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London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Central London: Soho and Leicester Square
 Coach and Horses, London W1 Traditional pub (Fuller’s lease)
29 Greek Street W1F 7HG
T (020) 7437 5920 W www.coachandhorsessoho.co.uk
Open 1100 (1200 Sun) – 2300 (2230 Sun).
Cask beers 4 (3 Fuller’s, 1 guest) Cask Marque, Other beers 2 keg, 2 bottles, Also A few wines
Food Enhanced pub grub. Wifi.
Wed/Sat piano singalongs
The Coach and Horses’ claim to be the West End’s most famous pub may be contestable, but it’s certainly one of London’s most legendary boozers, deeply embedded in Soho’s literary and disreputable heritage. It’s celebrated for its associations with satirical magazine Private Eye and for attracting the arty and painterly crowd that migrated south from Fitzrovia in the 1950s. For 62 years until 2006 it was run by Norman Balon, who revelled in the title of ‘London’s rudest landlord’, a skill deployed in wrangling a customer base of hard drinking characters including Francis Bacon, Peter O’Toole, Tom Baker, George Melly and Lucien Freud. Their patron saint was the self-destructive Spectator columnist and veteran regular Jeffrey Bernard (1932-97), famously portrayed by O’Toole in the late 1980s in Keith Waterhouse’s play Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, after the euphemism the magazine used when the old soak was too drunk or hung over to file his copy. Memorabilia of the play, of Bernard himself and of many more aspects of the pub’s past are displayed on the walls, including clippings of Private Eye strip ‘The Regulars’ which was inspired by the pub, its landlord and customers.
Since Norman’s departure thankfully no-one has sought to shoulder his reputation and the Coach has become a less intimidating place: there are now piano singalongs and decent food from a short menu that includes some interesting veggie options, the sort of frippery that might once have provoked the landlord’s ire. But little has changed in appearance: the well-worn floor, dark red walls and wood panelling, still seemingly coated in tar all these years after the smoking ban, don’t appear to have been refitted since the early 1960s. Vestiges of branding from its days as an Ind Coope pub remain, like a lightbox above the bar advertising Double Diamond and the Taylor Walker lantern outside, dating from the first revival of the name of the long defunct East End brewery in the 1980s (it’s recently been revived again as one of pubco Spirit’s pub brands). The main drinking area is a medium sized single bar retaining elements of its old partitioning. There’s an upstairs room, too, where Eye fortnightly editorial meetings are still held, accessible only from behind the bar and now marketed during the day as ‘Soho’s Secret Tea Room’.
Fuller’s bought the pub in 2011 but the leaseholders who took over from Norman are still in place and are certainly not running it as a branded Fuller’s house. Three of the brewery’s beers are now on sale, though, including Chiswick Bitter, rare in the West End, alongside Gale’s Seafarer’s and London Pride. The fourth guest pump can get quite exotic — a St Peter’s green hop beer when I called. Bottled Pride and bargain priced Vintage Ale are in the fridge and Leffe and Staropramen widen the keg choices.
National Rail Charing Cross Underground Leicester Square, Tottenham Court Road, Covent Garden Cycling LCN+ 39 6 6A Walking Jubilee Walkway
London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Central London: Soho and Leicester Square
 The Cambridge, London WC2 Traditional pub (Nicholson’s/M&B)
93 Charing Cross Road WC2H 0DP
T (020) 7494 0338 W www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk/thecambridgecambridgecircuslondon
Open 1000-2300 (2230 Sun). Children welcome daytimes upstairs if dining.
Cask beers 7 (Fuller’s, Sharp’s, St Austell, Nicholson’s guests) Cask Marque, Other beers 2 keg, 6 bottles, Also Some wines
Food Nicholson’s pub grub.
This Nicholson’s pub, perfectly placed right on Cambridge Circus adjacent to the Palace Theatre and McMullen’s pub the Spice of Life (p109), is small enough to achieve an intimate, local feel despite the bustling surroundings, with high copper-topped tables and a few more conventional tables and chairs in its single bar. It’s also one of the chain’s better beer stockists in central London, earning it a Good Beer Guide listing. Beside’s the standard trio of London Pride, Doom Bar and Tribute, the four guest pumps explore the more exotic reaches of the chain’s seasonal range: beers from Moor, Oakleaf, Quartz and Thornbridge when I visited. The last’s popular Jaipur regularly recurs. Kozel and Suffolk Blonde are quality lager choices while a smattering of bottled options includes Duvel and Sierra Nevada Pale. The menu, available in the pub or a small, cosy restaurant area upstairs, is a little shorter than in some pubs in the chain, including options like roasted vegetable tart and tiger prawn and chorizo pasta besides fish and chips, fishcakes, burgers and steaks. A useful bolthole in the heart of the West End.
Pub trivia. The pub was built in 1887 on the site of an older pub known as the Kings Arms. Most of its original features are now gone, but look up to find a splendid tiled ceiling in striking yellow and green.
National Rail Charing Cross Underground Leicester Square, Tottenham Court Road, Covent Garden Cycling LCN+ 39 6 6A Walking Jubilee Walkway
London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Southwest London: Richmond and Kew
 Brewhouse at the Botanist, Richmond TW9 (London) Contemporary pub, brewpub (Convivial)
1 Kew Green, Richmond TW9 3AA
T (020) 8948 4838 W www.thebotanistkew.com f The-Botanist-Brewery-Kitchen-Convivial-London-Pubs tw _TheBotanistkew
Open 1100-2300. Children welcome until 2000, later if eating.
Cask beers 6-7 (Botanist, occasional guests) Cask Marque, Other beers 1 keg (Meantime), 30+ bottles Also Around 30 wines
Food Enhanced pub grub/gastro menu, Outdoor Front terrace, beer garden, Wifi. Disabled toilet.
Wed quiz, Thu beer tasting & retro vinyl, Sat acoustic music, food promos, bookable “Brewer’s Breakfasts” with tastings.
Kew Green is an extensive green space just on the other side of Kew Bridge, unfortunately now bisected by the busy bridge approach road but still achieving that picturesqueness that seems to come so easily to London’s historic urban “villages”. It is centred on the 18th century St Anne’s Church with its Royal connections to nearby Kew Palace, is overlooked by fine houses of similar vintage and even hosts cricket matches in summer. The Botanist’s name is an obvious reference to the proximity of one of London’s premier attractions, the Royal Horticultural Society’s world famous Kew Gardens.
This family friendly pub doesn’t enjoy the most favoured spot on the green — it’s on a busy corner by the traffic — but is nonetheless well-placed in one of London’s most desirable residential areas, and the big windows provide great people watchng. The interior rejects traditional rustic decor for a slightly self-conscious contemporary feel, with a mix of furniture sprawling over several spaces, some tucked away cubby holes and a restaurant area off to the side. Of special interest to beer lovers is the attractive wood-clad brewhouse that since September 2011 has taken pride of place right by the large bar, with sacks of Bairds malt also clearly visible in the adjacent grain store.
The house beers, brewed by manager Mark Wainwright, have proved so successful that pubco Convivial is planning to repeat the initiative in one of its other pubs. Up to seven might be available at any one time, all cask, with the occasional guests from local brewers like Twickenham. Meantime London Lager is on keg, and there’s a strong bottled list too: classics like Duvel, Früh Kölsch and König Ludwig Weissbier, and a good showing from leading British craft brewers like Dark Star, Hopback, Magic Rock, Oakham, Thornbridge and Saltaire. Main courses at prices you’d expect for the area include pork belly, “risotto of the day”, chicken caesar salad and sea bass, supplemented by “grazing boards” and lunchtime sandwiches. Food suggestions are included on the beer list. A welcome addition to London’s growing list of brewpubs.
National Rail Kew Bridge Overground/Underground Kew Gardens Cycling LCN+ Mortlake, Richmond, Chiswick, link to NCN4 Walking Thames Path, link to Capital Ring
London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
West London: Fulham and Hammersmith
 Blue Anchor, London W6 Traditional pub (Independent)
13 Lower Mall W6 9DJ
T (020) 8748 5774 W www.blueanchorlondon.com
Open 1200-2300 (2230 Sun). Children welcome until early evening.
Cask beers 4 (Nelson, 3 often unusual guests) Cask Marque, Other beers 2 keg, 3 bottles, Also Around 20 wines, a few malts
Food Enhanced pub grub, tapas, sharing plates, pies, Outdoor Riverside terrace, Wifi. Disabled toiliet.
Functions, quiz planned.
The handsome Blue Anchor enjoys one of the most splendid locations in London, right on the river just upstream of Hammersmith Bridge with an extensive terrace on the Thames Path: fans of classic 1970s TV comedy thriller Minder may recognise the bridge and the pub from the end credits. It first appears in written records in 1722 but may well date back much further, as the original village of Hammersmith was on the riverbank. It’s along the route of the Oxford and Cambridge boat race and also claims to be the place where composer Gustav Holst (1874-1934), who once lived in Barnes across the river and taught at St Paul’s Girls School in Hammersmith, stayed while working on the Hammersmith suite in 1930. It’s been much altered, and much of the old fashioned-looking interior with its sombre dark wood, perimeter shelves and rowing junk is relatiely recent, though the vintage disused beer engine visible through the front windows is genuine. The main bar is relatively small but there’s a compact and comfy lounge round the back and a room upstairs with panoramic river views.
Own-branded Blue Anchor ale from the Nelson brewery is the only regular cask beer; the remaining three pumps rotate a range of beers from small and often local producers such as Red Squirrel, Sambrook’s or Weltons. Staropramen and Pilsner Urquell are on keg and a scattering of bottled imports includes Budvar and Hoegaarden. The menu runs from nibbles via “Pie and a Pint” deals to steaks, at reasonable but not bargain basement prices: hickory smoked baby back ribs is a speciality and there’s a number of veggie options. It’s a short walk from another classic riverside pub, the Dove (p223).
Pub trivia. Blue Anchor is a relatively common pub name in places where navigation is or was an important local activity, blue being the traditional colour of hope.
Underground Ravenscourt Park, Hammersmith Cycling LCN+44, Putney, Fulham, link to NCN4 Walking Thames Path
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
 The Banker, London EC4 London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Central London – City
Contemporary pub (Fuller’s)
2 Cousin Lane EC4R 3TE
T (020) 7283 5206 W www.fullers.co.uk
Open 1100-2130 Mon, 1100-2300 Tue-Fri, closed Sat-Sun. Children welcome daytimes.
Cask beer 5 (Fuller’s) Cask Marque, Other beer 5 keg, 5 bottles, Also wines
Food Sharing platters of pub grub & English tapas, Outdoor Riverside terrace, Disabled toilet
Functions, occasional big screen sport
Ingeniously shoehorned under the arches of Cannon Street rail bridge just before it launches itself across the river, this unusual and attractive Fuller’s house at the end of an intriguing alleyway is something of a find given the City’s general dearth of great pubs. It even boasts outdoor seating, a rarity in this part of town, in the form of a waterside terrace right next to a flight of steps down to the river at an ancient access point. It’s friendly enough despite being big and busy, and deservedly won a Visitor’s Award in the 2011 fancyapint.com Best London Pubs awards.
The big main space has high tables and plenty of standing room. Capacity is extended by a mezzanine floor and there’s an unexpected labyrinth of side rooms done out in more relaxing, loungey style. Regulars on cask are Discovery, ESB, Gales Seafarers and London Pride plus a seasonal or guest (low gravity “people’s beer” Mighty Atom on my visit) and there are some serious Fuller’s bottles too, including 1845, Bengal Lancer and the Brewer’s Reserve series. A selection of relatively common keg beers — Blue Moon, Früli, Litovel and the like — adds interest. Don’t come here for a meal for one — all the food is in the form of sharing platters, involving the likes of baked Camembert, pissaladière, pork and ham terrine, samosas, pies, skewers and the like, including vegetarian selections.
Insider tip. Turn right as you walk in to find a strip of seating overlooking the river, right under the bridge deck. It’s a light and airy contrast to the rather industrial main space, with its bare brickwork and lack of natural light.
National Rail, Underground Cannon Street Cycling CS7, NCN4, LCN+0 Walking Thames Path, Jubilee Greenway, Jubilee Walkway
First published in BEER magazine, August 2011. BEER is sent free every quarter to CAMRA members, who can also view it online. The magazine is additionally available in selected newsagents. Click on the beer names for more detailed notes on each beer.
 Evin O'Riordan of The Kernel brewery, London SE1 150 years ago, London was the world’s brewing capital, home to the biggest and most technologically advanced breweries yet known. Brewing in the capital subsequently set into a long decline, reaching a depressingly low point in 2006 when one of the two remaining independents, Young’s, turned its back on over four centuries of tradition and upped sticks for Bedford.
But since then the list of London brewers has doubled in length, and there’s a definite buzz in the air, with a growing number of discerning drinkers who appreciate a local product. The new brewers are an eclectic and inventive bunch, by no means limited to cask beer.
Take Evin O’Riordan of the Kernel brewery in Borough, whose handcrafted bottled conditioned specialities have earned him well deserved recognition as one of the top five international newcomers in the ratebeer.com annual awards. Evin brews both American-style hoppy IPAs and traditional London porters and stouts, such as Kernel London 1890 Export Stout (7.8 per cent), based on a Truman recipe. This is a dense and weighty liquorice humbug-tinged mahogany beer with fresh chocolate, blackcurrant and ashy roasted malts on a long, pursing finish.
More conventional but of impressively consistent quality is Sambrook’s in Battersea, first of the new brewers to open back in 2008. Their three beers so far have been available both as cask and Real Ale in a Bottle. Sambrook’s Junction (4.5 per cent) is the special bitter, named for nearby Clapham Junction station. It’s a rubyish mid-brown beer with a complex jammy, cindery and malty palate and a drying, tart finish with a marmalade edge.
Siblings James and Lizzie Brodie have let their imaginations run wild at the brewery attached to their father’s sprawling William IV pub in Leyton, with approaching 50 different beers in the repertoire, the majority of them also available bottle conditioned. Brodie’s Passion (3.8 per cent) is typically eccentric, a pale gold fruit beer that smells and largely tastes of fresh passion fruit, but well matched in the palate with some cereal substance and an appropriately gentle sprinkling of hops.
The Camden Town brewery began in the cellar of a Hampstead pub but in early 2010 expanded on a grand scale – its high tech German-built kit in Kentish Town is quite likely the most significant investment in an entirely new brewery in London since Guinness built the now-abandoned Park Royal in the 1930s. Besides cask bitters and pale ales it produces continental styles, including the outstanding unpasteurised Camden Town Hells Lager (4.8 per cent) in bottle as well as keg. Nicely malty, delicately honeyed and tingling with noble hop flavours and subtle citrus, this is a wonderfully refreshing but substantial example of the style.
Fuller’s in Chiswick, meanwhile, is keeping one step ahead with its own historical revivals and forays into long matured beers. An IPA launched last year, Fuller’s Bengal Lancer (5.3 per cent), is assertive but recognisably English, with a firm orangey malt palate turning toasty, bitterish and peppery with the earthy tones of Goldings hops. The well loved veteran independent has set a high benchmark for the newcomers, whom it’s also generously helping with advice.
You’ll find much more on the London brewing renaissance in my new book, The CAMRA Guide to London’s Best Beer Pubs and Bars.
To download BEER if you’re a CAMRA member, see http://www.camra.org.uk/page.aspx?o=beer.
To find out more about CAMRA membership, see http://www.camra.org.uk/page.aspx?o=joinus.
London Beer Tastings 2011
Junction was featured in a piece on bottle conditioned beers from London in BEER August 2011. Read more about London bottle conditioned beers.
ABV: 4.5%, 4.7% (5% in bottle) and 4.2%
Origin: Battersea, London SW11, England
Website: www.sambrooksbrewery.co.uk
 Sambrook's Junction The departure of Young’s from London in 2006 helped draw Duncan Sambrook’s attention to the lack of breweries in London and spurred him to create his own. Opened in 2008, it turned out to be something of a pioneer, presaging what’s rapidly becoming a flood of new London craft breweries. Sambrook’s is still one of the most successful, and there’s some irony in the fact that Young’s ended up inviting Duncan’s beers into some of its own pubs to plug the demand for locally brewed products that it could no longer satisfy.
As it happens, Sambrook’s two cask ales, Wandle and Junction, are a good fit for Young’s leading duo of ‘Ordinary’ (officially known simply as Bitter) and Special. Tasted side by side, they don’t really taste alike, but they fill a similar ecological niche. Special when on form can be a complex, tasty beer, but Junction (named after Britain’s busiest railway station, Clapham Junction, only ten minutes walk from the brewery) is a worthy challenger. It’s also good as a bottle conditioned beer, and was one of the London beers I chose to feature in my tutored tasting of London beers at 2011’s Great British Beer Festival.
A sample supplied by the brewery poured a rubyish mid-brown with a pale yellowish head. A rich aroma with a note of blackcurrant jam set up a full malty palate with complex, gritty, jammy flavours and notes of cinders and yeast. The drying tart finish had orange marmalade, more blackcurrant and roasty dark edges.
 Sambrook's Powerhouse Porter The brewery has deliberately concentrated on a small range of beers — two regular bitters, a couple of seasonals and the very occasional special. The first seasonal was Powerhouse Porter, available over autumn and winter in both cask and, slightly stronger, in bottle. The cask version was the first beer I drunk when setting out on my first ever round of pub research visits for my London beer guide, which started on a high at what later became the national Pub of the Year winner, the Harp at Charing Cross.
The beer was a very dark chestnut, with a little fine beige head and liquorice toffee and sticky malt aroma. There was more liquorice alongside dark fruit on a thick blackcurrant palate with restrained roast and a note of soot. Cinders and dark malt danced in a lingering liquorice finish with a restrained roast and bit of hops.
A bottled version supplied by the brewery similarly coloured with a fine fawn head. I noted cola, chocolate and some sappy acid notes in the aroma, a sharpish, full and nutty palate with more roast and less fruit and liquorice than I remembered from the cask, with dark berries emerging in a mellow chocolate finish. The complex recipe includes Maris Otter pale, crystal, brown and chocolate barley malts and Fuggles, Goldings, Boadicea and Challenger whole leaf hops.
For summer 2011, Sambrook’s issued a Pale Ale, which I sampled straight from the cask among the complimentary beers supplied by the London Brewers Alliance at the British Guild of Beer Writers’ pre-Great British Beer Festival reception at Brew Wharf. This was a very light gold, with some fine white head, and a fine citric aroma with grapefruit, orange and a decent heft of pale malt. The palate began sweetish with cereal notes and quickly developed hoppy marmalade tones with a faint whiff of smoke. A chewy orange peel finish preserved the cereal theme. Perhaps the least distinctive of the brewery’s beers but decent and tasty.
London Beer Tastings 2011
ABV: 3% and 6.1%
Origin: Tottenham, London N17, England
Website: www.redemptionbrewing.co.uk
 Redemption Trinity Redemption, launched early in 2010, now seems like something of a veteran among the new wave of London brewers. Impressive from the start, it’s rapidly settled down into a consistently performing and reliable source of decent beer, pitched somewhere in between the avowedly artisanal and specialised approach of the Kernel and the more traditionalist cask ale model pursued by Sambrook’s. Redemption’s easily recognisable triangular pump clips are equally welcome in old school real ale pubs and lining up beside the BrewDog, Dark Star and Thornbridge in trendy new craft beer bars.
The brewery’s friendly and outgoing founder, Glaswegian former banker Andy Moffat, found his inspiration when reading Brewing up a Business, a how-to book by Sam Calagione, influential US craft brewer and founder of Delaware’s Dogfish Head. Andy’s beers, almost entirely produced in cask, don’t mimic transatlantic styles and are rarely “extreme”, but they’re notably distinctive and individual.
Trinity is one his most impressive achievements, a low gravity beer that’s packed full of flavour. The pitch — three malts, three hops (including a US variety) and 3% ABV — sounds a little gimmicky but a taste of the beer dispels all fears. The cask version is tasty and refreshing but the beer has occasionally bottled unpasteurised in small quantities with the help of Kernel.
My sample, supplied by the brewery, was hazy gold, with a fine slightly yellowy-white head and a nicely grassy, slightly sweet and citrussy aroma with a rose petal tinge. A firm chaffy blond palate had tropical fruit alongside more flowery notes and developing piny bitterness — only a slightly thin quality betrayed the modest alcohol content. Light but chewy resins and a touch of smoke emerged in a long developing bitterish finsh.
When asked to host a tutored tasting of London beers at the Great British Beer Festival 2011, I was keen to feature a Redemption beer but faced the challenge of finding a bottle conditioned example rather than the more usual cask. Luckily we managed to track down rare stocks of Number One Strong Dark Mild, the fruit of a one-off collaboration between Andy and Evin O’Riordan of the Kernel brewed earlier in 2011. I’d actually sampled this old fashioned mild, based on a historic recipe but with a contemporary twist, direct from the fermenter when I visited Redemption in January as research for my London beer guide, so it was a special pleasure to enjoy the finished product several months later when it was nicely mature.
The beer I had back in January was dark ruby brown with a reddish note, and unsurprisingly cloudy with only a bit of head, and a waft of exotic Amarillo hops and earthy farmyard notes on a dark chocolate aroma. The palate was dense but showed firm chocolate cake malt, and a bit of citrus, with a dry and chewy lightly bittering finish that developed some roast. Obviously it was all still raw and green but you could taste great potential there.
By August the beer had developed a fine, dense beige head, still with lots of chocolate cake in the malty aroma but with the hops rounded off to a subtly fruity note. The palate was rich and creamy and a bit sticky but lightened by tart dark fruit, wine and coffee notes and overall very dry, with darting herbal and pine flavours adding to the complexity. Stern drying malt dominated a long finish softened by cream and chocolate sauce, with a late ashy roast burr.
Let’s hope Andy and Evin find time to brew this very serious and delicious beer again.
London Beer Tastings 2011. For more background on the brewery, see previous post.
ABV: 6.8%, 7.1% and 5.5%
Origin: Bermondsey, London SE1, England
Website: www.thekernelbrewery.com
 Kernel Pale Ale Besides its old fashioned dark beers, Kernel brews contemporary beers fresh with the flavours of new world hops. These too are of exceptional quality, matching the standards set by the US brewers that pioneered these styles in a way I’m not sure any other British brewer has yet managed.
I’m still reserving judgement about Black IPA as a style but Kernel’s India Pale Ale Black might come close to persuading me. An early bottled version supplied as a tasting sample was deep amber-brown rather than black, with a foamy light beige head. It had sticky coconut and grapefruit hops on a very fruity palate that also yielded dark malt. A slightly mouth-numbing palate mixed rum and grapefruit with salty, twiggy exotic spice notes reminiscent of Indian paan, and black treacle far back. The finish had smooth brown malt flavours and definite notes of peppery, minty hop resins and powdery dryness.
An unpasteurised keg version tried at the Craft Beer Co a few months later was better still, and very drinkable for its strength. Again this was very dark brown rather than black, with a fine beige head. The aroma was quite light with dark malt, ops, salt and a farmyard touch. A very soft and full malty liquorice palate had a quality a little like a Belgian dubbel, but with a very un-Belgian flowery, fruity and blackcurranty hop complexity just held in restraint. An oily, lightly tangy finish signed off with macaroons and a touch of toffee.
The versions of the brewery’s India Pale Ale I’ve tried have all been extraordinary. A sample bottle I tasted earlier in the year made with five hops – Simcoe, Cascade, Columbus, Amarillo and Nelson Sauvin, thus the apparently cryptic subtitle on the label “S C C A NS” – was a yeasty deep gold with a fine, lightly orange-white head. A very earthy pine and passion fruit nose was well supported by aromatic blond malt. As you’d expect, the palate was crisp and hoppy but not overbitter, with a near fruit nectar texture, passion fruit, flowers and bittering resins over chewy soft malt. The long finish developed a firm but again not too bitter peppery quality with more floral hop notes and biscuit malt.
Another version with a simpler hop recipe of Centennial, Chinook and Nugget (C C N) popped up on the Byron Hamburger chain’s craft beer list this summer. A bottle I tried alongside my Portobello mushroom vegeburger was cloudy light amber with a plain white head, and a slight farmyard touch on a rich pine, citrus, toffee and fecund yeast aroma. The palate was surprisingly light and wonderfully crisp, with soft fruit and a hint of bubblegum, drying to a very long, seedy, piny finish that ended notably bitter. It’s quite something to achieve such harmoniousness with such vivid flavours, but Evin seems to manage it unerringly.
Finally, Kernel’s closest product to a session beer, its Pale Ale, is another high achiever. A sample bottle of a version hopped with Centennial and Chinook was rich gold with a fine orange-tinged head and a very obviously Pacific Northwest hop aroma with grapefruit, pine and herbal tones. A dry and gritty palate had juicy orange and grapefruit, developing a broad slick of hops with a slight and not unpleasant detergent-like hint. There were some gritty and ashy notes alongside the pepper and citrus in a long, mouth filling finish.
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Cask  This pioneering new book explains what makes cask beer so special, and explores its past, present and future. Order now from CAMRA Books. Read more here.
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