It’s easy to think of Adnams as a rather stolid, big, unexciting regional brewery. They have some lovely branding and design and have been very innovative in ‘green brewing’ but, nonetheless, the beers of their’s you see most commonly in London are quite conservative in their flavour.
They’ve obviously decided to go beyond Bitter/Broadside/blonde beer, though, and (with thanks to Steve the Beer Justice for the tip off) are now brewing a wide range of monthly specials in continental styles, starting with a Koelsch-style beer.
Next month, they’re rolling out a Belgian abbey-type ale, and there are German and Belgian-style wheat beers in the pipeline. They’re also going to take on Guinness next spring with a dry stout.
Innovation doesn’t just need to mean ‘turning up the volume’ or putting coconut in your beer — more subtle experiments with hops and yeast can be just as mind-expanding — so we’re looking forward to trying these.
We emailed Adnams to ask where these beers will be on sale in London, and Danielle sent us this list:
The Carpenters Arms
73 Cheshire Street, E2 6EG
The Brewery Tap
69 High Street
Wimbledon Village, SW19 5EE
The Queens Arms
11 Warwick Way
Pimlico, SW1V 1QT
The Wenlock Arms
26 Wenlock Road, N1 7TA
The Old Dairy
1-3 Crouch Hill, N4 4AP
The Pineapple Public House
51 Leverton Street
Kentish Town, NW5 2NX
The Wimbledon Club
Church Road, SW19 5AG
7 replies on “Adnams get experimental”
“Innovation doesn’t just need to mean ‘turning up the volume’ or putting coconut in your beer”
Amen to that!
Interestingly, les than an hour away from Southwold and you can get Adnams Bitter in so many pubs in my backyard, but rarely anything else.
Deliveries for Abbey Ale will start as early as next week, we have a German wheat beer to follow in December.
We’ll also be bottling our Tally Ho ready for Christmas.
Adnams — good luck with it. We’ll hunt it down and give it a go, and no doubt let people know what we think here at some point in the next few weeks.
Paul — we’ve actually got two pubs near us in London that regularly stock Adnams, but it tends to be Bitter or Broadside, and rarely anything else. We’ve not always been convinced by Bitter, but one of the pubs near us is currently selling it in absolutely fantastic condition (maybe a bit colder than usual, which it seems to like) and we keep going back for more. It’s got something of the Duesseldorf Altbier about it; not much hop aroma, but lots of bitterness. A very brown pint, which is a good thing in this case.
Yeah, really interesting. I like Adnam’s wares, but like you say, mostly for thier ‘solidness’. About time they expanded thier range a little.
Oh Goody– the Old Dairy is my local…I am really looking forward to this, particularly the stout in the spring!
It’s a shame none of the stockists are anywhere vaguely central. They should speak to Binnie at The Harp, she’ll be interested.