We’ve always been committed to paying our staff fairly, and now we’ve cemented this by gaining accreditation from the Living Wage Foundation as a Living Wage Employer.
The Living Wage Foundation calculates and publishes annual hourly rates of pay that are considered sufficient to live off, with an uplifted rate applicable to London workers – which our team are, of course.
We don’t currently have any staff hired as contractors, but our commitment would apply to any future contractors just the same as it applies to our employees.
We’re proud to have got our accreditation and become one of thousands of employers who have committed to paying the real living wage.
We’re really excited to be a Beer Passport Partner Brewery this year! We’ve joined forces with the team at Beer Passport and around 50 other brewery taprooms across London to bring you a range of discounts and offers when you show your Beer Passport at the bar.
You can get your Beer Passport from www.beerpassport.co.uk and once you have it, bring it along to our taproom and on your first visit (when you get your Beer Passport stamped) you’ll get “buy one, get one free” on your first pint. After that, you’ll get 10% off pints you buy for yourself in our taproom for the rest of the year.
And it’s not just us – there are loads of other brewery taprooms involved – how many stamps will you collect this year?
For quite some time, we’ve thought it likely that our Cashmere Brut IPA would be gluten free, but as with all things that could be harmful to anyone, we had to make sure. Along with many of our other beers, Cashmere is treated with Brewer’s Clarity, which contains a highly specific fungal endopeptidase enzyme to help remove haze from beer. One of the things that is cleared out by the enzyme is gluten – reducing the residual gluten in the beer is effectively a side effect of reducing the haze and trying to make our beer clearer.
As all our beer is vegan, we don’t use isinglass finings in our beers, meaning we have to find other ways to make them clear. We use Brewer’s Clarity as part of that process meaning that a beer being both gluten free and vegan is no coincidence.
We recently sent off a sample of our bottled Cashmere Brut IPA to Murphy & Son for testing and today we received the results: the beer has less than 10 parts per million gluten, meaning it’s well within the 20 ppm legal limit to call it gluten free.
We’re always looking for ways to make our beers more accessible. Making them all vegan was an easy first step, but we’ve been dragging our heels on taking on the gluten free world because we’ve had so much else going on – but now we’re proud to say that our Cashmere Brut IPA is gluten free and we’re thrilled that this means that even more people will be able to enjoy it!
As many of our lovely customers know, we’ve been looking for a new space for our brewery with room for a taproom (and possibly a pony) for quite some time. We started looking in the area around our current place in Edmonton, but the search has widened and widened over time, with even a fleeting suggestion we might move it to Iceland!
We would have liked to stay close to our current location and the community that has supported us over the last five years, but unfortunately we have been unable to find the perfect spot in the borough of Enfield – everywhere we considered was too big, too small, didn’t have everything we would need or had a very limited lease term available that would mean the capital investment in setting things up wouldn’t give us a return over time.
Finally, a few weeks ago, we found somewhere new, not in Edmonton/Enfield – and we signed the new lease this week.
This means that over the summer, subject to various licensing applications being successful, we will be moving our operations to Walthamstow. We’re moving into another industrial unit that’s about 3.5 times the size of our current place and has room for a taproom. It has dedicated office space and even posh loos, and it’s near a few other breweries in a bustling beer community.
Anyone who has been to our Edmonton site recently will know that we’ve outgrown it – as our Brewer, Michaela, put it, we’re “potbound” – and we think this gives us the best opportunity to grow and develop the business as well as continuing to serve our aims as a social enterprise.
We’re planning to do some crowdfunding in the near future to help build the next phase of Beerblefish, so look out for more on that very soon!
The first meal in the new brewery – a Beerblefish tradition!
There really aren’t all that many sleeps to go now until Christmas day! For many people, this is likely to be an odd festive season, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to make the best of it. At Beerblefish HQ, we’ve been planning what we’ll be offering in the run up to Christmas so that you can get all the beer and gin you need in plenty of time.
Gift Ideas
We’ve just added a load of extra gift ideas to the webshop. There is a variety of gift packs to choose from, with both gin and beer options available, and why not add a t-shirt? Don’t forget that we can send Christmas gifts direct to your loved ones – just tick the “ship to different address” box at checkout and put in their details. If you’d like us to put a message in with the gift, please leave us a note in the free text box. We don’t usually put prices in our packages unless you ask us to, so there’s no worry on that front.
Markets and Fairs
We’re going to be busy over the next few weeks to give you as much opportunity as we can to get your hands on your festive beer! Here’s the calendar (so far) in the run up to the big day:
Sunday, 29 November – 10-14.30 – Stroud Green Market (Stroud Green Primary School, corner of Perth and Ennis Roads, N4 3HB)
Saturday, 12 December – 10-16.30 – Forty Hall Christmas Fayre (the courtyard at Forty Hall, Forty Hill, Enfield, EN2 9HA – ticketed event, please book in advance)
Sunday, 13 December – 10-14.30 – Stroud Green Market (Stroud Green Primary School, corner of Perth and Ennis Roads, N4 3HB)
Sunday, 13 December – 10-15.00 – Forty Hall Farmers’ Market (Forty Hall Farm, Enfield, EN2 9HA)
We might add one or two more in if we get the opportunity but, as with everything these days, it’s all subject to COVID-19 restrictions, so keep an eye out on our social media and our events page for all the latest information.
Brewery Shop
The brewery shop will be open as usual on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 12 to 5pm for takeaways of beer and gin. The last day we’ll be open before Christmas is likely to be Saturday, 19 December – keep an eye out for more info nearer the time.
Special Events
On 30 November, our friends at The Little Green Dragon Ale House in Winchmore Hill are running a virtual Christmas Beer Tasting with renowned beer judge, taster and writer Christine Cryne which will feature our 1820 Porter. To register and buy a tasting pack, go to the pub’s webshop – packs will be available for collection on Friday, 27 November or delivery to postcodes local to the pub.
Surprises
We’ve still got a few exciting products up our sleeves (no, not literally) that we’re hoping to get to you before Christmas – watch this space in the next couple of weeks!
With the way things have gone so far this year, we’re not that surprised that we woke up this morning in a Tier 2 “High Alert” zone – to be honest, it would probably take an alien invasion or the discovery of wizards in one of the fermenters to really shock us at this point! (But wouldn’t that be cool, eh?! Wizards in the fermenters…)
Wizard in the fermenter: what it might look like…
We’re fortunate to be in a much better place this time around than we were at the start of the national lockdown in March – now that we have a premises licence and our online shop, we’re pivoting like a ballerina and using our yoga-like flexibility (obtained from P.E. with Joe, obviously) to make sure we can serve our customers whatever the circumstances.
We’re still opening the brewery three days a week – Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 12 to 5pm – for beer and gin takeaways. You can rock up on the day and take your chances on stock, or you can call in advance to reserve stuff from our weekly beer list. You can also order and pay online for brewery collection (but note that this won’t include our special brewery-only discount on bottles and cases). We usually put the weekly beer list up on a Wednesday – look out for it on social media and on the homepage of our website.
You can order from the shop for UK-wide delivery too – you can have mixed 6 and 12 packs of 500ml bottles, mixed 3 and 6 packs of 750ml bottles, individual 750ml bottles and bottles of our Limited Edition Hopped Gin delivered to UK addresses for a £5 flat rate – or delivery is FREE if you spend £70 or more!
Individual 500ml bottles and our 5 litre mini casks are available for brewery collection only. We can’t send mini casks, and individual bottles are complicated because packing boxes are for multiples of 6 (and if they aren’t full, there’s a much greater risk of damage to your beer in transit, which no-one wants).
While we’d love to see you at the brewery, don’t forget to support your local pub too. Everyone in hospitality is having a hard time at the moment, and it really is a case of “use it or lose it”. Many of the pubs we supply are still open and have COVID-secure systems in place to make your visit safe and compliant with the current regulations. Please pay them a visit, whether it’s to drink in or pick up a takeaway – and if you can bear to spend more time with people from your household, please take an inside table; there’s a risk that lots of available seats in pubs will be empty because of the “no mixing with other households indoors” rules.
The great news if you want to meet your mates for a pint is that lots of pubs have upped their outdoors game in the last couple of months – many now have undercover outdoor areas with heating so you can enjoy your drinks in comfort while still getting to catch up with friends.
Finally, look after each other – the first phase of lockdown wasn’t much fun for anyone and, although the restrictions are a little lighter this time around, there are still many people who might be feeling a bit isolated. Make sure you pick up the phone to them and make sure they’re alright – let’s look after each other!
We’re now three months on from joining Work In Progress and one of the inclusion areas we’ve focused on is in our staffing. When we signed up, we had just hired our new brewer, Michaela, whose addition increased the gender diversity of our team – but we thought there was more we could do.
So, a few weeks ago, we welcomed another James to Beerblefish. We’re very excited that we have partnered with West Lea School’s Supported Internship Programme. This is a programme that gives 16 to 24 year olds with Special Educational Needs (SEN), an opportunity to find work and encourages businesses to diversify their workplaces by employing people with SEN.
As a result, James has joined us on a year long placement, fully supported by the programme and a dedicated Job Coach, making his transition into the brewery so much easier on us. We have wasted no time in putting James to work – he’s already helped us brew, bottle and label our beers! James has been given a plethora of tasks in his short time with us so far, and has proven that he is capable of carrying out brewery duties.
He’s also made us think about things in a different way – we need to try to look at the world through his eyes when we’re working with him, which is a great benefit to everyone else in the team too; we’re all learning from each other and we’re used to there being two Jameses in the team now!
James has always wanted to work in the beverage industry, and his enthusiasm and willingness to learn have shone through from the get go. We are very excited to be working with James and the Supported Internship Programme, and look forward to guiding him in the future.
We’re proud to be giving a young person with SEN an opportunity to work and we’d love any of our customers and suppliers who can to consider doing the same – you can find out more by contacting the West Lea Supported Internship Programme at sip@westleaschool.co.uk, or by visiting the SIP website.
We tweeted earlier this week about our Brewer, Michaela, and her quest to run the London Marathon. Today was the day, and the Beerblefish team joined Michaela’s husband and friends on Tottenham Marshes to cheer her on.
I think it’s important to put this in perspective. Running a marathon is a massive effort. It’s not just about the 26.2 miles on the day itself. It means giving up virtually all of your free time for at least six months and spending it running instead of doing whatever else you enjoy. It means being careful about what you eat and drink. It means not just going on long runs every weekend, but also getting up in plenty of time to eat before you go out and then spending another hour or so getting cleaned up sorted out when you get back – it’s basically a day out (or at least it is at my pace!)
And then you get to the race itself and it’s amazing – people cheering you on all the way around, people giving you jelly babies and shouting your name, high-fiving kids as you run alongside the barriers and rounding that final corner onto The Mall and seeing the finishing line ahead of you. I know all this because I’ve done it – ten years ago.
Except this year it’s different. The runners have had a whole year’s build-up since the results of the ballot for places came out, uncertainty since March over when and even whether the race would go ahead at all, and then finally they ended up doing it “virtually” – that is, actually running the marathon distance, but at a place of your choosing, so as to stop crowds gathering in one place.
For even the most hardened professional athlete, that would be tough. How do you manage your training schedule when you don’t know when you’re aiming for? How do you figure out your strategy for where to run your race? Is it better to run a linear route like the normal London Marathon course, or should you do laps of somewhere? What’s the optimal lap length?
Michaela’s had to deal with all of this. To me, it seems like several years ago that she did the Richmond Park Half Marathon as part of her marathon training, when it was actually only in February. She’s kept her legs ticking over all the way through lockdown and moved onto the really long runs in September – she even paid a visit to the Beerblefish stall at Forty Hall Farmers’ Market last month, halfway through the longest run of her training.
To add to all of this, there’s the solitude. Long-distance runners are used to eating up the miles on their own – if you’re really lucky, you might find a like-minded lunatic to run with you at least some of the time – but it’s rare to be on your own in the race itself. Today, Michaela ran seven laps of a route around Tottenham Marshes on her own, starting at the lovely Waterside Cafe, with her support team cheering her on each time she passed. The weather was awful – wet, cold and windy – but she kept going, as she put it, “one foot in front of another.”
Michaela wasn’t just doing this for the privilege of solitary running round reservoirs in the rain, though. She was doing it in memory of her mother-in-law, Margaret, and her Uncle Alan, both of whom died of cancer. She wants to raise money for Cancer Research UK to try to prevent other people from going through the same as they did and, at the time of writing, she’s raised an amazing £968.39 but she’d love to get to her goal of £2,000.
Michaela had her running app tracking her every step of the way and in the end she actually overshot – she literally went an extra mile! She crossed the world’s shortest finishing line (and possibly the only one made of masking tape) in 4h46m – a Herculean effort and a time that most first-time marathoners would be pleased with under normal circumstances.
She celebrated by spraying a bottle of prosecco (mostly in her ear, I think!) and then drinking a beer out of the back of the brewery van. Always classy at Beerblefish.
Needless to say, everyone at Beerblefish is hugely proud of her and really pleased for her that she’s achieved her goal.
If you have a couple of quid lying around, Michaela’s fundraising page will be open for donations for a while yet – she and Cancer Research UK would be very grateful for anything you can give.
It’s harvest time for hops! We’ve known that the Lea Valley is a rich hopping ground for a long time and we’ve wanted to make a green hop beer with local hops for just as long – after all, our Limited Edition Hopped Gin is flavoured with self-seeded hops from Walthamstow, just the other side of the river from the Beerblefish Brewhouse.
However, we weren’t expecting the lovely surprise we got this week when we discovered that the wild (or at least self-seeded) hop plants growing up the gates to the industrial estate where we’re based had borne fruit, and was laden with beautiful cones ripe for the picking.
We had previously agreed with the landlord and the neighbouring industrial estate that we could pick and use any hops that grew – we’ve seen several hop plants in the neighbourhood over the four and a half years that we’ve been here, but none of them have ever produced cones before.
As with our gin hops, we have no definitive idea what variety these are – there are two plants and, from the hint of mint, we think one of them might be a Fuggles variety. The other has a slight lemony aroma, but that doesn’t narrow it down massively given the myriad citrusy hop varieties.
The hop plants are less than 50 metres from the brewery door, so we picked them and then ran them straight into the freezer to preserve all their hoppy goodness, ready for Michaela to brew them into a green hop beer. Keep an eye out for our green hop brew over the coming weeks!
My name is James Atherton and I grew up in Leeds. I moved to London via Manchester and Edinburgh and for the past ten years I’ve lived in Harringay, North London with my wife, Bethany, and our cat Ozric.
James and Ozzy the Cat
What made you decide to become a brewer and how did you get to where you are now?
I first started making beer at university when I realised that homebrewing was cheaper than even student bar prices. I moved around a bit after graduating from my Biochemistry and Computer Science degree, and it wasn’t until we moved into our current house ten years ago that I had the space to homebrew again.
A few years later, I heard about UBREW, a homebrewing club that allowed me to brew on shared equipment in Bermondsey on a scale that wouldn’t be possible in our cellar. Friends and family told me that these beers were good and that I should consider setting up commercially. I had intended to do so on a commercial kit that UBREW were installing, but in the end we managed to get our current space in Edmonton before that came to fruition. Our kit came from a defunct brewery in Suffolk and we did our first brew in our own premises in October 2016.
Since then, the brewery has continued to grow – we hired our first staff in June 2018 and I was thrilled to welcome our new brewer, Michaela, in August this year.
What’s been the most challenging thing about establishing your brewing career?
This interview and overcoming intense apathy. Seriously, working out what I was doing it for. The whole point of setting up a brewery was that I enjoyed creating and brewing beers and I’m not hugely incentivised by making massive profits. I need to eat, of course, but money was never the driving force behind the brewery. That’s why, in 2017, Bethany and I decided to refocus the brewery as a social enterprise, concentrating on how we could make it do good in the world.
At the time, my cousin was trying to find a civilian job after a career in the army, so we decided to see if we could help people in a similar situation by hiring people coming out of the armed forces who were interested in a career in brewing; one of our first employees was ex-Royal Artillery. My professional background is in IT, so I also decided to give time and, when possible, money to charities that provide IT education.
The first ever commercial pint of Beerblefish Bloodletter
What’s the best beer you’ve ever drunk and why?
There’s absolutely no way I can narrow this down to one beer, so here’s a selection of my favourites:
Ohana Kumquat IPA – this is a perfectly-balanced beer with an amazing body and carbonation and it was totally unexpected. The best beer on a three week tour of Southern California breweries.
Rodenbach Grand Cru – just amazing. A balance of sour and malt and subtle hop, mixed fermentation flavours…it just has everything.
Cantillon 2013 Lou Pepe Kriek – easily the best kriek I’ve ever tasted. Subtle, soft, sour and the aftertaste was not like any other fruit sour because there were no edges to it.
Beerblefish Bloodletter II aged 18 months – this was the forerunner to our 1892 IPA. It was good when it was first in the bottle, but slightly harsh on the bitterness; having mellowed for 18 months, it took on a slight hint of sour balanced with rounded bitterness and a strong malt profile – it drank like a 4% beer when it was actually 7.2%!
Westvleteren 12 – heaven in a glass. Sweet but not cloyingly so, velvety, soft, great with food – the best beer you can have with monastic paté.
Iron Fist Velvet Glove – this is the best stout I’ve had anywhere in the world. It does exactly what it says on the tin – it caresses you with a velvet glove then knocks you out with an Iron Fist.
And what about the best beer you’ve brewed?
A toss-up between 1892 IPA and 1820 Porter. I love the mixed fermentation character. Traditional British ale flavours are paired with the slight sour berry flavours from the brettanomyces, plus there’s a twist of modern hops on the aroma.
And the worst?
The first ever homebrew done in the cellar of our current house. It was horrific. I bittered with Columbus hops and the flavour hops were Cascade. It had a pale slightly golden colour, poured and looked great, crisp white head, nice carbonation out of the keg. It tasted of burnt, bitter onion peel or overcooked garlic. Disgusting. I’d used too much Columbus, there was far too much bitterness and, as I later discovered, I hate Columbus hops with a fiery passion. If they’re in a beer, I can now detect them at about 18 inches from my face and it is the work of Satan in hop form.
If you were only allowed to keep one beer style forever, what would it be?
Flanders red. Because it’s amazing.
Other than the obvious two (Covid and Brexit), what do you think are the biggest challenges facing the independent brewing industry right now?
Even though you said I couldn’t have Brexit, I’m still going to say Brexit as the biggest challenge. AI singularity or asteroid strike are next. After that, the Small Brewers’ Duty Relief Coalition. They want to penalise small brewers by pulling up the ladder that allowed them to get to where they are. While I don’t think that Small Brewers’ Relief on duty is perfect and I understand that the current cliff-edge in the taper system is unhelpful, the solution is not to make smaller breweries pay more duty while larger breweries pay less.
What are you most looking forward to for the future of Beerblefish?
Eventually moving the brewery to somewhere with enough space that we don’t have to stack the staff on top of the fermenters. Also, to one day have all 10 of our fermenters in operation (currently we’re at seven). This interview being over. Oh, and all the lovely beers we’ve got coming up – we’ll be doing a batch of our Viking Ale with Kveik yeast soon and, after a very successful pilot, we’ll be brewing a larger batch of our new gingery bitter, Gingerbeerble. And finally, I’m excited about tasting our hundredth brew, which is a Flanders red that we brewed this week in collaboration with our friends at Pope’s Yard Brewery.
Which Beerblefish beer is your favourite at the moment?
As we head into Autumn, it’s either our new Gingerbeerble or our fresh batch of lovely Cashmere. I also enjoyed the mini casks of our small batch Belgian Porter over the summer.
If you could brew any beer in any style, with no restrictions on price or quantity of ingredients, what would it be?
It would be an 8.6% version of 1892 IPA, aged for 18 months in a wooden foeder; I’d split the batch 50/50 and age half of it on cherries for 6 months and then blend it back with a fresh batch before bottling.
So, there you have it: all about James. Thanks, James, for doing this interview.
My name is Michaela Charles and I’m originally from Cliffe in Kent although I now live in Walthamstow with my husband, Daniel, and cat, Schrodinger.
What made you decide to become a brewer and how did you get to where you are now?
Having come from a small village with five pubs it’s easy to think good beer is in my blood! I was raised on Gadd’s and Shepherd Neame and always encouraged to be curious with beer. My first job was at a certain huge pub chain. I really enjoyed the cellar management and in time I was given some very good opportunities including brewing a beer for the national beer festival.
I like to think I persuaded breweries to give me hands on experience but in honesty I probably hounded them into it! It’s entirely through the generosity, of both time and knowledge, of these senior brewers that I got a foot in the door. It’s a quality that is so often overlooked in so many other industries but sets brewers and their teams apart.
From there I gave up bar work completely and became second brewer at Clarence and Fredericks. I was trusted to release beer under my own brand, Upstairs Brewing. That took a back burner when I was asked to run the brewing operation at Pitt Cue in Devonshire Square and the real creativity started. Since then I haven’t looked back!
What’s been the most challenging thing about establishing your brewing career?
The big challenge for me was the jump between brewery assistant and brewer. I give so much credit to the willingness of brewers to teach, especially Duncan Woodhead.
There’s a lot of talk of sexism in the industry. I’m lucky enough not to have experienced much of it first hand. I think the brewing industry as a whole is much too savvy for that now; however, the pub trade has a bit of catching up to do.
What’s the best beer you’ve ever drunk and why?
The best beer I’ve ever drunk was a bottle of Left Hand Milk Stout some twenty years ago. It was ice cold and served in a goblet and it felt like falling into a kinder egg. Divine! Second to that is the pint of Whitstable Bay Pale Ale I’d have after work in my local. Always a pristine pint of hoppy heaven.
And what about the best beer you’ve brewed?
The best beer I’ve ever brewed is the Rauchbier I produced for Pitt Cue. It was a smoked German Lager that I researched whilst in Bamberg. It took ages to brew each batch and it went perfectly with our mangalitsa pork and pickles. Crisp, smokey, clean and conker red. An absolute beauty.
And the worst? 🙂
The bacon beer. The boss insisted we should have one so I brewed it. It was revolting. I then brewed the Rauchbier and we never discussed the bacon beer again.
If you were only allowed to keep one beer style forever, what would it be?
English pale ale. It can be everything you need between crisp and refreshing, and malty and comforting. Park beer, Sunday lunch, music festival and celebration.
Other than the obvious two (Covid and Brexit), what do you think are the biggest challenges facing the independent brewing industry right now?
Every brewery seems to need a Unique Selling Point. Great tasting beer doesn’t appear to be enough. I used to drink Whitstable Bay or Gadds, say, because I knew their beer was spot on. But now a brewery needs something extra or other to compete. I don’t mean to say that there’s anything wrong in appealing to a niche, but the beer has somehow become secondary. I would love to have a brewery that has a flying fox circus on the mezzanine and an actual squirrel on the can but I would still like people to come for the beer.
What are you most looking forward to about brewing for Beerblefish?
Yeast! It’s been a little while since I’ve exercised my creativity and a brewery team that uses blended yeast is a great place to get it going. I love the subtle manipulation to create enhanced flavours. Lots to get my teeth into.
Which Beerblefish beer is your favourite at the moment?
My favourite is Infinite Improbability Saison, it’s a yeast I really enjoy for its distinctive pep and a blooming refreshing beer too!
If you could brew any beer in any style, with no restrictions on price or quantity of ingredients, what would it be?
A pale ale with Icelandic spring water. And then the same thing with Burton and London water. That would be a nice experiment and a scenic road trip.
So, there you have it: all about Michaela. Thanks, Michaela, for undergoing this interrogation!!
We can’t quite believe that we’ve managed to keep a brewery alive for five whole years. The big day is actually on Monday, 3 August, but like all good folks, we’re celebrating at the weekend and not on a “school night”. We’re very sad that we can’t have a really big party at the moment, but we will do something once it’s allowed and sensible – we might be making six the new five, the way things are going at the moment, but rest assured that we’ll let you know when we’ve got realistic plans for a big birthday bash!
In the meantime, we want to thank all the people who helped us to this milestone – friends, family, staff, customers and suppliers have all had a hand in us still being here and making great beer and gin and we couldn’t have done it without your support.
If you’re reading this before 10pm BST on Saturday, 1 August, you still have time to enter our beer competition on Facebook and our tshirt competition on Twitter, so head over there to enter for a chance to win!
We’ve put together a little video of the story so far for your viewing enjoyment!
P.S. Keep an eye out on our social media next week – we’ve got a very special announcement coming up!
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