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Explore the city’s emerging microbrew culture through a carefully curated iPhone app
As a city that created many of the world’s greatest beers, London has seen its brewing industry take on somewhat of a downward spiral over the last 25 years or so. This is quickly changing, however, thanks to a number of curious individuals throughout the capital whose newfound interest in the brewing process is leading to a huge craft beer renaissance.
To fully navigate the Big Smoke’s microbrewery movement beyond the three we highly recommend, check out the new iPhone app Craft Beer London—your geographical guide to nearly 30 craft breweries and the pubs and shops serving them. Using your current location, the app’s map allows you to see what’s nearby, while carefully considered reviews offer valuable insight on which beers you might like to seek out.
From Hackney, the hub of it all, to breweries south of the river Thames, Craft Beer London has it covered with a selection sure to impress any beer nerd. Casual sippers will also delight in the list of pubs, a thoroughly rated guide to some of the city’s finest drinking dens.
Updated regularly, Craft Beer London sells for for £2 (about $3 USD) from iTunes.
Three small batch breweries rethink the The Big Smoke’s take on beer
Nothing goes better with a carefully constructed burger or a gourmet hot dog than an equally well-crafted beer. With London’s independent food scene heating up, a number of local producers are creating brews to match this artisanal sentiment. Born from the quest for better-quality beer, here are three we’ve found that stand out for their distinct flavor and meticulous brewing process.
Following an unfiltered brewing process, Bethnal Green’s Redchurch Brewery bottles each beer live for the most in flavor and maturation. The 10-barrel brewery launched a year ago by lawyer-turned-brewer Gary Ward, who aims to raise the bar for traditional English beers by adding more depth to the classics with big, hoppy flavors. The Redchurch range currently includes aptly titled brews like Hackney Gold, Hoxton Stout—a rich, dark beer modeled after Guinness Foreign Extra—Shoreditch Blonde, Bethnal Pale Ale, India Pale Ale and Old Ford Export Stout.
Located in South London, The Kernel Brewery also bottles their beer alive, allowing it extra time to grow and mature while in the bottle. Now three years old, the brewery is the upshot of former cheesemonger and Kernel founder Evin O’Riordain’s trip to Brooklyn, where he became inspired by the level of attention paid to both producing and consuming beer. His range has grown to include a handful of porters, pale ales and IPAs, as well as an award-winning stout based on a recipe used by a London brewery back in 1890.
Started just a year ago, London Fields Brewery reflects Hackney’s industrious spirit and artistic fervor. The 10-barrel brewery currently handcrafts five regular beers, including Pale Ale, Hackney Hopster, Unfiltered Lager, Wheat Beer and Love Not War—a nod to the London riots, which trapped the first batch inside the brewery. An integral part of the community, London Fields also frequently collaborates with their peers to create both experimental beers and neighborhood food events, like their summer affair with The Dead Dolls Club and their pop-up with Tomscoopery gelato.
Stockholm’s only microbrewery mixes creative enthusiasm and culinary expertise with modern results
Giving Stockholm its first and only microbrewery, friends Niklas Hjelm and Magnus Mårdberg opened Södra Maltfabriken in mid-2011. Besides a bit of experience in home brewing, Hjelm, an award-winning digital creative director, and Mårdberg, a successful chef and restaurateur, bring to the operation a refreshingly unique point of view.
Blending creativity and a well-honed palette, the small company has quickly gained a reputation for properly quenching the demand for quality, high-end beers in Sweden. “Magnus started to see his diners asking for beers, as well as wine, to go with their meals,” explains Hjelm. “So he wondered if his palette might translate from cooking to brewing.”
Sweden’s larger producers are known for producing high-quality ales, and the nationalized, government-run liquor chain, Systembolaget is the only outlet authorized to sell anything containing more than 3.5% alcohol to the public during very strict opening hours, setting the bar high for the fledgling small-batch brewers. “Although we’ve both done a bit of home brewing, it’s not as simple as just increasing the ingredients and amounts,” says Hjelm. “You’ve got to show the establishment that you can actually make good beer—there is a legacy of strong Swedish ale brewing to match up to. We want to show this in a different way to a new audience, an audience which you’ve got to work hard for all the time and in every respect both in terms of taste and aesthetic.”
Södra’s label design, for one, showcases this progressive approach. Working with designer Hanna Werning, the microbrewery has created its distinct look with a subtle combination of form and color for each of the three ales. “People are beginning to swap a bottle of wine for a good, attractive, well-designed beer,” says Hjelm. “What we try and do is make sure that the beer looks refined on the table and that the design looms strong in the customers mind as a reminder of the specific Södra taste.”
At present Södra Maltfabriken offers Rude Lager, a rich-tasting beer from Perle, Saaz and Cascade hops with a twang of Amarillo, an IPA called Poking, which is a deep and powerful tipple with a 7.5% alcohol content to put some hair on the chest, and a clean, refined pale ale—Initial—which marks the real jewel in the crown.
Hjelm also tells us that a couple of extra blends are in the pipeline, including his own personal favorite, a brown ale that would add nicely to an already very mature selection. As the passionate creative partnership expands, so does its very real potential to give the bigger brands a bit of a lesson in modern tastes.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
