Crate expand
Crate, the craft beer and pizza business, are opening a second site at Wood Wharf in Water Street, Canary Wharf. The business was founded in 2012 at the White Building in Hackney Wick. In due course the new site will include an enclosed garden with seating for up to 80.
Portobello award
Portobello Brewery won the Speciality category at CAMRA’s London Cask Beer Awards with their Market Porter. The presentation was made at the Acton Real Ale Festival on its opening day, 29 August. The festival was the second to be organised by the West London Trades Union Club (W3 6ND). Some 40 beers were available. Beer of the festival was Elgood’s Black Dog mild which, ironically, pushed Market Porter into second place.
The photo shows Rob Jenkins, managing director of Portobello Brewing, receiving the award from Ben Hart (Ealing Beer Festival organiser), with Stephen Hutchinson (Club President), Wanda Piontek (West London Branch Chair) and Emily Green (Club Secretary) looking on. For more information about the club, go to https://wltuc.com/.
Thanks to Andrew Lawson (BLO for Portobello Brewery) for the report.
Temple Brew House
Sadly, this venture, situated just off Aldwych and once called London’s most central brewery, has closed. The site was acquired by Young’s when they bought out the City Pub Group in March 2024. The Davy’s Wine Bar will take over all of the ground floor and there will be a new beer hall in the basement. The King Street Brew House in Bristol has recently brewed Young’s Waggle Dance for a small selection of the companies pubs.
Wimbledon go local
AFC Wimbledon had a beer supply agreement with the ill-fated By The Horns brewery. Happily, local beer will remain available at Plough Lane because Wimbledon Brewery have stepped in to replace them. This renews an arrangement that existed in AFC’s Kings Meadow days. A specially-brewed beer, Plough Lane Pale, will be served alongside Wimbledon Lager in the on-site Phoenix Pub and other outlets in the ground.
Wimbledon Brewery took gold at the SIBA South East Awards with the 2025 version of their magnificent barrel-aged XXXK strong ale. This year’s version was matured in Armagnac casks and came out at 10.5% ABV. The brewers themselves rate it as the best one yet and it now goes forward to the SIBA national competition. It has been put into casks, bottles and a very small number of 20 litre kegs. Interestingly, at a recent event at the Wimbledon Brewery Tap, for the first time, all three versions (2017, 2019 and 2025) were available together.
Well played, Harvey’s
This does not involve any London breweries but it is story worth telling. The Brighton Bier brewery ceased trading in June for the reasons we have come to know only too well, ‘market pressures with reduced margins, high costs, and increases in price of materials, combined with the current economic conditions’. Their pubs however remain open because they were operated by a separate company. Harvey’s of Lewes then stepped in to acquire Brighton Bier’s intellectual property, including its trademarks and recipes. Miles Jenner, Harvey’s joint managing director and head brewer, explained, “While we won’t be marketing Brighton Bier brands, we’re planning to undertake occasional collaborative brews with them. These might pay tribute to some of their most popular beers or be something entirely new. They’ll be clearly labelled as collaborations and made available for a limited time in both Brighton Bier pubs and our own. If Brighton Bier ever chooses to return to brewing, we’ll be more than happy to sell the intangible assets back to them at the same price we paid.”
Strange Ways
I recall a Saturday night in Worsley, west of Manchester, some 40 years ago. My friends and I had just collected our hired narrow boat but it was raining heavily and so we decided to spend the night in a nearby pub instead. They served Boddingtons. I had heard of it but had never tasted it. It was very pale, the colour of lager, and had a thick creamy head. Not like my usual Young’s Ordinary at all. I gave it a go anyway and was immediately hooked. I subsequently joined a large number of Mancunians in being outraged when Whitbread discontinued the draught version and closed the Strangeways Brewery in 2005, demolishing it two years later. Now I can report that Boddington’s has returned! AB InBev have agreed to license the brand to long established family brewery J W Lees of Middleton Junction for them to brew and sell it. It is however a new recipe @ 4% ABV and it is noticeably darker than the original.