BV London Pub of the Year 2015-16 - part two

The other day we revisited the top five pubs from last year's competition. Now comes the arguably more interesting list of the five new challengers on the 2015-16 shortlist.

Narrowing it down to five was a challenge. Trying to ensure all parts of Greater London are represented is borderline impossible, while there is always a strong temptation to include more pubs that are undeniably great but similar to those already in the competition - such as another Craft Beer Company outlet.

I've tried to pick pubs that I think are worthy of entry in the competition whilst retaining a bit of variety, and this is what I've come up with:

Lost Breweries: B is for Brew Wharf

London's thriving beer scene of the last decade has seen a few casualties and suffered some collateral damage. Some might argue that the biggest loss was Young's merger with Charles Wells and subsequent move to Bedford.

I didn't care much about that. What I did care about was the loss of Brew Wharf, a brewpub that pretty much kick-started a revolution in my view.

And so, I give you this obituary I penned a while back - reproduced from the April/May 2015 edition of London Drinker - which summed up my thoughts at the time.

Since I wrote it, I've learned that the brewing equipment is now with Breakwater brewery in Dover, and some of the same people seem to be involved too, which may be cause for optimism even though they're taking a long while to get up and runni
ng. The Brew Wharf bar itself hardly ever seems to be open these days, however...

Lost Breweries: A is for Ash Vine

I've been regularly drinking beer for about 25 years now, which probably makes me just about qualified to reminisce about breweries that have slipped from our horizons.

It's easy to forget that this even happens, given that we've been reaping a seemingly endless harvest of new breweries for many years now. But some, indeed many, breweries go beer-belly-up for various reasons, so this is the first in a series of posts where I look back wistfully - or in this case, not - at a few of them. Starting with West Country micro Ash Vine.

And if you're sitting there thinking 'Ash Vine... Hmm.. were their beers as boring as I remember?' then you're pretty much on the same wavelength as me! And if the name draws a blank, it's probably further proof of the singularly unmemorable nature of their beers. Their many, many all-very-similar beers...

2016 - the London brewery project

I like to set myself little challenges.

Staying alive, going a month without getting caught in a sea-lion enclosure, that sort of thing.

Last year I challenged myself to visit 12 new countries, which I managed fairly easily, so this year's quest, albeit closer to home, is probably a tougher one:

I'm going to visit (and, more importantly, drink in) every brewery in London.