20 hours ago
It's last orders for craft beer
The best pint you'll ever have is whatever you can find at 5 p.m. on a Friday. But close behind, and available wherever there's a willing bartender, is whatever your local brewery has a fresh keg of.
That, at least, is what I'll tell anyone who can't make a speedy exit. I am a craft beer bore. Dismissed as an early cause of the male midlife crisis, craft breweries have revolutionised beers. Where once you were trapped between mass-produced European lager and lukewarm old man ale, British craft beer has proved more flavourful than anything that came before it – and only occasionally in a bad way.
You can imagine my sadness, then, in reporting the decline of the Gipsy Hill Brewing Company, my own local. While the brewery won't be filing for bankruptcy any time soon, my sense is its heyday is behind it, and with it the heyday of many great independent breweries.
I discovered Gipsy Hill after moving to south-east London six years ago, eager to expand my tastes after some youthful dabbling with BrewDog. Critics would no doubt note that Gipsy Hill fulfils the craft beer cliché, its flagship Hepcat IPA (4.6 per cent) is hoppy, hazy and sports an image of the gloriously bearded head brewer on its cartoonish can.
At the risk of riling aficionados, a fresh keg of Hepcat served at the nearby food market still ranks among my favourite beers. And judging by its increasing presence in London's posher boozers, I'm not alone in reckoning the IPA is mainstream enough to convert a few lager louts to the cause.
Less likely to tempt the normies is Gipsy Hill's limited edition lines, comprising New England IPAs (juicy, slightly bitter), west coast IPAs (piney, more bitter), and the odd stout (like Guinness, but not bang average), as well as bitters, double IPAs, doppelbocks, saisons, wheat beers, festbiers, radlers and whatever else.
Local pride no doubt makes me biased, but I'd rank many of these against the best beers I've ever drunk. For years Gipsy Hill has converted me even with styles I'd otherwise avoid. In the odd gaps that lockdown offered, its taproom served as a sanctuary, if your idea of redemption is a 6 per cent IPA and the bemusingly named 'tube steak' as your substantial meal.
Alas, all good pints are eventually drunk
Alas, all good pints are eventually drunk. Unsurprisingly for an industry where a premium 440ml can of beer could be priced at a tenner or more, the cost of living crisis has squeezed many craft beer taps. Higher production costs, lower consumer spending and moderation in younger generations meant that more than 100 independent breweries folded last year, according to trade body Siba.
While Gipsy Hill's taproom bustles on a weekend, you can see things are slowing. The brewery's charming micro bar was shuttered last year. With the once sprawling beer range pruned back, only a handful of specials are available on draft, with limited edition cans absent from fridges and the webshop.
Defensive manoeuvres, perhaps. But my fear is that Gipsy Hill's founders are cleaning house before selling up. The founder of Beavertown brewery sold the last of his stake to Heineken in 2022, suggesting craft brewers are looking to cash out, even if the additional scale tends to come at the expense of quality.
With Gipsy Hill's original trio having started more than a decade ago, I could hardly begrudge such a decision, which would come with an established name, solid core range and decent distribution. But my new advice to fellow boozers is to stock up: it's getting harder to find a good piss-up in a brewery.
