The brewery
Born out of a love of homebrewing, Anspach & Hobday was – somewhat unsurprisingly, given the name of the brewery – founded by school friends Paul Anspach and Jack Hobday after a successful Kickstarter campaign. The brewery and taproom is based on Druid Street in Bermondsey, slap bang in the middle of the most buzzing part of the Beer Mile between the stellar street food of Maltby Street Market and the proliferation of breweries and bars (see Brew By Numbers, Cloudwater and Moor) on Enid Street.
The beer
Anspach & Hobday's beer take its cues from the brewing history of London, leaning on old-school porters, stouts and IPAs, but in spite of the Victorian-style brown bottles and the illustrations on its labels, these beers don't taste too traditional at all. Modern ingredients and brewing methods make for a forward-thinking set of core and seasonal beers, from the year-round-brewed Smoked Brown to experimentals like ginger sours, sea salt and chilli stouts and bretted saisons.
What else?
As well as the original Bermondsey taproom, Anspach & Hobday also runs a second bar – The Pigeon in Camberwell. It's home to the freshest A&H beers on tap and in sharer bottles, plus a solid number of regularly changing guest lines, including Little Earth Project, Lost and Grounded, Affinity, and German Kraft. It's also a nailed-on stockist for esteemed (but sometimes tough to get hold of) Belgian lambic breweries Cantillon and 3 Fonteinen, which goes real lovely with the pizza from Theo's, which you can order in from across the road if you get peckish.
118 Druid Street, SE1 2HH; anspachandhobday.com
