Illustration by Rosa Viktoria Ahlers
Go into your local boozer in London today and you’re as likely to be able to order a craft beer – or at least a beer posing as a craft beer – as you are a commercial lager produced by a conglomerate.
But it wasn’t always this way. A little over a decade ago, my local pub stood out from its competitors due to a focus on independent breweries and artisanal beers. That pub is no more. In that time, craft beer has been on something of a journey.
Craft beer had its alternative moment. It then had its boom and went mainstream. Or so the narrative goes. But the truth is more sinuous. To understand what really happened, I headed to London’s first ‘craft’ brewery, The Kernel to meet Evin O’Riordain, the brewmaster behind it. Why the quotation marks? The Kernel may have been understood by others as the city's first craft brewery, but O’Riordain has always been consciously resistant to the term.
I arrived at the brewery, located underneath a railway arch in Spa Terminus, Bermondsey, and O’Riordain was stroking his long, gossamer beard, whilst sipping on a beer that looked a lot like Guinness. He offered me some. “It's pretty good, isn't it?” he asked. “For the first keg, I think it's not too bad.”
He’s modest. The beer is a 4.7% ABV stout that was nitro-pumped instead of dry-hopped as is typical at the brewery. It’s smooth and creamy, and has a touch of coffee maltiness towards the finish. It’s the first time he’s attempted to brew something Guiness-esque, despite growing up drinking the stuff in Waterford, Ireland.
His first experience with beer came even earlier. He spent his early teens in Sudan, where his father, an Irish microbiologist, was doing research on dairy for an aid programme. He would use his scientific expertise to brew beer at home, occasionally giving his teenage son a small glass of shandy.
Later, in Ireland, he saw many of his father’s students go on to work in brewing and cheesemaking. He initially opted for the latter, working for Neil’s Yard Dairy for six years. After work, he’d often stop for a pint of real ale. He’d finish a shift at the shop in Borough Market and join friends at Market Porter. “There was this constant rotation because customers were demanding something new,” he says. “There was no selection for quality.” Conviviality and intoxication were the aim, not the fine details of the beers.
