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I recently spent three fantastic days and nights exploring London’s beer scene along with our UK correspondent, Sophie Atherton – and meeting with many of the remarkable people doing it. One of my most-anticipated stops was to Logan Plant’s Beavertown Brewery in the North London neighborhood of Tottenham Hale.
They’re doing some amazing things at Beavertown – so fasten your seat belts.
London’s a sprawling city made up of many diverse communities and Tottenham Hale exemplifies all of this city’s intriguing complexities. Once home to all kinds of urban strife, Tottenham Hale is very much a hot spot nowadays. It’s an edgy and in-demand neighborhood, which makes it an ideal new location for the Beavertown Brewery.
Logan Plant started Beavertown back in 2011 as part of Duke’s Brew & Que. The restaurant made an immediate name for itself serving up some of the best American-style barbeque that East London had ever seen and Logan quickly established himself (and the Beavertown brand) brewing food-friendly beer in the small back spaces of the restaurant. His beers soon became the talk of the town and soon, wholesalers were approaching him begging for distribution rights. That eventually led to Beavertown’s new brewery in Tottenham Hale and that’s where Sophie and I met up with his wonderful crew.
Jeremy Luz was the Head of Sales and Marketing for the brewery at the time we came through – and his enthusiasm for what everyone’s doing at Beavertown was infectious.
We spent the late afternoon touring Beavertown’s extensive new facility with Jeremy – and while sampling what must have been 15 beers near the end of our visit, we continued to pummel him senselessly with questions…
Can you give us an American translation of the number of barrels you think that you’re currently producing in a year? No need to be exact; I’d just like to convey the kind of volume you’re up to.
JL: We are currently brewing 30,000 liters per week and we are aiming to hit around 2,000,000 liters for the year.
Beavertown is much more than a London-based brand…right? How widely are you currently distributed?
JL: In addition to being widely distributed all over the UK and Ireland, you can find Beavertown beers in Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Poland, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the USA.
How long have you been brewing at your current facility and how big is the team now?
JL: We have been on-site in Tottenham since April 2014. I believe we’ve almost twenty people onboard with us currently… including our Head Brewer, Jenn Merrick, and like me, she’s another American transplant.
Beavertown is part of what some have called London’s Beer Renaissance. Do you know approximately how many breweries are currently online in the London area?
JL: This is a very hard number to estimate as there are constantly new players popping up, but the most recent estimate that I’ve heard is around 90 breweries operating in London.
While you were taking us around, you kept touching on Logan and Beavertown’s brewing philosophy. You stressed that experimentation and innovation were very important to everything you all are doing here. But I seem to remember you mentioning another one of Logan’s mantras. Was it freshness and consistency?
JL: Yes! We are continuously experimenting and innovating (collabs, ingredients, beer styles, artwork/design, packaging etc). However, a constant within Beavertown is our commitment to the quality and stability of our products; hence our investment in new brewery, testing equipment, cans, etc.
We’d like to thank Logan Plant and the whole crew at Beavertown for making time for us. We had a total blast… and promise not to drink so much the next time we drop by.
