A(nother) day at the Bermondsey Beer Mile

 At the end of February I spent a very pleasant afternoon at the 'Bermondsey Beer Mile', a hotbed of beer brewing action and home to five of London's best breweries. On that occasion I made it to four of the breweries; Anspach & Hobday, Brew By Numbers, The Kernel Brewery and Partizan Brewing but left it too late to make it to the fifth, Fourpure Brewing Co. You can read my thoughts on that day in a post here, but on Saturday I headed back to Bermondsey for the afternoon to finally check out Fourpure and perhaps have a couple of beers at my other favourites.


Whilst the other breweries are all located in railway arches, Fourpure is actually based on an industrial estate at the east end of 'the mile'. Once again I struggled to locate the brewery but eventually spotted some people who looked like they knew where they were going and followed them in. Fourpure definitely benefits from not being in a railway arch as it's in a huge space that feels much more airy and light than the others. There is plenty of seating inside and plenty of standing room outside for those sunny days too. It also looks like a fair bit of money has been poured into both the equipment and the taproom, everything is huge and shiny and impressive looking, quite a different to the more ramshackle appearance of say, Partizan.

The bar is well set-up with plenty of keg lines. On Saturday there were at least nine beers available on keg with the brewery's core range as well as a couple of specials; on this occasion the Wai-iti saison and a couple of beers brewed in with collaboration with Michel Roux. The beers are served in 1/3, 2/3 or pint measures and with most of them at £1.50 for a third there is plenty of potential for trying a lot of beer very cheaply. The brewery has also recently started canning its beers and they were also available to take away at £2 each or six for £10. They also have a bit of merchandise including some beautiful glasses, and I took one of those away for £3.

As I arrived the sun came out and after a bit of a heavy night the evening before I fancied something light so went for a glass of the Pils, which went down very nicely indeed and made me feel much better, well enough in fact for a glass of the Wai-iti saison, which at 7.3% I wasn't previously sure I could manage. After a short break and a game of table tennis I rounded off my drinking at Fourpure with an oatmeal stout and a bit of a nose around the brewery. I'm glad I made the effort to come out to Fourpure, as I said it's by far the most spacious of the Bermondsey lot and with plenty of seating in a very, very pleasant environment I could quite happily spend a day here downing £1.50 glasses of excellent beer.

 My friend and I then took a brief stroll to Partizan where we called in and had a glass of the wit. They'd obviously had quite a busy day as a lot of the keg beers had gone, but I'm a big Partizan fan and it was good to sneak in another new beer. By now home-time was approaching but I knew that Anspach & Hobday had a couple of new beers on including their 'Experimental Rhubard Sour' so I hot-footed it over to try that one too. My last visit happened to be Anspach & Hobday's first day of business. On that occasion they only had bottles available but they have since introduced keg lines and expanded their range with six or seven beers available. A bit of a difference price-wise from Fourpure with the beers starting at £3 for a half pint. This is no doubt partly down to economies of scale and it'll be interesting to see if there is any change over time as and when the brewery expands their activity further.

So another excellent day in Bermondsey and as we head into summer it's the perfect time to head down for a look. On a lovely sunny day I can't think of many things I'd rather be doing than drinking excellent, fresh beer.