Never mind a yard, here's a mile of ale
By Phil Mellows
Pub crawls have a special place in our drinking culture, and they have evolved over the decades. In the 1980s, those in pursuit of cask beer dubbed them ‘ale trails’. ‘Beer walks’ were the rural version, often involving more walking than drinking.
At the turn of the century, the theorists of ‘Binge Britain’ pejoratively called the phenomenon of groups moving from bar to bar in city centres ‘circuit drinking’.
Then came craft beer. Small brewers proliferated, clustering in railway arches and on industrial estates to take advantage of the relatively cheap rents. They opened tap rooms and yards to introduce their beers to customers, who soon realised they could make a day of it, hopping from tap to tap, sampling a wide range of brews.
The fact that they were doing it in such insalubrious surroundings, mingling with car repairs and light-engineering workshops, didn’t seem to matter.
The Bermondsey Beer Mile, which follows the railway track coming out of London Bridge Station, pioneered the new drinking experience, attracting thousands of people on a Saturday along with a variety of street-food vendors.
Beer miles have since sprung up in other cities. The newest, in Walthamstow, east London, is the Black Horse Beer Mile. Officially launched on May 1, it links together half a dozen breweries on the chain of industrial estates that back onto the reservoirs that form the boundary with Tottenham.
Unless you’re a local, you’ll start from Blackhorse Road Station on the Victoria Line (emerging opposite the ex-pub where bemused punters could once hear a live performance of the song what I wrote). The Mile proper begins five minutes down Blackhorse Lane at Truman’s Social Club.
The only venue without a brewery on site, it’s housed in a vast aircraft hangar of a building. On launch day, it was table service only and families were flocking there for the Sunday roast.
That didn’t seem quite in the spirit of a beer mile, but just round the corner Signature Brew is the real deal (pictured). Six tall, gleaming towers of beer stand at the back of the yard opposite a new bar serving the brewery’s range, and on the roof, more seating and a pop-up kitchen.
Inside the main building, the brewhouse floor doubles as a live-music venue with dancing between the tanks.
Next stop is Exale Brewing, which has expanded its drinking area with a mezzanine inside and two-storey wooden structure outside. During my visit, guest beers alongside the Exale range included Kernel Table Beer on draught, which at 2.9%, is a good way of pacing your drinking day. There was also a lively brewery tour going on, always nice to see.
Beerblefish Brew Co is a newcomer to Black Horse Lane and already popular with families, it seems. It was serving a couple of cask beers alongside the craft keg – the only ones I spotted on the Mile.
At the far end of the route, Wild Card Brewery and Hackney Brewery are opposite each other. By this time, the queues at the bars were getting rather long, but it was worth the wait. Wild Card was frantically busy with a good choice of brews on tap and head brewer Jaega Wise herself helping out.
Perhaps the highlight of the Mile on this occasion, though, was finding the leftovers from the Queer Brewing birthday tap takeover the night before still pouring in the surprisingly comfortable surroundings of the Hackney Brewery tap room.
All in all, a great day out. You’ll never think of industrial estates in quite the same way again.
For ideas on what to do in the area, read ‘Pints and Places… Walthamstow’ on this blog.
Photo © Luis Kramer