London: Meantime and a passion for history

It is hard to believe that anyone could be more devoted to preserving London's brewing heritage than Meantime chief Alastair Hook.

The Greenwich-based brewer has put £0.5m into a development of Greenwich's Royal Naval College that will see it running a small-batch brewery within the tourist site - home to an 1800s brewery and accompanying well - when the project is complete in around a year's time.

It will also provide it with a second Meantime-branded pub to complement the one it has in Greenwich already, the Union. Meantime is also to upgrade to a new £1.5m brewing headquarters in Charlton in 15 months' time.

Conventional economic wisdom​

So why, when Hook says that "it goes against all conventional economic wisdom to brew in a capital" is he holding onto territory from which Young's and countless others have pulled out?

The answer lies in his keen interest in the origins of certain beer styles in London in the 1800s and his view that London provenance makes for powerful marketing.

"We believe the consumer respects and values history, almost as much as they do flavour," he says, "and the history of brewing is inextricably linked to London."

He points to England's industrialisation ahead of other countries, and London's development as a large-scale business centre able to supply the thirsty sailors in its port with stouts and pale ales as the factors which made it a brewing capital. Not to mention its origins arguably as the place from which most of England's IPA set sail for the colonies.

You only have to look at the blurb on bottles of Meantime Porter and 7.5 per cent ABV traditional IPA to see where his views stem from.

Hook attributes a lot of Meantime's growing on-trade distribution to this marketing concept. As well as export, especially to the US, Meantime has been forging ahead with a distribution deal with Adnams. Visitors to many beer-focused freetraders around the country may also find Meantime beers in their fridges, if not on draught.

Longer shelf-life​

Of course, Hook is helped in his national distribution by the fact that Meantime produces keg beer. He argues that this is a product with a longer shelf-life and hence has more reliable quality once it leaves the brewery gates.

Putting beer in kegs in London has caused murmurs of controversy among England's traditional cask brewing scene.

But again Hook brings it back to London brewing heritage. "I dislike the term keg, which has become derogatory," he says. "What we are doing is maturing it, and London's real brewing tradition is based on vatting and storing beer.

"It was the first primitive method of storing beer on a grand scale. Once London had that, it had cracked brewing."

Hook on Young's departure from London

"Young's leaving London and moving to Bedford was a kick in the teeth for me. It affected my sense of pride as a London brewer.

"I did a talk at the Young's brewery shortly before the closure on the importance of provenance. It was a warning that it had to be careful about its treatment of customers and their respect for where the beer comes from.

"Now any sense that they are a London brewer has been lost."