Beer Genius!

I have quite a lot of friends who live in London. But of course, London is pretty huge compared to Reekie. It's not really as straight forward as just arranging to meet somewhere central. So thus far the amount of folk I’ve actually managed to catch up with has been pretty much zilch. This evening I rectified that by meeting Sir Robb of Scott, Manchester’s finest former resident of Leith. 

We met up in Bermondsey to take a little trip around the Brewery district (I’m calling it that from now on. If there’s an empty railway arch in Bermondsey, some sod is opening a micro brewery in it). The first couple we visited were fine, but the evening took a real upswing when we wandered past The Bottle Shop. A bearded gentleman saw us peering in the door and beckoned to us from the mezzanine bar area. We sort of did a 'who us?' gesture and he ran down stairs to speak the sweetest words you could ever hear.

“There’s some Belgian Brewers here, who legally can’t sell their beer. So they’re having a tasting upstairs and taking donations”. Belgians? Beer? Donations? We practically trampled over the guy in our rush to get up the stairs. 

We’d got lucky. Oh so very lucky. It wasn’t just Belgian Beer. It was exceptional Belgian Beer. There were two Brewers, Brasserie de la Sambre and Brasserie Du Chapitre. Each had two brews over with them. A Sour Saison and a Sour Session IPA from Brasserie de la Sambre. A Farmhouse Saison and a Rauchbier from Brasserie Du Chapter. All superb. The Rauchbier was the best one I’ve ever had. Thanks so much to Axel, Jean-Christophe and his brother (pictured above) for sharing their wonderful brewing expertise with us. Do yourself a favour a check them out.

By the time we bid farewell to Sir Robb, things were very, very merry. We got a bus back up the road and I vaguely remember Riot and I finding it highly amusing for some reason. 

Good seeing you Sir Robb. Next time we'll come to you.