London Brewers’ Market Event Round-Up: October 2016

On the London Brewers’ Market blog, we are featuring a monthly round-up of upcoming and unmissable events for London’s beer drinkers introduced by Rebecca Pate of Brewing East. Here are her picks for what’s happening in Londontown. 

With the last of the beer garden weather upon us, it’s time to accept the change of season and hole ourselves up with a cosy pint. For beer drinkers, October brings the close of Oktoberfest celebrations and the season of highly divisive pumpkin beers. But if neither of these prospects takes your fancy, there are plenty of other events to satisfy your autumnal cravings.

You might feel pressure to bid adieu to sours and saisons in lieu of more warming styles, but whatever you’re drinking, we’ve put together a list of our pick of events across London this October:

HAMMERTON BREWERY TAPROOM OPENING: Saturday, 1 October, 14:00-23:00. Head over to N7 (that’s Islington) to have a drink amongst locals at Hammerton Brewery’s monthly taproom opening. There’s plenty of table space inside and be sure to sample their new Chicha Pale, a Peruvian Maize Morada. They’re dog-friendly too, so why not take Rover for an extra long walk? Hammerton Brewery, Unit 8 & 9 Roman Way Industrial Estate, 149 Roman Way, London N7 8XH. Free: http://www.hammertonbrewery.co.uk/blog/ 

HIBERNATION PARTY WITH ORBIT BEERS: Saturday, 1 October, 12:00-20:00. Here’s your incentive to embrace the first frost of winter. Orbit Beers are throwing a party at their brewery to honour the season and while the vinyl spins, there will be bratwurst and currywurst proffered from Get Wurst. And in case that wasn’t enough, every guest will get a free beer on arrival. Suddenly winter doesn’t seem so bad, does it? Orbit Brewery, 225 Fielding Road, London SE17 3HD. Free: https://www.facebook.com/events/1470228143003605/

WE BROUGHT BREW BY NUMBERS: Wednesday, 5 October, 19:00-22:00. Bermondsey’s Brew by Numbers will be chatting beer at We Brought Beer’s Clapham Junction location. Their recent endeavours have been exceptional, including their long-awaited foray into pale ales. If attendees are lucky, the new 21|04 Pale Ale (Motueka) might be on offer. We Brought Beer Clapham Junction, 78 St. Johns Hill, Battersea, SW11 1SP. Event is free, but attendees must e-mail events@webroughtbeer.co.uk to be added to the guest list: https://www.webroughtbeer.co.uk/event/brought-brew-numbers/

MEET THE BREWER WITH WILD CARD BREWERY: Wednesday, 5 October, from 20:00. The Beer Shop London is hosting a Meet the Brewer night with Wild Card Brewery. This is the perfect opportunity to see what’s brewing and what’s in the pipelines for this Walthamstow favourite. Don’t forget to ask about their Queen of Diamonds IPA, which recently was awarded the ‘Beautiful Brew’ distinction by the Urban Food Awards. The Beer Shop London, 40 Nunhead Green, London SE15 3QF. Event is free, but spaces must be reserved by e-mailing hello@thebeershoplondon.co.ukhttp://www.thebeershoplondon.co.uk/events.html

WALTHAMSTOW BEER PROJECT 2016 WITH ELB: Thursday, 6 October from 18:30. East London Brewing Company invite you to Ye Olde Rose and Crown for the launch of their Walthamstow Beer. Over the summer, over 200 Prima Donna hop plants were grown in the area and harvested in mid-September to create this green hopped ale. Come down and sample the fruits of their labour, learn about the hop harvest and meet the brewery team. Beer doesn’t get more local than this. Ye Olde Rose and Crown, 55 Hoe St, London E17 4SA. Free: http://www.eastlondonbrewing.com/blogs/news/walthamstow-beer-project-2016

CRAFT 100 BEER FESTIVAL: Thursday, 6 October, 12:00 until Sunday October 9, 23:00. The Craft Beer Co’s Clapham location will be transformed into a utopia of beer aplenty for this unmissable event. With over 100 beers on offer, there’s something guaranteed to tickle your taste buds, including beer from Beavertown Brewery, Brixton Brewery, By the Horns Brewing Co., Hackney Brewery, Kew Brewery, Redemption BrewingPartizan Brewing and Weird Beard Brew Co.– and that’s just on keg. Phew. Craft Beer Co, 128 Clapham Manor Street, Clapham, London SW4 6ED. Free: http://www.thecraftbeerco.com/craft100/

FIVE POINTS BREWERY TOUR: Saturday, 8 October, 12:00-14:00. Take a trip to Hackney for The Five Points Brewing Company’s monthly brewery tour, where guests are guided through their story and their range, all in the heart of the action on the brewery floor. See the brewing kit and the canning line, where the newly canned Pils has been flying out. Generous samples and a glass to take home are included in the ticket price. The Five Points Brewing Company, 3 Institute Place, London E8 1JE. Tickets are £12 plus VAT and can be purchased here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/october-brewery-tour-at-the-five-points-brewing-company-tickets-26520197625 Note: This date is now sold out

IPA VS CHEESE WITH BREW BY NUMBERS: Thursday, 13 October, 18:00-21:00. Beer and cheese, need we say more? Take a range of Brew by Numbers IPAs personally selected by Chris Hall, the brewery’s Sales and Media guru, married with a cornucopia of British cheeses chosen by Ned Palmer (Edited to add: “Legend!”) of The Cheese Tasting Company and- well, you get the idea. The evening will include five cheeses, bread and beer. Attendees are warned to come hungry. Brew by Numbers, 79 Enid Street London SE16 3RA. Tickets are £25 and can be purchased here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ipa-vs-cheese-a-beer-and-cheese-throwdown-tickets-27930495865

MEAT + BEER WITH BRIXTON BREWERY: Thursday, 13 October, 19:00-20:30. October is bursting with foodie options for beer drinkers, including this enticing event from the Meat School in Borough Market. A selection of fine British cured meats will be expertly paired with beer from Brixton Brewery. This is not for the faint hearted, however, as 5 courses of meat, each one paired with a beer from Brixton, are included in the ticket price. CANNON & CANNON, Unit 4W, Jubilee Place, Winchester Walk, London SE1 9AG. Tickets are £25 and can be purchased here: http://www.meatschool.co.uk/product/meat-beer-pairing-with-brixton-brewery-thurs-13-oct/

CROYDON CRAFT BEER FESTIVAL: Thursday, 13 October, 2016 17:00 until Saturday October 15, 2016 19:00. Held at Braithwaite Hall, this is the third Croydon Craft Beer Festival with an Oktoberfest theme. While oodles of beers from around the world will be available in cans, there’s a good representation form London breweries too, including: Belleville Brewing Co, By the Horns Brewing Co, The London Beer Factory and Croydon’s own darlings, The Cronx Brewery. Croydon Clocktower, Katherine Street, Croydon CR9 1ET. Tickets are £5 + VAT and can be purchased here: https://billetto.co.uk/en/events/craftycroydon2016

OKTOBEERFEST WITH WILD CARD BREWERY: Friday, 14 October, 20:00- Saturday October 15, 22:00. For a taste of Bavaria, make a beeline to Wild Card Brewery’s taproom to sample over 30 beers, including a special small batch raspberry wheat beer brewed for the occasion. There’s an eclectic selection of music promised all weekend, including DJ sets with some synth pop, disco and…kraut rock? Well, we’re intrigued. Wild Card Brewery Tap Bar, Shernhall Street, London E17 9HQ. Free: https://www.facebook.com/events/205242163214638/

BAVARIAN BREAKFAST WITH ONE MILE END: Saturday, 15 October, 9:00-14:00. Science has proven that beer is the breakfast of champions* and science is never wrong, so don’t miss the opportunity to sample One Mile End Brewery’s new wheat beer at The White Hart. Their head brewer will be onsite and beer will be poured from 9am to accompany the brew pub’s new tantalising brunch menu. Brunch beers are definitely a thing that should be embraced (*this might be wildly inaccurate). The White Hart Brew Pub, 1 Mile End Road, London E1 4TP, free: https://www.facebook.com/events/1796999037247541/

FIVE POINTS AUTUMN JOLLY: Saturday, 15 October, 13:00-22:00.Following the rip-roaring fun of The Five Points Brewing Company‘s summer yard parties, they’ve taken the same ingredients- e.g. great beer, outstanding eats from Capish? and formidable beats- and reinvented the monthly affair for the season. Come try the Brick Field Brown launched in cask and the Five Points Extra Pale relaunched as Five Points XPA. Surprises are assured and there’s a special meet the brewer session with Vito himself, who is the brains behind the Brick Field Brown. The Five Points Brewing Company Warehouse & Yard, 61 Mare Street, London E8 4RG. Free: https://www.facebook.com/events/1756385964601426/

ELENA COOPER’S PORTER WITH REDEMPTION: Monday, 17 October, 18:00-23:30. Head down to the Holborn Whippet to sample Elena Cooper’s Porter, a new brew from Redemption Brewing Company to commemorate the London Beer Flood of the 17 October, 1814. On this solemn day, a torrent of beer flooded  Tottenham Court Road and killed 8 people. Raise a glass of this porter that has been smoked with oak chips alongside representatives from the brewery. Cue the argument of whether there are worse ways to go. The Holborn Whippet, 25-29 Sicilian Ave, London WC1A 2QH. Free.

BRICK FIELD BROWN LAUNCH WITH PETE BROWNTuesday, 18 October, 18:00-22:00. Eminent beer writer Pete Brown joins The Five Points Brewing Company in launching their latest cask ale offering at The Harp in Covent Garden. Two hour-long sessions will be held in The Harp’s cosy upstairs room, where The Five Points’ Assistant Head Brewer Vito Carrescia will introduce his Brick Field Brown, and Pete Brown will share his thoughts about the brown ale style as well as discuss his new book, The Pub: A Cultural Institution. Tickets are £10 + booking fee, which includes a pint of Brick Field Brown, and proceeds from each ticket sale go to St Joseph’s Hospice. There’s also a Five Points Tap Takeover at the bar, which is free to attend, and the chance to buy a copy of Pete Brown’s book. The Harp, 47 Chandos Place, London WC2N 4HS. Tickets to Pete Brown & Vito Carrescia’s talk are £10 + booking fee, tap takeover is free entry. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/meet-the-five-points-brewer-beer-writer-pete-brown-tickets-28424538560

WE BROUGHT REDCHURCH: Wednesday, 19 October, 19:00-22:00. Another meet the brewer event hosted by We Brought Beer, this time at their Balham site. East London’s The Redchurch Brewery will be talking guests through their new foray into wild beers with their Urban Farmhouse project. These experimental beers hail from  their old brewery, which is now dedicated to wild and sour brewing. Guests will sample some of the first batches, so don’t miss out. We Brought Beer Balham, 28 Hildreth Street SW12 9RQ. Event is free, but attendees must e-mail events@webroughtbeer.co.uk to be added to the guest list: https://www.webroughtbeer.co.uk/event/we-brought-redchurch/

BREWDOG #COLLABFEST 2016: Saturday, 22 October, 13:00 – Sunday October 23, 0:00. Each of London’s Brewdog locations will be brewing up some special delights with the help of a local brewery. Details are still hush-hush on what to expect, but last year saw some great London breweries thrown in the mix, including Orbit Beers, Weird Beard Brew Co., Brew by Numbers and The Redchurch Brewery. So it’s a fairly safe bet. All Brewdog London sites, free: https://www.brewdog.com/lowdown/events/collab-fest-2016

LONDON BREWERS’ MARKET AT VENN STREET MARKET: Saturday, 22 October, 10:00 – 16:00. London Brewers’ Market will be holding a showcase of South London Breweries (oh, and a certain Hackney brewery that organises LBM) at the wonderful Venn Street Market, a weekly food market in Clapham Common. Breweries include The Five Points Brewing Company, Anspach & Hobday, Gipsy Hill Brewing Company, Mondo Brewing Company, and Orbit Beers, who will all be selling beer to drink on the day and for take away. Venn Street Market, Venn Street, Clapham SW4 0AT, freehttps://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/london-brewers-market-at-venn-street-market-tickets-28282564913

HACKNEY BREWERY’S 5TH BIRTHDAYSaturday, 22 October, 13:00 – 19:00. The mighty Hackney Brewery celebrate their 5th Birthday with some of their fantastic brews, including their Oktoberfest and a brand new Pale Ale, plus a look around their newly-installed brewing equipment! Grill My Cheese will be catering food at this free event, so rock up and show some love to this wonderful local brewery! Hackney Brewery,358 Laburnum St, London E2 8BB, free: https://www.facebook.com/events/544229609099275/

*new* MEET THE BREWER WITH REDCHURCH: Thursday, 27 October, 18:00-0:00. Redchurch Brewery are visiting their close neighbours, BrewDog Shoreditch, to flaunt some of their beers. There will be some surprises of a sour nature in store. This is another opportunity to get your hands on their new Urban Farmhouse beers this month, so don’t miss out- the brewery team will also be in attendance to guide you through the brews. BrewDog Bar Shoreditch, 51-55 Bethnal Green Rd, London E1 6LA , free: https://www.facebook.com/events/571214406409072/

*new* MEET THE BREWER WITH BEAVERTOWN: Thursday, 27 October, 19:30-21:00. The Beavertown Brewery crew are paying The Coborn a visit to guide drinkers through their brewing process from hops to pints. Attendees will also be tutored through four different beers and learn that when it comes to packaging, why the can is king. It’s a great time to get on the Beavertown bandwagon. The Coborn, 8 Coborn Road, E3 2DA London. Tickets are £10 and can be purchased by contacting the venue: https://www.facebook.com/events/1197092370329555/

*new* DAY OF THE DEAD PARTY WITH 40FT: Friday, 28 October, 18:00- Saturday 29 October, 2:00. Once again, 40ft Brewery are inviting revellers inside their shipping container taproom (and sizable yard) to celebrate in style. They’ve teamed up with The Real Al Company to bring Dia de los Muertos celebrations to Dalston. The fiesta will include a special chili IPA and the spicy Mexican beer-cocktail favourite, the Michelada. Mulled cider, face painting and Mexican street food are a given. All will be against a deadly soundtrack to get your sugar skull boogie on. 40FT Brewery, Bootyard, Abbott Street, London E8 3DP, free: https://www.facebook.com/events/1604855099817724/

*new* PILLARS BREWERY TAPROOM LAUNCH: Friday, 28 October, 17:00- Saturday 29 October, 23:30. NEW BREWERY KLAXON. Head Walthamstow way to check out the Pillars Brewery, formerly known as the Four Pillars Brewery, as they proclaim their arrival with a weekend long party. Expect music, food and their flagship Traditional Lager, branded an ‘India pale lager’, flowing alongside some taproom exclusives. Looks like Wild Card Brewery have new neighbours and Walthamstow just got a bit sexier. Pillars Brewery, Unit 2 Ravenswood Industrial Estate, Walthamstow E17 9HQ , free: https://www.facebook.com/events/204350073312057/

*new* UBREW BEER LAUNCH PARTY: Saturday, 29 October, 12:30-21:00. Bermondsey’s open brewery, UBREW are unleashing their own beers on the public and throwing a bit of a bash. They’ve taken the best of the members’ beer brewed onsite and upscaled production to their industrial 5 bbl kit, resulting in the Rocket Bear IPA, the Octobear Sorachi Ace saison, the Hoplust Stout and a sessionable pale ale. Discounts and tours will be on offer as well, so you can nurse your beer while convincing yourself that your recipe might be next. Ubrew, 24 Old Jamaica Road, London, SE16 4AW, free but tours and cases can be bought in advance here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ubrew-official-beer-launch-tickets-28523591831

*new* SIGNATURE BREW’S 5TH BIRTHDAY PARTY: Saturday, 29 October, 12:00-22:00. We’ll be shimmying down to Signature Brew’s 5th birthday celebrations- a beer and music festival like Leyton has never seen. The largest range of Signature Brew’s beers ever in one place (EVER) and a glut of collaborations will be offered. Music is obviously a fixture and an extensive list of bands and acoustic performers are already lined up. Food and tours are also going to be on offer for those who can stop dancing. Signature Brew, Unit 25, Leyton Business Centre, London E10 7BT. Tickets are free and available here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/signature-brews-5th-birthday-party-tickets-28361370623

*new* HIVER’WEEN: Saturday, 29 October, 11:00-19:00.Honey beer specialists Hiver Beers have partnered with All Good Beer for a day packed with Hallowe’en activities, including pumpkin carving, beeswax candle rolling and- deep breath- Bermondsey’s FIRST ever conker championship. Honey beer and other craft selections will be on hand alongside some delicious honey from local bees. Honey is like nature’s candy, so it’s all treats and no tricks here. Hiver, Arch 55 Stanworth Street, London SE1 3NY. Tickets are £7, can be purchased here and include a pumpkin, a sheet of beeswax and a half pint of Hiver.

REDEMPTION BREWERY’S TAPROOM OPENING: Saturday, 29 October, 11:00-17:00. The big day is upon us: Redemption Brewing are letting the public into their brand spanking-new brewery’s taproom! Lots of special surprises are promised, including special one-off beers alongside their ever-dependable core range. More details will be released closer to the time, but don’t miss out on christening the Redemption crew’s new space in Tottenham. Redemption Brewing Co, Unit 16, Compass West Industrial Estate West Road, Tottenham N17 0XL. Free.

Have we missed something? We’re not perfect, so feel free to post any upcoming events featuring London breweries in London in the comments below. This post will be edited as the month progresses to include new events, so watch this space!

London Brewers’ Market at Field Day, 11-12 June

LondonBrewersMarket_fieldday_banner smaller.png

We are incredibly excited to be at Field Day in Victoria Park once again this year! In addition to the tent selling some of the best beer brewed in London, we’ll have ten breweries selling their beer directly to attendees on both days!

The London breweries who will be running their own stalls at Field Day are:

  • The Five Points Brewing Company
  • Howling Hops
  • One Mile End
  • Redemption Brewing Company
  • Partizan Brewing
  • Beavertown Brewery
  • Signature Brew
  • The Redchurch Brewery
  • Gipsy Hill Brewing Company
  • Hackney Brewery

With a great beer line-up as well as an incredible music line up, plus a top food line up from the likes of Street Feast and Venn Street Market, this Field Day is not one to miss. Be sure to get your tickets and come along on Saturday and Sunday, the 11th and 12th of June.

FD16 Beer and Food.png

Anita Lawlor’s photos for London Brewers’ Market, 11 July 2015

fun times in the London Brewers' Market beer garden

Photographer Anita Lawlor has taken some excellent photos of our most recent London Brewers’ Market at Old Spitalfields Market.

This market was a bit different, as we were perched above the beer garden with brewers inside a disused restaurant space and along a terrace. If you were there, relive that ace Saturday! If you weren’t there, see what you missed and be sure to attend our next one, where we’ll be back alongside Independent Label Market in November.

Tom at Camden Town Brewery

Beer terrace

Brixton Brewery bottles

Partizan and Five Points

London Brewers' Market beer garden

Dot from Beavertown

Crate Brewery at London Brewers' Market

Truman's at LBM

Tim at Howling Hops

Hammerton Brewery at LBM

Five Points from the beer garden

More London Brewers Announced For Field Day

More breweries for the London Brewers’ Market bar have been announced for Field Day!

London Brewers' Market at Field Day

Crate Brewery, Meantime Brewing Co, Gipsy Hill Brewing Company and Camden Town Brewery have been added to the line-up of featured breweries. Their fantastic beer will be joining brews from The Five Points Brewing Company, Hackney Brewery, Beavertown Brewery, East London Brewing Company, Redemption Brewing, Fourpure Brewing Co, The Redchurch Brewery and Signature Brew.

Be sure to look out for our bar in Victoria Park on the 6th & 7th of June. Not only will there be good brews with good tunes, but also some fantastic street food options from Street Feast and Venn Street Market, plus coffee from Tim Peaks.

See the music line-up for both days and purchase tickets on the Field Day website. We’ll see you there!

Brewtunes from Hackney Brewery, Orbit Beers, One Mile End and The Five Points

Breweries tend to be noisy places, with the hiss of equipment, the clank of pallet trucks, the bang of mallets onto casks and the whine of pipes as wort moves through them. Another common sound in the breweries of our London brewers is music, often played loudly to be heard over the constant din of brewing and packaging.

Here’s a small selection of what some of our London Brewers’ Market breweries are listening to while brewing, packaging and organising the sales of the beer you’ll be drinking at the next market.

Hackney Brewery’s Jack Landridge 

Jack Landridge at Hackney Brewery

Jerusalem/ Dopesmoker
Sleep
“Immensely heavy drone-rock that soundtracked our Gyle 666 brew.”

Chuck Berry
The Best Of
“Ideal when we’re rocking out brewing up our American Pale Ale!”

Chas and Dave
Anything they’ve recorded
“Look, we’re in the heart of the East End. Our perfect pub has a piano in the corner for a knees-up singalong, pickled eggs on the bar, and local beers made in Hackney available in cask and keg. Gertcha!”

Orbit Beers’ Robert Middleton

Orbit Beers' Robert Middleton

Tricky
False Idols
“Best album since his debut with Maxinquaye.”

Pram
Telemetric Melodies
“Other worldly sounds for chilled out days.”

Pastels
Truckload of Trouble
“Kurt Cobain’s second favourite band’s finest moments.”

One Mile End’s Simon McCabe

Simon McCabe of One Mile End

Gallon Drunk
The Road Gets Darker From Here
“Legendary band keep knocking out amazing albums.”

Antlered Man
This Devil is Them
“Bonkers brilliance.”

Lord Auch
To The Shithouse
“Had to shove one of my own in 😉 Young and Lost Club are at the Independent Label Market, too. Farewell to an amazing label!”

The Five Points’ Doreen Joy Barber

Doreen at The Five Points

Father John Misty
I Love You, Honeybear
“Incredibly wry, but also terribly earnest. Sort of reminds me of growing up in the American South. Maybe it’s the swearing”

Viet Cong
Viet Cong
“We play this album often, as well as Public Strain by Women. It’s just amazing”

Jessica Pratt
Jessica Pratt
“Haven’t had a chance to hear her latest album yet, but her debut LP is aching and magnificent.”

The creativity in brewing often spills over into music, with quite a few brewhands and beer workers in bands and other music projects, as you can see above with Simon McCabe’s Lord Auch, and also Dearjoseph and Echo Lake, featuring Five Points’ Emmanuel Ross and Thom Hill respectively. Signature Brew blend music and together well in their tasty collaborations with artists and record labels.

Beer and music go great together, which is why it’s brilliant to have them both together at Old Spitalfields Market with London Brewers’ Market and Independent Label Market. Ask the brewers what music they’ve been listening to, and chat with the record label folks about what beers they’ve been enjoying!

Guest Post from Peter McKerry: Made in Hackney–London Brewers’ Market

Peter McKerry is a London-based beer geek whose blog, Drunken Cinema, is soon to be reborn with a fancy-pants new website: Brew Geekery. The revamped blog will continue to document Peter’s increasing obsession with beer, and will feature beer and event reviews as well as commentary on the beery issues of the day. You can follow him on Twitter at @PJMcKerry.

London Brewers' Market

Hackney is synonymous with craft beer in London and is well represented at the London Brewers’ Market this Easter, with beers from Hackney Brewery and the event’s organisers, The Five Points Brewing Co.

I was living in Hackney when the craft beer revolution started to gather pace; it was an exciting time as new breweries seemed to be popping up every other day, and all within walking distance from my house. As well as Hackney Brewery and Five Points, other notable breweries from the borough include London Fields, Howling Hops – based in the Cock Tavern brewpub on Mare Street – and Pressure Drop; and while Beavertown is now based in Tottenham, it started life in the cellars of Duke’s Brew & Que in Haggerston.

Hackney has a rich brewing history too, with Truman’s, originally established in 1666 and closing in 1989, being re-established in 2010, emblematic of the wider London beer renaissance. And there are yet more breweries on Hackney’s borders, such as Crate Brewery in Hackney Wick (officially within the boundaries of Tower Hamlets) and One Mile End in, well, Mile End.

Given the plethora of breweries in Hackney, it’s no surprise that there are plenty of places selling Hackney-made beer. For take-away there is the Stoke Newington branch of Borough Wines on Church Street, Noble Fine Liquor on Broadway Market and Clapton Craft on Lower Clapton Road. The pubs are too many to mention, but personal favourites of mine are the Railway Tavern and Ale House on St. Jude’s Street in Dalston, the Jolly Butcher’s on Stoke Newington Road and the aforementioned Cock Tavern on Mare Street. Hell, Hackney’s so craft you can even drink good beer at the cinema: the Rio in Dalston stocks beers from Hackney Brewery, and the Hackney Picturehouse has beers from Beavertown, Bear Hug Brewing, London Fields and Crate.

But back to London Brewers’ Market. We don’t have a definitive tap or bottle list of what’s on offer, but below are my top five Hackney-brewed beers (in no particular order), including two that we may get to scoop on 28 March. It won’t escape your attention that I have a predilection for hoppy pales and IPAs…

1. Pressure Drop Pale Fire – a gorgeously bitter pale ale which, while the hop profile may alter occasionally, remains a fruity, zesty thirst-quencher of a beer, and recently made The Beer O’Clock Show’s top ten UK pale ales.

Hook Island Red in malt

2. Five Points Hook Island Red – a delicious red rye beer packed with US hops, it’s fruity and earthy with a hint of spice, and one that I particularly enjoy on cask. At 6%, you get significant bang for your buck.

Jon at Hackney Brewery

3. Hackney Brewery Amarillo Citra Pale – a veritable “Juicy Banger” of a beer. Although better known for cask ales, Hackney has recently introduced a keg range, and I stumbled across this gem at The Barge House alongside the Regent’s Canal.

4. London Fields Shoreditch Triangle IPA – at 6%, this is a dangerously sessionable IPA with a beautiful caramel malt backbone rounded by a juicy bitterness that has you downing it in no time.

5. Five Points IPA – with a tropical fruit punch that hits you as soon as you pop the cap on your bottle or are handed a pint (which is probably a silly idea given that it comes in at 7.5%), some have compared it favourably to Magic Rock’s Cannonball – but that’s for you to decide…

If you prefer less “hop-forward” beers, Hackney also does a golden ale and a best bitter, while Five Points’ Railway Porter is a fine take on the style. Either way, I’ll see you at the market. Bunny ears optional.

Hello from LBM’s organisers: The Five Points Brewing Company

The Five Points Brewing Company

At The Five Points Brewing Company, we have a great enthusiasm for the London beer scene which we are proudly a part of. As individuals, we have enjoyed the beer of London’s breweries since the heady days of Mason & Taylor. As a brewery, we organised a London Brewers’ bar at Leeds International Beer Festival in 2013 and participated in the first London Beer City last year.

We also organised London Brewers’ Market in the autumn of 2013 and held the first ever edition of the Market on Saturday the 30th of November, 2013, alongside the well-established Independent Label Market at Old Spitalfields. We invited along members of the London Brewers’ Alliance to develop an event to showcase the quality and breadth of breweries in the capital that was good for brewers and drinkers, as well as being a lot of fun for everyone involved!

London is home to a number of breweries–currently at least 62 and growing! With the London Brewers’ Market, we at The Five Points want to help introduce Londoners to the fantastic folks behind their local breweries, as well as to introduce drinkers from all over to what the independent brewers of this city can brew.

Five Points at Christmas 2014 LBM

For those of you who are unfamiliar with us here at The Five Points, we are an independent brewery based in Hackney, East London. We’ve been brewing since March of 2013, and we currently have a core range of four beers: Five Points Pale, Railway Porter, Hook Island Red and Five Points IPA.

We’ll have a stall at the next London Brewers’ Market on the 28th of March alongside 21 other breweries, and we’ll be selling beer on draught as well as our bottles. Be sure to stop by The Five Points’ stand to taste some brews, pick up some bottles and have a chat about our brewery and the market. You can also reach us for any questions or feedback at info@fivepointsbrewing.co.uk.