London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Southwest London: Other locations — Putney
Beer Boutique SW15
Shop
134 Upper Richmond Road SW15 2SP
T (020) 8780 3168 W www.thebeerboutique.co.uk f The-Beer-Boutique tw thebeerboutique
Open 1100-2230 (2000 Sun-Mon).
Cask beers None, Other beers 130-140 bottles, Also 5 bottled ciders/perries, a few wines planned
Food None except tastings, though see review. Flat access.
Sat informal tastings with food matching.
It’s a reflection on London’s developing beer scene that the latest specialist beer shop isn’t a dusty cubby hole crammed with the sort of obscurities that crowd a beer geek’s wants list. Instead it’s a bold high street boutique in well-heeled Putney, aimed squarely at popularising fine beer among the sort of people who might not know their Chinook from their Challenger but recognise the value in artisanal products. Eddy Lancaster’s Beer Boutique, opened in August 2011, stocks no more than 140 beers, a fraction of what you’ll find at Kris Wines or Utobeer. For the most part they are solid classics and reliable newcomers that will be very familiar to the sort of people who tick their way through lists on ratebeer.com, but for someone new to craft beer they’ll do a great job of covering the beer world’s marvellously wide range of flavours and provide a firm grounding in zythological excellence. Staff give sound advice, and pleasingly they’re already converting curious passers-by into regulars.
The shop itself is stylish in an understated way, with lots of natural wood surfaces — very like a boutique wine shop, in fact, which I doubt is unintentional. The relatively limited stock doesn’t pack it to the ceiling so there’s plenty of room to mooch and browse, with a central table scattered with beer books for reference or sale. Beers are grouped by broad style: wheat beers, lagers, blond beers, hoppy pale ales, fruit beers and lambics, Trappists, British ales, brown and red beers (including dark lagers and wheats), and stouts and porters. Though rarely seen in the trade, this is a particularly useful system for the newcomer, making connections that cross national divides, so Schneider Aventinus might appear next to a strong, dark abbey ale, or Belgian and US saisons stand side by side. More beer shops should consider this kind of presentation rather than the traditional “countries and breweries” approach.
All the choices are thoughtful: a good range of Belgians including Troubadour, Abbaye des Rocs, Cantillon, Boon, Vicaris, Rodenbach and St Feuillien; six of the seven Trappists; St Georgen, Schneider and Jever among the Germans; a few Americans (nothing especially rare) and Czechs; Duyck Jenlain and St Sylvestre Trois Monts from France; and a top flight British selection that includes Dark Star, Windsor & Eton, Sambrook’s, Magic Rock, Oakham and Kernel. The rarest and most expensive beer I spotted was Orkney Dark Island Reserve at £21 for a 750ml bottle — everything else is reasonably priced. There are some helpful beginners’ four packs, a few glasses, and a refreshing absence of boring beers from exotic places. A welcome evangelical addition to the scene.
Insider tip. Informal Saturday tastings might be accompanied by samples of Trappist and other artisanal cheeses, but if you want more substantial food, they’ll point you to the posh pie and mash shop next door, Putney Pies, a sister business which draws on the Beer Boutique to add a few more diverting bottles to its own beer list than those it obtains through its arrangement with Greene King.
National Rail Putney Underground East Putney Cycling NCN4, LCN+ 3 37 38, link to CS8 Walking Thames Path
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