Crowds turn out for Walthamstow brewers

To say that the opening of the Sunday afternoon Blackhorse Beer Mile, alongside Blackhorse Road in Walthamstow, looked a success is putting it mildly. As the afternoon went on, the queues lengthened and the six venues became busier and busier. However, given that I could get a seat everywhere I went, space wasn't the bottleneck - more likely, it was that the taproom bars simply weren't able to keep up with the abnormally high demand. 

And I expect that on future weekends, without the major publicity push that preceded opening day, they probably won't have to. So if you weren't able to go along last Sunday, it should be well worth trying on a future weekend. To help you plan, here's some potted reviews based on the tweets I sent along the way...

The six venues are pretty much in a line north-south, so the first decision for the visitor is where to start: at the one closest to the station or the one furthest away? Aiming to avoid having the longest walk at the start or end of the afternoon, I tried a third route - start in the middle, then go north, and finally head south again. 

My first stop was therefore Exale Brewing, where I've not been before - and what a nice job they've made of an otherwise unprepossessing site. Just the right mix of open and cosy, both inside and out, and a decent amount of cover on this rainy May Day. Good beer menu too, with guests alongside Exale's own beers - I kicked off with their excellent new hazy session IPA, Serendipity. It's light yet full-flavoured, juicy-dry and hoppy, with an almost sherbety spritziness.

Stop no.2 was Wild Card. Again, not one I've visited before, although I have been to their pub not far away. Another fine tap menu featured several 'specials', including a couple of tasty farmhouse Saisons and an Imperial Stout that was seeing a lot of action! 

While I waited for the advertised meet-the-brewers session, I started with Fragile Loyalty, described as a red, juicy, sour wheat beer, which in this context of course means Berliner-style Weisse, not Bavarian! It was properly tangy-sour and brightly fruity, with tons of tangy red berry notes. 

However, as time went by - and as I went for the smooth, funky and tart-sweet True Leaf, which is an Apricot Saison brewed for International Women's Day - the pressure and the queues were ramping. It was clear that the brewers (apart from head brewer Jaega Wise who was busy tidying up and generally supporting the barstaff) were going to be delayed at best.  

So I headed across the road to Hackney Brewery and its High Hill Tap, where the contrast with my last visit six months ago was striking. Again there were still seats available here and there, but it was seriously busy, and having experienced the length of the queue I took care to buy two beers at once. They have the longest tap list of any venue here - there's 20 taps, more or less equally split between Hackney beers and guests. The latter this time included several from Queer Brewing, including their 3rd birthday brew Glitter Veil which turned out to be a worrying drinkable 6% hybrid Hazy West Coast IPA. 

With the benefit of hindsight, and having spotted the bus stop right outside, I wonder if the best tactic for tackling the beer mile mightn't be to hop on a bus at the station and then walk back from here. The risk though is that, having seen the 20 taps at High Hill and the 10 taps across the road at Wild Card, you might not actually bother to go anywhere else... 

I didn't fancy rejoining the lengthening queue though, so opted to walk to stop no.4 which was Beerblefish - only to find an equally long queue, of course. My last visit here was near closing time, and I was pretty much the only customer. This time it was pretty full - although once more, there were still a few seats available after you finally made it to the bar.

Beerblefish is the only actual brewery here serving cask real ale, and its beers have generally improved since it moved into its own space with a proper brewkit. They can still be inconsistent though - in the sense that some are stonkingly good while others are a bit untidy, and so it was with my order. An excellent glass of Edmonton Best Bitter, which is one of their core beers, and a slightly muddled Hoppy Pale no.14, the latest in a series with a changing hop bill.

Beerblefish also has a decent pile of board games, some table games, and there's stuff to read too if you have a quiet moment, including copies of CAMRA's London Drinker magazine!It's almost next door, so I paid a second visit to Exale to try a beer I'd spotted on the menu earlier - Bromelain, a 6.5% Pineapple Gose brewed with Left Handed Giant. At first though the doorman (or gateman?) wouldn't let anyone else in as "we're full", but thankfully as I and a couple of others dithered he got word that it was OK now. A band was setting up for the evening inside so I took my Gose outside to share a table with a family, and yes, it was pretty good. 

Walking feet back on, and it was off to no.5 which was Signature Brew. Every time I go here it's grown some more - yet somehow they still manage to make room for a band to play on a stage in front of the brewkit! The old Brewers Bar taproom was closed, and there's now a bigger Yard Bar out front, along with six tall tanks. At the same time, the quality is as good as ever and the three beers I tried - the new Stylus NEIPA, the revived Black Vinyl tropical stout, and the 2021 release of Anthology, their barrel-aged Imperial stout, this time at 9% - were all excellent. 

Time was ticking though, and I still had one more visit planned. This was to Truman's Social Club, a gigantic industrial unit converted into a huge beer hall - or series of halls - and serving guest beers plus pretty much the full range of cask and keg from Truman's brewery in Hackney Wick. I've walked past it several times but never realised just how big it is inside! 

It was originally meant to house a new brewkit as well, but those plans had to be scaled back due to Covid so this is the one out of the six that is not (yet) actually a brewery. Anyway, the beers were good - a bitter-sweet and wintery cask red ale called Firestarter, and Roller, a very nice fruity-piney and lightly toasty keg IPA.

With that, it was time to hand in my collector card, pick up my commemorative glass and trundle back to the station. Not too far to stagger, thankfully, so finishing at the venue closest to there was probably the right move. 

Would I recommend the Blackhorse Mile as a weekend afternoon out? Absolutely, as future weekends should be less crowded - mind you, come summer you never know. Some places also do food, others had a food van outside. Alternatively, bring a picnic or pick up something at the Co-Op on the way up from the station. Incidentally, Blackhorse Lane is on the Goblin (the Gospel Oak to Barking line) overground as well as the tube, so it's fairly easily accessed from north and west London.

It's also both dog and child-friendly, with the caveat that there's no playgrounds and nothing much else to amuse kids, apart from some places having table games - I watched a group of four young girls playing a fierce game of table football in Truman's!