If you’re a beer fan then surely there’s nothing better than heading to the source to sample a brewery’s latest brew? Luckily for Londoners, Bermondsey is home to a whole range of breweries and Brew By Numbers is one of the best of them. Still a relatively small beer brand, they operate out of arches on Enid Street and open to the public every Saturday when they give their fans a chance to meet the brewers and just generally enjoy the freshest beer possible.
We visited on a sunny afternoon and found the place rammed with a mixed demographic you might be surprised to find here. The old beer-bellied, CAMRA obsessive stereotype is nowhere to be seen and instead there is a range of personalities that reflects the popularity of craft beer. We suspect that the fun of Brew By Numbers is ever so slightly weather dependent. There isn’t a great deal of space inside the arch, which is all about function – the function of brewing beer, to reiterate – so the large crowd spills out along the pavement. All well and good on a balmy day in June but probably not so much fun on a wet Saturday in February.
The glasses here require a deposit, which is understandable given the fact that they happen to be extremely covetable drinking vessels. Curved in all the right places, these sensually shaped glasses are an absolute dream to sip from, never again will you feel the same way about the dull formulaic lines of the straight pint glass – too much? Anyway, bring cash to swap for the glass and then sample away. We started with the Wheat Beer and moved onto the Session IPA and left when it closed its doors at 5pm; sun kissed, woozy with beer and happy.
