(Actually) brewed in Brighton

 Basing your brewery in Brighton is a great idea, from a marketing perspective. It’s a popular summer destination, so you have that association going for you; it’s well known for its bohemian character, so there’s that, too. There are recognisable landmarks like the Laines, or the skeleton of the burned out pier that now eerily shadows the slick, pointless i360 tower. You could draw on these in your branding.

Not such a great proposition financially though. Rents are high, second only to London. So you can see how one might form a dastardly plan to claim, or at least heavily imply, to have a brewery based in Brighton, whilst taking care of the inconvenient of business of brewing beer somewhere cheap in the Sussex countryside. 

To be clear, there are a number of excellent local breweries who don't actually brew in Brighton and have never suggested that they do. They have made the city their primary market and have become associated with it. I have no problem with that whatsoever. Gun, Franklins and Downlands are amongst my favourites. 

But the strategy I describe is increasingly familiar, and brings about various questions about contract brewing and transparency. It might be worth making a distinction between contact brewing – where beers are made to your specifications at a third party brewery, such as Missing Link in East Grinstead – and cuckoo brewing, where brewers don’t have their own site but do the hands-on work on other breweries’ kit. The former isn’t ideal, but can be an important step towards breweries establishing themselves in their own permanent home. The latter is preferable in terms of transparency; the ownership of the stainless steel is less important than the understanding that the group of brewers representing the brand name on the can, or bottle, or pump clip, rolled their sleeves up and made the beer you’re drinking.

But there is also the question of authenticity and a sense of place. If I’m told a beer is from a certain place – be that Brighton, Brussels, Berlin – then I expect it to have been brewed there. It is an important factor, one of the intangible things adjacent to whatever’s in the glass, that means something.

Assuming it means something to others, too, I thought I should pull together a small directory of the breweries who actually brew in Brighton. I can't guarantee it’s complete - these things move fast. Still, if you’re in Brighton and want to legitimately drink local, here’s some options.

Brighton Bier

Brewing since 2011, Brighton Bier is the city’s original craft brewery. For a good while they were the only full scale commercial brewery in the city, and have been known to speak their minds about those breweries claiming Brighton heritage whilst brewing elsewhere. Before setting up at their current Kemptown brewery, they began life at Hand in Hand brewpub just down the road.

Their flagship pale ale, simply named Bier, typifies what they do so well. Endlessly drinkable, it crams a lot into its 4% ABV, with lots of fresh lemon and pine and a moreish bitterness. Their cask beers are also excellent – find South Coast IPA in good condition and you won’t want to drink anything else. Their output can feel a little samey at times – a lot of pale ales at around the 5% mark - but regular beers like Grand Havana, a beautifully smooth cask porter, and No Name Stout balance things out.

The beers used to be available in cans, but that seems to have stopped, and whilst they do make it outside of the city, they’re at their best in one of the brewery’s excellent pubs. Brighton Bierhaus, the most central of the three, is designated as the official taproom, but the equally excellent Haus on the Hill and Freehaus in the Hanover area of town are also highly recommended.

Hand Brew Co.

I wrote a profile on the Hand in Hand brewpub back in 2018, and much has changed in the time that’s passed. The ‘idiosyncratic’ brewing set up, which necessitated a kind of ‘make do and mend’ approach, has been expanded and modernised and, most significantly, Hand Brew Co. has outgrown the premises. A new brewery and tap room in Worthing is set to open soon, which is exciting news. The beers have always been impressive, but have grown increasingly accomplished over time. Most recently, I was seriously impressed by the Hans Pilsner, a dead ringer for a herbal, bitter Bavarian pils.

The new operation in Worthing doesn’t, however, replace in-house brewing at the pub. Head brewer Jack assures me “we’re still brewing at the Hand and always will.” As is blindly obvious, the best place to find these is the pub itself, happily also one of Brighton’s most characterful boozers.

BRZN

BRZN has apparently existed in some capacity for over a year now, but completely passed me by until a couple of weeks ago when I stumbled across their new venture on my way home from the shops. Initially operating as a cuckoo brewer, they moved into a shipping container in what’s known as the ‘Cobbler’s Thumb’, just up the road from Preston Circus, in May. Their model of selling beer directly to pubs was challenged by lockdown, so now they open their doors every Saturday for takeaways.

The beers are pretty inventive, ranging from fruited sours to imperial milk stouts, and they seem to make liberal use of the magnificent Voss Kviek yeast. I was hugely impressed with Modern Solutions, a Voss-powered pale ale with cold brew coffee from the superb Pharmacie roastery in Hove. Combining both foam bananas and the little pink shrimps that shared their pick ‘n’ mix bag, sweet orange, zesty and floral coffee notes and a gentle, refreshing acidity in the finish, this is an incredibly flavoursome beer for a relatively low ABV of 4.5%. On the strength of Modern Solutions, I’ll be back at the shipping container pretty soon.

Unbarred

Unbarred began life as a homebrew operation, before setting up commercially through the aforementioned Missing Link. They now have a permanent home in Brighton, having taken over a great purpose-built brewery and taproom space from the now defunct Holler Brewery last year. For me, the beers are far more consistent these days.

It would be reductive to say that Unbarred specialise in wacky adjuncts, but they’re certainly not averse to them - it's part of the 'anything goes' approach to brewing implied by their name. These range for the tasteful - pale stout with Nicaraguan coffee cherry tea - to the... decadent. Take Bueno Shake, a hazelnut milk stout inspired by a certain European chocolate treat, or Dip Le Donut, a coffee and doughnut white stout which uncannily reproduces both the sweet bready quality and the gooey glaze of a Krispy Kreme.

If the thought of all that makes your teeth hurt, then look to something like their Casual Pale, an aptly named easy-going pale ale, full of refreshing lemon and pine notes on a faintly biscuity pale malt based that’s made for multiple laid-back pints.

Larrikin

I've been slow to investigate Larrikin because of shellfish. The brewery operates out of the basement of The Urchin, a Hove pub specialising in shellfish, a cuisine to which I am extremely averse. However much I want to support what is by all accounts a lovely pub and a small Brighton-based brewery, the thought of sitting sipping beer in a room that hums of mussels is not my idea of a good time.

I was excited, then, to see that Larrikin had started selling cans to take away and drink in a neutrally-scented environment. This seemed perfect until I opened them. I have to assume that something is going wrong in the canning process, because all three beers (IPAs of various iterations and ABV) were the same unappetising brown colour, like fruit left out to go oxidised. They also all tasted remarkably similar, with a sweet fruity note recalling boiled sweets, and some fresher melon notes that were reasonably pleasant. 

It's hard to believe these beers were as the brewer intended, but then ideally, I think the brewer intended for them to be drunk in the pub and I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm exaggerating about the shellfish thing for comic effect, but according to those whose opinions matter (i.e. people who can stand to be in the same room as a prawn), the place is excellent. And yes, they do brew an oyster stout - it would be mad if they didn't.

Loud Shirt

Loud Shirt is probably the Brighton brewery I'm least familiar with. Hence the lack of relevant photo; hopefully this snap of kids TV icon and loud shirt trailblazer Dave Benson Phillips will suffice. They have been brewing since 2016, but I’m not sure how long they’ve occupied their brewery in Whitehawk.

I may as well acknowledge that, even if unconsciously, the name and general ‘embarrassing dad’ vibe of the branding has probably been a barrier to investigating their stuff. I did once encounter their Ecstasy Stout at a local CAMRA festival; rich and chocolatey but with an unusual clementine note (is it Sorachi Ace?), I liked it enough to forfeit the ticking potential of such a setting and went back for more.

They do bottle and can, but I was unable to find anything for my important research, so Loud Shirt remains a bit of an enigma for me. Some of the beers sound very appealing; Hallucination Brune in particular - I'll be keeping an eye out for more.

The free state of Kemptown

The following is my contribution to The Session #133, hosted by Gareth at Barrel Aged Leeds. This month's theme is 'Hometown Glories'.

The year is 1989, and the Hand in Hand has no roof. Already 120-something years old, the pub is about to enter a new chapter; fermentation tanks are edging their way down into the cellar. The arrival of this kit marks the birth of the Hand in Hand as a brewpub.

Fast forward to 2017, and a fresh delivery of shiny stainless steel has arrived at the pub. Two new fermentation tanks are being lowered through a hole in the floor by the front door; leaving the roof intact, this time only floorboards are lifted. They’ll be returned and carpeted over again before the pub opens. Temperature controlled and able to contain the pressure demanded of beer destined for a keg, these tanks reflect the ambitions of Jack Tavaré, brewer at Hand Brew Co., the brand now operating out of the Hand.

Modern tanks aside, the basic brew kit is the same one that was installed those 28 years ago by then-landlord Bev Robbins, though the brews that comes out of it are very different. “The beers were awful apparently,” says Jack. “It was always the same base recipe and then when they were filling casks, the landlord just used to put different stuff in it to make it a different beer. I think there was one with… it wasn’t gravy brownings but it was something like that. Some kind of brown, food-based thing.” Another, dyed with red food colouring, was given the name Dragon’s Blood – an advertisement for it is still painted on the side of the building, but something tells me Jack won’t be reviving the recipe.

Crammed into a cramped, higgledy-piggledy space behind the scenes, the kit works on the principle of a traditional tower brewery. Rather than pumps, the flow process is propelled by gravity. The hot liquor tank and mash tun are on the second floor, and the wort flows down into the kettle on the level below. Once it’s boiled for an hour and hops are added, it’s transferred through a pipe, passing a heat exchanger on its way through the bar and into the fermenters in the cellar.

“We do actually use a couple of pumps now,” Jack laughs, “we’ve modernised”. He’s made small improvements here and there, like installing a manway on the kettle; previously, the only way to add hops was to drop them through a tiny hole which also released steam. “So far we don’t have a chimney,” he explains, “so when it’s boiling, steam just billows into this room. But that was the only hole I had, so when I was adding hops I had this steam blowing, hops going everywhere…”

Many of the old kit’s quirks remain, however, requiring some creative thinking. For example, Jack sets his hot liquor tank to around 92 degrees. “Normally you’d want your liquor around 77 degrees, depending on what you want your mash to be,” he tells me. “But below the element I get this pocket of cold liquor." Because the contents of the hot liquor tank can't be mixed, "I have to overheat the top part so that when that’s mixed with the bottom part and transferred into the mash tun, it will equal 77. You have to work around it.”

Bev and Brenda Robbins

Hand Brew Co. has been the house brand since August 2016. Since the initial installation, the brewery has been almost constantly used, with only short spells of inactivity. Bev ran the pub with his wife Brenda until he passed away in 2006. He brewed under the brand Kemptown Brewery, reviving the name of a historic brewery that operated in this part of Brighton until the mid-1960s. “I think the way he got round it was by making ‘Kemptown Brewery Co. Est. 1989’ the full legal name,” Jack says. The kit was then used sporadically until it was taken over by Gary Sillence. He maintained the Kemptown name whilst using any spare capacity for his own brand, Brighton Bier, now a much larger operation based in a unit just down the road.

Around the time Gary left, the pub was taken on by its current owners, Jen and Clark, leaving the brewery temporarily empty with the intention of starting brewing again once they’d found their feet. Jack was then operating a small brewery, Beercraft, from a pilot kit at the Watchmaker’s Arms micropub in Hove, whilst working bar shifts at the Hand. “I was working behind the bar here and we got chatting about the brewery. I said “I think I should do it!””, Jack tells me. As Hand Brew Co. grew, he had less and less time to dedicate to Beercraft, and took the decision to merge the two companies. He hopes to move the small pilot kit up to Kemptown for trial recipes.

And the beers? Well, they’re excellent, reflecting an obviously meticulous attention to detail despite the equipment’s vagaries. I loved Hans, a clean and bitter pilsner. This gets the full lagering treatment, spending a generous eight weeks in the tanks, currently tying up a large percentage of the brewery’s capacity but absolutely worth it. Ayyyy, a US breakfast stout is just as impressive; brewed with lots of oats for a decadent creamy texture, its richness is rounded out by cocoa nibs and beans from Hove’s wonderful coffee roasters, Pharmacie. Aside from these, the current focus is on dry-hopped pale ales, though Jack has ambitions to move into Belgian styles.

Initially, the beer brewed on the premises was exclusively sold here. Around 75% of the Hand beers are sold on the premises, but the remaining casks and kegs are sent to various bars around Brighton and the surrounding area. So whilst you don’t have to visit the Hand in Hand to try them, you really should. It’s small and well worn-in in the best way, walls covered with breweriana and ceiling beams decorated with a collection of ties snipped from the necks of punters by former landlady Brenda as a reminder that they were no longer at work. On my afternoon visit, there’s a warm community spirit to the place; regulars pop in for tea served in dimpled half-pint mugs as well as stemmed glasses of beer. It’s one of Brighton’s most characterful pubs.

Above the door hangs a sign that reads ‘you are now entering the free state of Kemptown’. I like the sentiment, but wondered if it had any further significance. “I really don’t know,” says Jen, landlady and director. “I think it just meant “anything goes” as its Kemptown and bonkers!?” And as such, it sums up why the Hand in Hand is such a wonderful place.

My sincere thanks to Jack and Jen for their hospitality. In the interests of disclosure, I'll point out that they refused to let me pay for my beers.

Brighton Brewer's Market

Great keg beer isn’t easy to find in Brighton. There’s plenty in specialist pubs and bars, of course, but walk into your average boozer and you’re likely to find three or four handpumps, often dispensing excellent local beer, whilst the keg lines remain dominated by the usual macro lagers, Guinness and cider. Whilst pubs with brewery/pubco/chain ties might have some freedom to choose from either SIBA’s supply list or a pre-approved selection of breweries, I suspect this freedom doesn’t extend to kegged beers, subsequently making kegs harder for small breweries to sell. But with more established breweries like Burning Sky selling in kegs for a few years now and the likes of 360, Gun and Arundel now moving into this area, there’s an emerging demand for locally produced and full-flavoured keg beer.

I love cask beer too, of course, and would never state a general preference for either dispense method. Notably, the organisers of the Brighton Brewer’s Market, an outlet for local kegged beer, promoted the event without denigrating cask, and most of breweries pouring there produce cask beer too. It was a welcome chance to redress the balance a little bit and experiment with styles perhaps better suited to the keg format. Set in Yardy, a small courtyard adjacent to the Marwood coffee shop on Ship Street, there was food grilling at one end and beers pouring from a converted piano at the other.

Having written about Beercraft, the small pilot brewery based on the Watchmaker’s Arms premises, I was delighted to finally sample a couple of brewer Jack’s wares. A 3.2% Table Beer was seriously impressive – its easy-drinking light body and brisk carbonation made it really refreshing on an (occasionally) hot and sunny afternoon, and the hop flavour and aroma crammed into such a small beer is amazing. It’s truly sessionable in the sense that it’s difficult to stop at one – my plan to try as many different beers as possible was abandoned as I went back for two more glasses of the Table Beer.

There was also Zeit Weisse, a hefeweisse born out of a collaboration between BeerCraft and Brewtorial. This was excellent, too, familiar in its classic Bavarian yeast character – banana and clove – but a little different at the same time, with some gentle soft vanilla flavour in the background and just a touch of sharp fruitiness.

Brewtorial’s Logic Engine American Pale Ale recently won first place at the London and South East Craft Brewing competition, and I can see why – it’s an impressive beer. I want to say that it tastes like fruity sweets – Fruit Pastilles, or maybe Fruit Salad chews – but that would give an impression of cloying sweetness, which is far from the case. It is bursting with citrus and tropical fruit flavours, though, with a gentle bitterness and a beautiful full body that makes each gulp super satisfying.

The dream would be for a greater number of Brighton’s pubs to kick off a couple (just a couple!) of the big lagers, halt the creeping presence of pseudo-craft sub-brands from large breweries, and extend their support for local breweries to the keg fonts. In the meantime, Brighton Brewer’s Market will be back on the first Saturday of August, and again in September.

A date with Darkness

Whilst I do my fair share of thinking about (and drinking) beer, I don’t really do very much beer-related stuff. I don’t even go to pubs as often as I probably should, never mind travelling the country to do so; I have never been to a tap takeover, beer dinner, or even a beer festival. There are many reasons for this, but after breaking this drought at Dark Star meet-the-brewer event at Brighton’s North Laine Brewhouse last week, I'm determined to change that pattern.

The North Laine is a great space – part US-style brewpub and restaurant, part Bavarian beer hall, and can hold a lot of people, so it’s great to see them putting their extra capacity to good use with events like these. As we arrive, there’s already a small group clustered around the hand pumps at the end of the bar. Initially, we’re greeted with bad news – Dark Star’s head brewer Andy Patterson is in bed with the flu and won’t be making it. Luckily, one of the other brewers, Amir (new to the brewery after stints at Beavertown and Hackney), and director Paul Reed are here instead.

These are exciting times for Dark Star. For as long as I've lived here, their beers have been ever-present on bars across Sussex, but their reach is far greater than that of a small regional brewery. Alongside the Partridge, near the brewery, and the Evening Star in Brighton, they’re looking to open several new pubs – the first site, in Horsham, is scheduled for early next year. They also reveal this evening that they've outgrown their facilities in Partridge Green and are starting to look for new, larger premises.

Equally exciting for me is the launch of their new seasonal – Rockhead, an American brown ale, and I dive straight into a pint as people continue to arrive. I’d tried this recently from keg at the Star and was very impressed – served this way, the body is full and creamy, thick without becoming hard work. The cask version this evening is even better – it’s in fantastic condition and the hops taste hugely fresh and vibrant without threatening to wash out the foundation of warming malt. This balance isn’t always there in US-hopped brown ales, which can often come off more like black IPAs, but at the base of Rockhead are all the flavours I’m looking for in the style – caramel, cola, a little chocolate. The only American hop here is Amarillo, which lends a peachy sweetness, whilst Australian-grown Citra and a trio of British fuggles, Goldings and Admiral bring citrus bitterness.

Once everyone’s here, Paul and Amir each give a brief talk, giving some background on the brewery and their range of beers. There’s a raffle draw, in which I win a pint – I choose Revelation, which tastes all the sweeter as it’s free. Amir tells us that they use a device called a ‘hoptimiser’ in making this beer – it’s like a giant tea bag which infuses the beer with hops without directly adding them, giving the beer a smoother quality. Makes sense to me – my pint is full of juicy hop flavour, but is in no way spiky or dry. It’s fantastic.

After some plates of food are brought out for everyone to share, we hear from Laine’s head brewer Nic Donald, who talks us through the beers made in-house here, along with a quick brewery tour. When Sidony asks a question about sour beer, he’s even generous to share a sample of a pink grapefruit beer, soured in the kettle with Greek yoghurt and a dunk from some grain sacks, that he’s brewed at one of the company’s London pubs. It’s very good and I’d be delighted to see something similar on offer at the North Laine.

Beer is, quite obviously, best in a social situation. That social situation needn't be anything more complicated than a group of people talking. Beer is also good at enabling such situations, and not only through its inhibition-lowering qualities. A glass of beer in everyone’s hand is a great leveller and conversation starter, and that’s why these kinds of events can offer as much to the greenest novice as they can to the hardened beer nerds. My new year’s resolution for 2016 ought to be to do more of this sort of thing.

Two brown ales; Brighton Bier and Fourpure

Usually, I wait until I've tried five or six new brown ales and post a bulletin on my latest finds, as I did here and here. On this occasion, I thought I’d better get in quick with my thoughts on two (I think) limited edition beers whilst they’re still around.

Brighton Bier Free State 21st Century Brown

Brighton Bier are having a great 2015. Having installed a brand new brewery, they’re going from strength to strength, and at this point have gotten extremely good at packing juicy hop flavour into their beers. Tasting Free State in cask conditioned form, I felt like the beer in front of me just could not possibly taste any fresher – the hops are so upfront, but at the same time, don’t smack you around the chops with bitterness. My guess, at the time, was the hop bill was a mixture of US and Southern Hemisphere hops – “something like orange and lime pith which seems like a Southern Hemisphere thing”, I wrote in a note on my phone, whilst also picking out a lychee tang that suggested Citra. I was wrong on both counts – this is a single hop beer made with Equinox, a new US variety from the same breeders that brought us Mosaic, Simcoe and the aforementioned Citra. The citrus pith thing is a kind of lingering fizzy sensation on the tongue, slightly dry and always encouraging another sip. A complex malt base brings a full, mealy body that’s pitched perfectly for my liking – not heavy going, but never feels like it’s slipping away too easily.

I do have one slight issue, though. Had I been accosted in the pub, blindfolded and asked to taste this beer without knowing what it was, I would have confidently told you it was a pale ale. It’s brown in appearance, sure, but it’s a strange experience whereby the image of the glass you’re drinking from and the taste of the beer in your mouth don’t seem to match. Maybe, once the glass has warmed a little and once I go specifically in search of it, I can detect a hint of caramel, a little chocolate. Don’t get me wrong – this is a great beer, probably the best I've tasted from this excellent brewery and one I could drink endlessly. I just like a suggestion of something dark in my brown ale.

Fourpure Beartooth American Brown Ale

In one of my first posts on the subject of brown ale, I featured a seasonal from Fourpure called, simply, American Brown Ale. This beer served as a prototype for Beartooth, an improved version under a new name and in a new can. I enjoyed it a lot first time round, though my review seems to dwell on a dryness that isn't really there in the new version. It’s still bitter, but well balanced, and full of juicy hop flavour as well.

It’s a very handsome pour – dark brown, bordering on black, with a thick and creamy beige head, and an enticing aroma of fresh citrus fruits hits you immediately. The flavour is a delicate balancing act between malt and hops – there are husky, cereal-like flavours in the background, with a little roasted bitterness that brings coffee and the faintest hint of smoke. The hops, which recall grapefruit and small, sweet oranges – satsumas or tangerines - are harmonious with this malt backbone, neither element threatening to overpower the other. It’s wonderful, and you should drink it whilst you can.

Weird pubs in Brighton and Hove: The Neptune

I've been living thirty seconds away from the Neptune for the past six months. Now, with just a few days to go until I move house, I thought I’d better satisfy my curiosity and finally take a look in the first in an occasional series of weird pubs around the city.

Several weird things about the Neptune are noticeable in a glance. The cool ornate sign is one, and the general weather-beaten appearance (it’s just off Hove’s seafront) another. When the front door is shut, which weather dictates it usually must be, you can’t see in very clearly. Pubs like this always look shut even when they’re open, and always have me anticipating an American Werewolf in London-style entrance. The Neptune also bears the branding of a Courage tied pub, intriguing since this brewery no longer exists. I had assumed that there were no more Courage pubs, though an internet search suggests there are – the Courage beers are, after all, still available, now brewed by Wells & Young. But none of them are on sale here.

Not that I was interested in drinking them anyway, especially since the cask selection in the Neptune is pretty solid – ignore the Abbot Ale and you can choose from Harvey’s Best or beers from Kissingate and Franklins, also local. My pint of Franklin’s Smoked Porter isn't brilliant – there’s a little acidity that I'm not convinced should be there, even if the smoke flavour is bang on – but whatever this says about my prejudices, I expected a rancid pint of unlovingly selected, uncarefully kept, twiggy brown beer, so I was happy.

The place is small. Not too dingy, not too much stale beer smell. Harvey’s towels not doing much to soak up the spilt beer on the bar. Reasonably busy – mostly locals, I guess, since most seem to know each other. Lots of saucy Sid James-style laughter around the room. The bloke next to me has something to say to his mate about my beer selection, but I can’t quite catch it. At first I think he’s saying its expensive - £3.50 a pint – and then that it’s a strange choice for a first pint. I'm just having the one, which might put me in the minority in this venue. The atmosphere isn't unfriendly anyway. I take a seat at the bar, far from the only singular male drinker adopting this position, whilst half-reading my book and soaking up the ambience.

I've been sat there a while, minding my own business, when the lights behind me dim. A lady in silver trousers has stepped up to a microphone on a corner stage.  There’s  live music here twice a week. “Hello”, she says in a thick Irish accent, “is everybody feeling alive?” The following account of what happened next is pasted verbatim from a text conversation I had with a friend immediately afterwards. It’s not my best writing but I feel the breathlessness of the prose communicates the situation well;

“They had some Irish woman about to sing on stage in there and she said “is everybody feeling alive?” and then some bloke said “we will be”. Then the barman said really loudly “we will be when you get that kit off” and I drank my drink really quickly and left.”

This is the thing with these slightly down-at-heel locals pubs – the people romanticising their existence and role in the community and the people defending them from the threat of closure of pubco buyouts aren't, I suspect, often the same people drinking in them. I want places like this to exist, but I’d be lying if I said I was comfortable here. In any case, pubs need custom to survive, and the Neptune has plenty of that this Sunday afternoon, so I doubt they could care any less whether I'm in there with my head in a book, killing the vibe. 

The Neptune

10 Victoria Terrace

Kingsway

Hove

East Sussex

BN3 2WB

Silo and the Old Tree Brewery

I've been wanting to eat at Silo, a restaurant tucked behind Brighton’s North Laine, for a while. Perhaps you've heard of it – it’s the UK’s first zero-waste restaurant (read more about the concept at their website). Admirable and important as that is, it was the ‘plant’ options on their menu that caught my attention – these are often vegetable ‘steaks’, slabs of fried potato or cauliflower. This appears, on the face of it, such a woefully misguided and inadequate attempt at a vegetarian main that surely no chef would include it on a menu unless it was actually a brilliant idea.

Inevitably, there are those who turn their nose up – read online reviews and you’ll find complaints about the plywood chairs (uncomfortable) and mason jar glassware (kooky), perhaps missing the point in that these items are reclaimed and so in keeping with the restaurant’s ethos. You can’t win here – I’m sure damning reviews along the lines of “you say you’re sustainable and yet these chairs are clearly mass-produced in China” would soon appear if they did anything else. It’s always funny to imagine these people sitting, sour-faced, shovelling their grilled slab of broccoli furiously around their plate, and it made me all the more determined to eat there.

Silo also houses the Old Tree Brewery. Their biography on the Silo website leans towards self-parody at times (“Thomas Daniell and Nick Godshaw had a chance meeting on a train after an anti-fracking film showing”), but their approach is genuinely interesting, inspired by “pre-industrial” methods of brewing. This includes, where applicable, the use of foraged ingredients. They also use ‘intercepted’ fruit in their soft drinks and ciders – essentially, fruit that would otherwise have gone to waste. This is exciting to me because not only is a relatively high-concept restaurant taking beer (not to mention the even less fashionable cider and perry) seriously, but actually making it an integral part of what they do.

When I visit, there is a nettle beer on offer – this is an ancient tradition, a fermented drink made with nettles, but none of the other integral ingredients of beer. Usually, I doubt I’d give it a chance, but I’m determined to taste one of the in-house brews, so I order it. It’s very good- there’s a balance of tart and sweet flavours which reminds me of dry cider, with a big citrus tang and bitter herbal notes from the nettles. The other Old Tree offerings are a perry and a lemon and lime mead, but I opt for Idle Bo, a stout from Bartleby's, a small brewery based in Hollingdean in Brighton. Bartleby's is an obvious partner for Silo – they’re a worker’s co-op, producing unfined beers which they deliver by bicycle, and similarly committed to minimising waste. The stout is rich with treacle and aniseed flavours, but lacks any kind of carbonation or condition and is served far too cold. It’s also a little thin-bodied, which actually works when accompanying my food, but probably wouldn't satisfy otherwise. There’s a decent beer in there somewhere, but this isn't the way to serve it.

The food, by the way, is fantastic. To start, I have a heritage tomato salad with smoked quinoa and what I think is some kind of tangy cheese curd. Despite my fascination with the veggie steaks, I actually end up going for a beetroot risotto, which has the ideal consistency and is packed with pieces of sweet and earthy yellow beetroot. I’d highly recommend a visit, especially as you won’t be fobbed up with some pseudo-premium lager for the sin of daring to stray from the wine list.