Brewpub, now brewing outside London
87 Maple Road, Surbiton KT6 4AW (Kingston upon Thames)
w bigsmokebrew.co.uk
First sold beer: September 2014
Ceased brewing in London: March 2019
Ash Zobell and the aptly named Pete Brew reinvented Twickenham’s Sussex Arms as a top class beer outlet in 2010. Pete and the pub’s assistant manager Nick Blake brewed experimentally on a non-commercial basis in the back garden.
In 2014, the trio spearheaded a similar makeover of the Antelope in Surbiton, this time as a brewpub, for the same pub group as the Sussex Arms. The brewery, known as Big Smoke and overseen by Nick and Pete, operated from a converted stable block at the rear of the pub, with an 8 hl brewhouse from Pallet Brew in Horwich, expanding capacity significantly with additional fermenters in May 2016.
A wide range of beers was sold in cask, keg and bottle conditioned, with all production unfiltered, unfined and vegan-friendly. Though the brewery was primarily started to supply the pub and others in the group, the beers increasingly found their way elsewhere.
Pete and Ash left to set up the Black Dog pub in Brentford, opened in 2018 and with its own brewery, Fearless Nomad, from January 2020. Both pub and brewery are completely independent of Big Smoke.
Demand for Big Smoke beers continued to rise, necessitating some contract brewing elsewhere, and in March 2019 the brewery, still with Nick as head brewer, relocated to a much bigger site on an industrial estate in Esher, Surrey, with a new Gravity Systems 33 hl brewhouse and a canning line. Although only 6 km from the original location, this is outside Greater London, so Big Smoke has technically left the Big Smoke and therefore my area of coverage. Its previous home has been converted into an “indoor outdoor” patio for the Antelope, and the beers are still stocked here and in other pubs in the group.
Updated 23 January 2020
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