’s visit and took time to go through some of the changes to the brewery over the ten years. He has been with Orbit for some years, starting as the sales manager, and had a lot of experience in the industry, including time with the Craft Beer Co. Robbie said, “Most of the beer we produce is keg or bottle. We have no plans for canning at the moment. We do our own bottling and a lot goes to hotels, restaurants etc, where bottles fit in better than cans. We like to see our beers alongside other quality products.”
Robbie also described some of the changes in their beer range, including why they dropped Neu, “We had problems in that many people didn’t know what an Altbier was, so, eventually, we dropped it from the core range”. Newer beers included Dead Wax , a London porter (5.5% ABV) and Peel (4.9% ABV). Dead Wax takes its name from the smooth space on a vinyl record between the end of the music and the label (run-out area) while Peel, a Belgian Wit, is named after the late DJ John Peel. Robbie added, “Peel was originally a Belgian Pale but the name caused confusion, so we changed it to a wheat beer with traditional Belgian flavourings of orange peel and coriander”. They have also introduced their ‘White Label’ range, which are experimental brews. Some have stuck. “Our Tzatziki Sour is now an ‘almost regular’. It’s based on a Berliner-Weisse with added cucumber, mint and yoghurt,” said Robbie.
It is not just the beers that have changed. Orbit moved into a second arch in 2018. They built a mezzanine for extra space and a tap room downstairs. Nowadays, they also have outside seating. Orbit was due to move into a third arch in 2020 but, fortunately, they hadn’t signed the contract when Covid struck. They finally moved in May 2021. This extra space gave them the scope to expand production. In 2022, they increased the brew length to 20 barrels with a final tally of 14 fermenters, including the three original smaller ones.
In line with the expansion, the number of staff has grown. There are dedicated sales and marketing people, tap room staff, three brewers (Amy, Danny and Mike Bradman, the head brewer) and the unsung heroes of deliveries and accounts.
Orbit are mindful of who they are and the image that they want to project. Robbie explained, “There isn’t much around us and we have been keen on making the tap room part of the community. We want to stay alive and be excellent at what we do, the beer we make and the people we work with, both staff and customers.”
That loyalty to their vision and their dedication to European brewing is also reflected in their annual ‘research’ trip. This enables the team to immerse themselves in different beer cultures and visits to date have included Brussels, Prague and Cologne. I can think of worst staff trips!
For more details on the brewery and tap room here is their website. For the London Tasting Panel’s tasting notes and more details on the Orbit beers tasted, go here. The record on CAMRA’s Pub database is here, and Brewery database is here.
Christine Cryne