It’s Sunday morning, I wake up in my bed in a cold sweat, shivering, aching all over, grasping for the memory of yesterday. But wait, that’s not sweat dripping down my brow, that’s… take a lick… that’s beer!
Ah, the Bermondsey Beer Mile, the type of mile that you really only need to walk once if you’re the type that gets a taste for the craft ale and stops for more than a pint at each of the breweries that make up the tour. You’ve heard of the meat sweats, now meet the beer sweats. Six breweries, one day and some of the freshest beer known to London - can you handle it?
The short answer is, yes, you can most certainly handle it, because only a fool attempts multiple pints of strong craft beer at each stop on this crawl that has reached legendary status in the few years it’s been a ‘thing’. However, once your meandering journey through the backstreets, alleyways and railway arches of Bermondsey gets under way, it’s easy to get swept up in the glory of it all and before you know it you can be responding in the affirmative as your ‘friend’ heads to the Kernel bar for a second round on your favourite stop. So keep your wits about you and don’t indulge your desire for extras of your favourites if you’re keen to finish in a semi-sober state. Take it from me.
The order is thus: Four Pure Brewery to Partizan Brewery to The Kernel Brewery to The Bottle Shop to Brew by Numbers and finally to Anspach and Hobday. Indulging in various forms of street food that pop-up along the way is essential, as is sticking to a timed itinerary – some of these breweries are open for a mere few hours and if you miss them, you don’t complete the Bermondsey Beer Mile, which would be very sad indeed.
Good luck, I’m there every single week. Just look for the wide-eyed loner dressed in a bright red All In London t-shirt who looks like he’s seen too much...
