Beer firm, former and planned future brewery
spartanbrewery.com
First sold beer: 23 June 2018
Brewing suspended: 17 June 2023
Software engineer Colin Brooks and financial risk analyst Mike Willetts homebrewed together for over five years before making their first commercial beers under the Spartan brand as cuckoos at now-closed shared Bermondsey brewery UBREW in November 2016.
Late in 2017, they moved into one of the arches at the Bermondsey Blue vacated by Partizan, initially selling stock brewd at UBREW in an improvised taproom while installing a new 16 hl kit from Johnson Brewing Design, complete with an auger to transport the grist into the mash tun. The taproom has then overhauled though opened only on Saturdays as Colin and Mike kept their full time day jobs throughout.
Having struggled through the lockdowns, in 2023 they decided they could no longer commit to the taproom and sold both the lease and the kit to Battersea Brewing, which has since reopened the arch as a second brewing and retail site. They plan to continue cuckoo brewing and may consider a revived site at a later date.
Beers were in cask and keg, with some can conditioning offsite at Bottled in Cumbria. Styles leant towards the traditional with a contemporary twist, using nearly all UK ingredients, with branding using ancient Greek references, reflecting one of Mike’s personal interests.
Updated 1 September 2023.
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