Back In The Saddle Again
A while ago I arranged with Jeremy to go out on another Beer Guide London research trip, a chance to catch up, be sociable and drink lots of sparkling mineral water. In reality it was this date on my calendar that sowed the initial seed that led to my eventual decision to start drinking again. It was now going to be a “proper” research trip!
Deciding to ease myself in a bit I eschewed the planned first visit in Bexley, choosing instead to start my day in Greenwich. I arrived at North Greenwich very early so opted to walk to the first bar as a way of killing time, a not particularly picturesque amble through industrial Greenwich with the perplexing sight of a Dois Corvos Cervejeira sticker affixed to the footbridge over the A102.
And so to my first proper research visit for six months, The River Ale House, a place I had been to many years before when it first entered CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide. A small micropub that serves 4 cask ales on gravity at any one time alongside a slightly larger cider selection. This is the sort of place that you would be delighted to have within walking distance of home and my Oakham beer was in excellent condition. We could happily have stayed here, but there were other places to visit.
A ten minute walk brought us to our next stop, the Meantime Brewing Taproom, a place which has apparently been open for c6 years but which had somehow managed to pass us both by!
OK, it’s not a new brewery at all, but Brew By Numbers have moved to a new site in Greenwich on the Thames and have transferred their brewing operation here from Bermondsey. It’s in a slightly out of the way area, but it was still less than a ten minute walk from Meantime so it’s not that remote. This is a huge, cavernous space and is only partly occupied by brewing kit at the moment. They have plenty of space to expand in to. It’s only recently opened and one of the first events they held was a beer festival. It turns out that one of the guest breweries that were there was Dois Corvos. Suddenly the sticker made sense! An excellent beer list was available with some beers left over from the festival supplementing their own – I even managed to try the one from Dois Corvos.
From here we made our way back in to the centre of Greenwich hoping to be able sample beers from Greenwich Brewery at their home which is the Up The Creek comedy club but unfortunately it was closed. Such us life. I decided to head home via one of the BrewDog bars to sample some of the Collabfest beers and made my way via DLR to the Tower Hill branch where I restricted myself two just the one flight and had beers from France, Sweden & Iceland.
All in all it was a very enjoyable day out, albeit nowhere near as full on as most research days, but given the circumstances it was the most sensible approach. And it was so good to be back!