Been looking forward to today. My friend Colin told me about a fun little pub crawl called the Bermondsey Beer Mile. Well, not so much as a pub crawl, more like a brewery crawl. It’s only available on Saturdays and it is apparently pretty popular.
After a breakfast that should have been bigger, I go out at 11 and travel to the starting point. It took about a hour to get there, but once there I went towards the first brewery. After some turns down some streets in an industrial section of London, I find the first brewery but it’s closed. Darn. It’s just the first place, the others should be open. Along the way I came across a Norwegian group doing the same that as I was. They told me that the next two places in the opposite direction that I’m going were closed. I told them that the brewery that I just came from was closed as well. Travelling together to the same destination, we all find out that this one, just like the others, was closed too. They admitted defeat and went off to the pub. I’m too stubborn for that. I’m seeing this to the end. There must be a place open!
I checked out the next two, just to see if they opened later than usual but that was not the case. I continue down the trail and to my surprise number five was open! This one isn’t so much a brewery but more of a multiple brewery retail. They have over 20 different breweries, their beers in bottles and cans, they also have two kegs on tap. I have a pint, a bottle, and a can of beer while there. Not very wise of me with such little food, but I’m living by ‘Screw it, let’s see what happens’ mentality right now. Chatting with the staff, I find out that two of them are from London and the third is from Tennessee. After my drinks and chats I continued on with my crawl. Stop number 6 was open as well! A small little brewery, three tanks in total (two fermenters and one bright beer). I have a pint (two half-pints because they had two different ones on tap) then went on my merry way. Went to the final stop and that one was closed as well. Probably for the best. Out of all the beers I’ve had, they averaged out to 7% and I only had a bowel of granola for breakfast. Out of seven, only two were open. With that finished, I decided to head back to the apartment.
Stopping in a chicken joint for a couple of burgers, I walk in the front door at 4:30. Sitting down to watch Netflix and to ‘rest up,’ I go back out to the pub at 7 for some food and another pint, then called it an early night.