Brockley Market - Brockley Brewery - Hackney Brewery - Drink Feast

Saturday 14th December - It's over nearly three months since my excursion to Brockley Market, but it's on every Saturday so let's just pretend it was last week, ok?

Sister Jo emigrated to Brockley a couple of years ago, and I finally made it out there before Christmas with the draw of a trip to Brockley Market sealing the deal.  The market is open every Saturday from 10am-2pm in Lewisham College Car Park.  The closest station is in fact St. John's, but it is a pleasant 10 minute walk away from both Brockley and Lewisham.

The market has a little bit of everything - cakes, cheese, wine, chocolate, meat, beer, and some of London's best street food traders.  On the stalls front, we were particularly taken with the Cinnamon Tree Bakery shortbread owls, and pretty much everything at the Vadasz Deli pickles & sauerkraut stand - Kimchi kraut, sprout kraut & garlic & dill kraut all went down very nicely.

Outside of Kerb & Street Feast, Brockley Market has the best selection of street food traders every week.  Van Dough, Mother Flipper, Ruby Violet, Tongue & Cheek (currently in The Joker), Fleischmob (currently in Hand of Glory) and more packed in to the market on our visit.  

We started with one of Mike + Ollie's incredible Lamb Flatbread Wraps, one of the most delicious street food options in London.  Look out for their supper clubs.  Our second main was a large pile of Memphis BBQ Turkey Poutine from Spit & Roast - a heart warming plate of chips covered in cheese curds, turkey mince, and gravy.  Their Buttermilk Fried Chicken bap with Korean hot sauce is also a winner.

Mike + Ollie Lamb Flatbread Wrap

We finished off with a dosant (cronut, cro-dough etc etc) from Kooky Bakes, surprisingly my first foray into the over-hyped croissant vs doughnut field.  Flavours were good, but the pastry had an almost oily taste to it that didn't sit right.  I'll give them another chance, I'm sure.

There are plenty of other lovely places to stop off in Brockley if you want to make a day of it.  You could take a stroll through Hillyfields to find a couple of stalls and Pistachios in the Park.  The Gantry is a sophisticated little restaurant with separate cosy rooms downstairs - people spill out the front & there is seating in the garden in the summer.  The Orchard is a friendly bar & kitchen with comfy seats, nice lighting, boardgames and books. Brockley's Rock is not your average fish & chip shop, with the likes of Grilled Seabass and Salmon on the menu.

We paid a quick visit to the relatively new Brockley Brewery which opens up to the public on Saturdays (normally 10-2 ish but check Facebook or Twitter).  They have bottles & posters to buy, milk cartons to fill up, and fresh beer for sale including Pale Ale, Red Ale & Golden Ale.  They are launching a Porter today (March 7th) and having a One Year Birthday Bash on March 14th with craft beer and live local bands from 8-11pm.

Brockley may be getting more great beer soon in the form of LDN Dispensary, another beer & burger bar from the Late Knights Brewery team after the success of Beer Rebellion in Gipsy Hill.  Peckham & Penge are also on the cards.

My phone charger was on the fritz, so I had to be careful to link up with people at exact times all day and use numbers written down on actual paper (who knew it was still useful?), hence why I met up with friend Sam for a brief hour in Horniman at Hay's for a couple of pints and the use of his phone. It's a great spot for a drink if you can get a seat outside on the river looking out at HMS Belfast, but it does get packed after work.

After that, I worked my way over to Hoxton for 5pm to link up with my final carer for the evening, Tom.  We were on our way over to Drink Feast but decided to poke our heads into the Hackney Brewery en route.  They don't have a taproom but were happy to chat to us over a beer as they cleaned up for the day.

They have been up and running for 2 years, which makes them pretty old on the London beer scene. Their Best Bitter and American Pale Ale are regular pints for me around London - highly recommended. They are in high demand, so perhaps a bigger kit / space beckons in the not too distant future for expansion.

Finally, we made it to Drink Feast - an ambitious "immersive" bar event from Offbeat that ran all weekend in the wonderful Hoxton Docks.  They gathered some of London's best bars together, designed the space like a film set, and brought in some amusing actors to tie it all together - sounds bonkers, but it worked.

We started off at an apothecary bar chatting to an enthusiastic doctor before moving on to the Travelling Gin Co., a pop-up drinks project serving up gin-based cocktails from their bicycle bars. They plan to make their own gin in the future, but already have their own Colonial Tonic (a collaboration with Ebeltoft Farm Brewery) made using Cinchona Tree bark that provides a natural source of quinine.  The result is a bitter sweet tonic, golden brown in colour, that is a million miles from Schweppes.  I experimented with it at home with the likes of Gordon's, Bombay Sapphire & Hendricks, and found lots of new flavours coming through.  Keep track of their blog to see where they might be popping up next.

The boys from Nola were down whipping up Hurricanes and more as usual - make sure you go for the full live music & cocktails experience at their bar above Bedroom Bar in Shoreditch.  Pisco Fuego brought a sample of their Latin drinking & dining experience down with their medicine-bottled cocktails.

We made some new friends outside the Hoxton Docks tequila & sangrita bar (cosily tucked into a shipping container) before heading over to the Kindred Spirits bar.

Kindred Spirits was a pop-up bar shared between Bán Poitín and Vestal Vodka.  I was already very familiar with Vestal Vodka after going on an awesome Vestal Voyage cocktail canal trip on Regent's Canal last year.  They are still running the experience regularly and I highly recommend taking them up on it! There was a decadent Drink Feast option of arriving in to the Hoxton Docks space on the Vestal Voyages boat.

Bán & Vestal - Kindred Spirits

Vestal owner William Borrell was on hand to chat about their superb range that really are a cut above most of the competition, from the creamy Kazebe vodka to the hard-to-find Amber Elderflower liqueur. They have also recently teamed up with Dalston Cola to make a vodka coke worth drinking!

Sharing the bar were Bán, a boutique spirit company bringing back Poitín, a very strong Irish distilled spirit that was banned for over 300 years - it can clock in anywhere between 40%-90%.  At 52.7%, most people will want to mix Bán but it is drinkable on its own!  Cara from Bán made us two fantastic flaming Leprechaun Zombies (see below) that were dangerously quaffable.  The best place to sample Bán in London is definitely Shebeen - an Irish bar with generous happy hours tucked below Kentish Canteen, dedicated to Poitín.

Shoreditch Grind were doing a roaring trade, shifting Espresso Martinis as fast as they could.  Barchick were also tucked away in a corner, running a bonkers little disco bar - they seemed to be having a pretty good time themselves with the limbo combined with shots keeping them entertained.

Shoreditch Grind

Our favourite bartenders of the night were the guys from Bon Vie Recruitment who looked after the Ruski's stall for the night. Ruski's is a vodka & caviar tavern, which is currently moving to a new location after opening briefly in High Street Kensington opposite their sister venue Bodo's Schloss at the end of last year.

We sampled a fair amount of the very drinkable smooth Belenkaya vodka, before Tom got into a lengthy discussion with one of the character actors about conductor Valery Gergiev and anti-gay legislation in Russia - whether she was interested (or indeed Russian) or not, she kept a straight face and earnestly chatted away.

We ended the evening listening to to Benoit Viellefon & His Orchestra, an excellent gypsy jazz band that I coincidentally seen for the first time days before at The Last Word.  If hot club swing jazz is your thing, then you need to get yourself over to Le Quecumbar in Battersea.

There were street food trucks on hand to soak up some of the booze - they were quite hard to find, but allowed the bars to take centre stage.

Offbeat really pulled it off at Drink Feast, and I am glad they are doing it all again this summer.  My photos don't do justice to the stunning event that they created, and the friendly atmosphere with actors & bartenders joining forces was a joy to experience.  Pre-release tickets go on sale on 1st April - put that date in your diary, and I'll see you there!

Kerb Halloween Hellraiser - Southampton Arms

Friday November 1st - King's Cross has gone way up in my estimation in the last few months.  The long term work on the stations is finally showing signs of completion, whilst the food and drink scene has been taking off.  You are spoilt for choice for bars with Gilbert Scott, Megaro, Simmons, VOC and Drink, Shop & Do all nearby.  For food, you need to head to the beautiful Granary Square just over Regent's Canal, where you can find Grain Store (Bruno Loubet & Tony Corigliano), Caravan and Shrimpy's.  This is also where street food collective Kerb often set up shop to great effect.  

For All Hallows Eve, Kerb organised a special Halloween Hellraiser street food event in the West Handyside Canopy which is sadly destined to be a Waitrose car park.  I got thoroughly distracted by the stunning dancing fountains outside, before walking the very long way round with Andy & Molly.

We did a couple of laps of the familiar traders who had all come up with gruesome variations on their normal produce.  Tongue & Cheek brought their Heartbreaker burgers with a Trick or Treat twist whereby the customer had to choose from various unmarked bottles of hot sauce, some deadly, which was then injected directly in to the patty.

Ambriento, What the Dickens, Tongue & Cheek, Rainbo

You Doughnut, The Grilling Greek, Bell & Brisket

We thought we had found a cosy place to settle down with our food until Kerb turned on the spooky smoke machine which totally smothered us every few minutes!  

I started with the superb Hellbao from steamed bun specialists BAO who have received tonnes of plaudits this year - you can often find them at Netil Market on Saturdays.  Andy went for some Rainbo Gyoza which I wasn't that impressed with, whilst Molly had some tasty Triple Tortured Chips from The Grilling Greek.  To drink, there were respectable cask ales on offer from Trumans and Redemption, as well as wine, cider and a wintery rum punch.

BAO - Hellbao - best savoury dish of the evening

Bell & Brisket

More team members (Mary, Olly, Jane & Lee) turned up for round two, and we worked our way through several more stalls.  Well Kneaded Wagon impressed as usual with a delicious Pumpkin & Chorizo pizza, as did What the Dickens with their hot pork rolls.  

Well Kneaded Wagon

Moving on to dessert, there were quirky Sorbitium ice creams, themed cakes from Kookybakes, and deadly doughnuts from You Doughnut.  The death nuts and blood bites from You Doughnut were the standout sweet option in my opinion - warm, doughy and delicious, covered in white chocolate sauce with popping candy and marshmallows.

Andy with a Kookybakes Eye

Kookybakes cakes

We eventually made a move, and some of us decided to venture further North whilst we were near Camden.  We popped in to the new Simmons Bar near Mornington Crescent (the original one is in King's Cross - read more about it here).  They have kept everything that made the King's Cross outpost great - 6 hour long happy hours, sharing cocktails in teacups, retro games (this time round with a SNES) and a giant skull shaped disco ball.  It was very lively (the locals have clearly already discovered it), but it was pretty hard to get served, and the bar isn't terribly well placed.  Get here early to get a table and make friends with the barman so that you aren't waiting around!

We wandered over to Brewdog for a quick drink (how can you resist?) before getting on a bus towards Gospel Oak for our last stop of the evening, The Southampton Arms.  Any pub that has a bus stop outside gets extra points.  It may look small, but there is a lot going on inside.  Bring cash - no cards!

With 18 handpulls full of ale and cider, and a committment to supporting small independent UK breweries, The Southampton Arms draws in discerning drinkers from all over London.  Luckily though, it still manages to keep that local pub feel.  With a roaring fire and steamed up windows, this is the ideal spot to hole up in for the winter. 

We squeezed ourselves in and carved out some space by the piano opposite the fireplace. There were beers from Dark Star, Arbor, Magic Rock, Art Brew, Redemption, ELB and a few others to choose from, most of which were a bargain (these days) at £3.30 a pint.  There won't be many pubs in London where you can get three high quality pints of real ale for under a tenner.  There also aren't too many where you will find a record player behind the bar!  I'm glad we made the journey up North - The Southampton Arms (as I expected it might) gets straight on to my Top 5 (or so) Pubs in London list.

Thanks to the Team for coming out as usual.  Lee keeps the pressure on the Top 6 on the Team List Leaderboard, and Jane marches in to the Top 10 for the first time.

Book ahead - Tickets have just been released for Drink Feast, a 3 day pop-up bar event running from 12-14th December at Hoxton Docks.  Many of London's best bars will be represented there, and it will be a great chance to try a wide range of stuff at affordable prices.  You should also be able to do a bit of boozy Christmas shopping at the same time.  Tickets are £12 including a drink, and additional drink tokens are £6.  Buy tickets here, and I'll see you there!