The places we usually go for our daily dose of caffein tend to be on the smaller side, but Host is something else: it’s in a church!
After coffee, we quickly visited another place of worship: a mid-3rd century mithraeum, nicely reconstructed underneath the Bloomberg headquarters.
Finally it was time to worship our own god—beer—at BrewDog Outpost Tower Hill. We had only been there for breakfast before, so today we finally have the opportunity to see it when it’s beer-o-clock!
When we left London last time we visited it, we already knew we had to return soon, to get a stamp from then-about-to-open BrewDog Canary Wharf. However, a lot can change in half a year, and now we have not one, but three new BrewDog bars to visit—one of which will have its official opening during our visit! Apart from that, we also hope to have some drinks in the new Mikkeller bar, and the Anspach & Hobday pop-up The Pigeon.
Last year’s arduous bus journey was an effective reminder to book our train tickets earlier this time, and after taking advantage of a New Year’s offer, this must be one of our cheapest Eurostar trips so far!
Assuming the BrewDog bars would be too crowded on a Friday night, we decided to spend the evening on the Bermondsey Beer Mile, hoping for slightly fewer people, and to check out a couple of new places.
Since BrewDog got involved in the Hawkes Cidery, we decided to give their craft ciders a try at their taproom. The guys from Anspach & Hobday regularly visit Brussels, now it was our turn to visit them.
London Calling Sweden is a bit special, since their beer isn’t made on the Mile, or even in the UK! It’s brewed by Poppels in Sweden and imported. No brewing in the Moor Beer Company Vaults either, since that’s all done in Bristol, but at least the beer made it to London!
To start, we wanted to get some of the more remote bars done, so first up was the most southern BrewDog bar in London: BrewDog Clapham Junction.
We arrived mere minutes after they opened, but the welcome couldn’t have been warmer! We had some pizza to prepare us for an evening of beer, later topped up with some crack fries in the most western bar, BrewDog Shepherds Bush.
BrewDog Camden just underwent a ten day refurbishment, but luckily for us, it reopened tonight, reason for a big party. Unfortunately, they had some trouble with a few beers on tap, and the stamp was nowhere to be found…
The last bar of the day is the first one we hadn’t actually visited before: BrewDog Angel. In this bar there are some home brew kits one can use to brew their own beer, but for the occasion of a Two Tribes Tap Takeover, a professional brewer had taken over the mash paddle. Even before we had our drinks, we were given the grand tour, and invited to participate in the brewing process.