London leads charge as one of UK’s fastest growing brewing scenes

CAMRA Great British Beer Festival, Earls Court, London, August 2nd – 6th 2011, www.gbbf.org.uk

On the same day the world’s biggest pub comes to London’s Earls Court, CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, is delighted to report that London’s historic brewing scene has been revived with findings showing the number of commercial breweries operating in the capital has doubled since the end of 2006.

New findings come at a time when CAMRA has released a comprehensive guide to the capital’s licensed outlets and brewers entitled London’s Best Beer, Pubs & Bars, by London beer writer Des de Moor. To celebrate this launch, CAMRA polled Londoners on where they thought was the best area for quality pubs, with the South East of the city coming out on top.

While 150 years ago London was the brewing capital of the world - with the city’s brewers pioneering industrial brewing, inventing the first two global beer styles and sending their products to every inhabited continent on the planet - the city was anything but a brewing superpower in October 2006 when Young’s (then of Battersea) merged with Wells of Bedford, leaving a record low 7 commercial breweries, with only two of any significant size.

Fast forward 5 years to the present day, and with 14 commercial breweries and at least 5 breweries reported to be in development, London is once again awash with exciting new local brews filling the capital’s 6,000 pubs. Such growth comes at a time when there are now over 800 brewers operating in total across the UK.

Des de Moor, London resident and author of London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars, said:

‘Although London’s groundswell of exciting new brewers may not yet reach the production levels of the post-Victorian era when in 1905 the capital’s brewers produced almost a billion pints, the city’s brewing industry is once again revered for its innovation and craft.

‘For too long many Londoners haven’t had a brewery in their locality, and yet in the space of 5 years, each area of the great city now has a brewer to call its own.

‘With the growth of brewing in the capital, a new breed of discerning, savvy consumers have emerged, with beer drinkers who appreciate quality, provenance, craftsmanship, natural ingredients, flavour and character above the bland, processed conformity of international brands.’

Some of the new success stories of London’s brewing scene include small, artisanal brewers such as Kernel, based under a busy railway arch in Bermondsey. After a first commercial brew in late 2009, the producer has gone from strength to strength, now looking to produce over 14 different beers and 950hl (167,169 pints) by the end of the year.

In contrast, the loss of Young’s brewery in Wandsworth is now a distant memory after ex-City accountant Duncan Sambrook came to the area, setting up Sambrook’s brewery in 2008. Today, 2 core beers and 2 seasonals make up the Sambrook’s range, with 250 pubs supplied and 8000hl (1,407,744 pints) produced each year.

Duncan Sambrook, co-owner of Sambrook’s, and one of the founding members of the London Brewers Alliance (LBA), a body comprising brewers in the capital, said:

‘It was at the Great British Beer Festival at Earls Court back in 2006 myself and friends hatched a plan to bring brewing back to the centre of London, and when we first started up, there were more outlets crying out for quality local beer than we originally thought. In fact, the London pub market’s so big it has the potential to support another boom in the next 5 years, so long as London’s beers retain a high quality and continue to push the boundaries.’