1000 new beers at the Radius!

Picture the scene:

It's a little over six years ago. Mrs B-V and I have decided we're going to move out of London and are house-hunting in the East Surrey area.

One of the important factors in our search is having a good pub nearby. A pub where we can get to know the locals and make it a key component of our day-to-day lives and, crucially, a pub where there will be ever-changing cask beer that will allow me to easily indulge my hobby - nay, my lifestyle - as a ticker.

A Call to (Radius) Arms

On 28 May, 2016, having looked at a couple of properties in Whyteleafe, I visited the Radius Arms for the first time. This micropub had been open for about a year and had already built a very favourable reputation in the local area. It was the sort of destination pub that got talked about. 'You're going to Whyteleafe? Then you simply must visit the Radius'; No, seriously, if you don't go the Radius you will physically weep because you didn't go the Radius; Just do it!', that sort of thing.

And so I did.

Pulling my own, last night

My first pint in there was Mallinson's 'Serious Blendin' v1', followed by Milk Street 'Gulp IPA'. Decent beers, nice little pub, friendly people. The Radius ticked a fair few boxes for me.

I was back there a few days later, this time with the wife in tow. Cloudwater 'Spring + Summer Session IPA - Mosaic and Amarillo' turned out to be one of my favourite beers of 2016. Just as importantly, all the casks had changed from my earlier visit. Get the fuck in!

And that's how the story began, but I had no idea at the time how things would turn out. In the event we ended up moving to Caterham, a couple of miles down the road from the Radius, but still within easy reach of it. (Praise the Lord for his omnipresent route 407 bus!)

Flash forward to the present, and last night I had my 1000th new cask beer at the Radius. One thousand. In the same place.

Let's put that into context: I've never even got 500 ticks elsewhere. The closest contender is the GBBF, where my tally stands at 436, and that over a period of almost 30 years and in two different locations. The Radius has delivered 1000 beers in just six years.

And of course that is just the cask beers, and just the ones I hadn't already had elsewhere. Guvnor Vince also does a fine line in keykeg beers - you'll usually find some sort of super-strong Imperial stout and a fruited sour - not to mention the range of ciders (frequently winning the local CAMRA Cider Pub of the Year award).

As a fairly hardcore real ale ticker I'm mainly about the cask - it was here that I hit the 10,000 mark in 2020 - but the Radius is really so much more than that. I have to admit that sometimes on a hot Summers day, I'll go in there and have a pint of lager! (Good lager, obviously -  you won't find any multi-national pisswater in here.) 

A few years ago I interviewed Vince for the London Drinker magazine about how the Radius came to be and what he was hoping to achieve with it. Since then it's clear that many others have taken inspiration from his ideology when starting up micropubs of their own.

If it wasn't outside the Greater London border, it would've won my London Pub of the Year award. Probably on multiple occasions, I shouldn't wonder. 

 

A few Rad K highlights:

• Best beer: So many to choose from, but possibly Dark Star 'Tropical K.O.' 
• Worst beer: Bad Seed 'Punch Bowl' which had the unnerving flavour of rotting celery.
  
• Weakest beer: Wantsum 'Little Ship Citra' at 2.4%
• Strongest beer: Old Dairy 'Dark Side of the Moo' and Thornbridge 'Carlota', both at 7% (though there have been many 10%+ beers on keykeg)
• Most prolific brewery: Pig & Porter who brewed 45 of the 1000 beers. (In second place are Oakham, way behind on 24).
• Most prolific ABV: 4.0% which accounted for 123 of the 1000 beers. (4.5% not far behind on 109).
• The beer that was my 9,999th tick: Twisted Wheel 'Hoodoo Voodoo' (at the time it was believed to be no. 10,000 but then I spotted a pesky duplicate from 2003 or something that fucked-up the numbers...)
• The beer that was my 1000th tick at the Radius (at least as we currently understand it): Park 'Goodnight Pete' 

And on that note, I shall start on my next thousand pints. Cheers Vince and everyone at the Radius!