40ft Brewery Brewhouse, Dalston, E8

Facebook page of 40ft Brewery Brewhouse - www.facebook.com

Official site of 40ft Brewery Brewhouse - 40ftbrewery.com

Facebook page of 40ft Brewery Brewhouse - www.facebook.com

Official site of 40ft Brewery Brewhouse - 40ftbrewery.com

Set in a small ex- industrial yard it seems like a neat little set up with a couple of food outlets and they all seem to interact together. The bar is a converted portakabin with a serving hatch, beers available are described on chalkboards, there was a choice of eight with a further two having sold out.I had a Given Lem, described as a smashable Lemon pale, It was ok but I didn't get much in the way of Lemon to be fair. A decent little set up but there are better of Its ilk around.

We were planning to commence our tour of Dalston craft beer pubs at this brewery, not far from the Dalston Overground stations. With no bookings being taken, we assumed we'd have a better chance of grabbing a table here than elsewhere. We scanned our barcodes for the Brewhouse before joining the lengthy queue, which was 20-30 deep 1 minute before midday opening. It was only after about 15 minutes in the queue, that we realised we were queuing for a bakery! At this point, we decided to swerve the pastries and walk over to the bar. Tables are all outdoors at present, with a portocabin acting as a bar and another as the toilets. The 4 beers were Dalston Sunrise, Eccles Stout, Disco Pils & Neighbourhood IPA. After halves of the Dalston Sunrise and the Eccles Stout, I was hoping to try the Neighbourhood IPA, but I ended up with another Dalston Sunrise. This was probably the best bar in Dalston, but I won't hurry back.

This small brewery and bar has definitively won my award for the most difficult to find pub, thanks to its very confusing address and Google Maps marker point. Despite all evidence to the contrary, this place is not on Ashwin Street, but instead needs to be approached from nearby Abbot Street, passing through an unwelcoming set of gates at the end of the road and continuing on through a ruined courtyard to the shipping containers at the far end which house this tiny enterprise. Having spent the best part of my drinking time figuring all this out, I was only able to stay for a swift half, which wasn’t really an issue when I discovered there was nowhere to sit inside, instead condemned to drink out in the aforementioned courtyard. The bar is located in a silver shipping container jam-packed full of beer kegs, to the point that the few customers sat inside were using them as stools. A basic, jerry-built servery runs across the far end of the container and a door to the right leads out to the brewery, which looks like something you might use a photo of to illustrate the meaning of the word ‘chaotic’. And that’s about your lot - there’s really not much to see here. The courtyard at least has some proper seating – a few picnic benches and a low, decked step ideal for perching on, as well as a few drinking ledges. The space is dominated by more of the brewery branded beer kegs plus a whole load of oil drums which have been used as planters – a plan which may bear fruit in the Spring, but didn’t help with the overall aesthetic on a freezing cold March night. Low wattage coloured lightbulbs strung around the place provide some limited illumination and there was an uncovered coffee making station over to one side which I can’t imagine gets much/any use. Bizarrely, a pneumatic drill was led on the ground next to where I was sat. For all the faults with the design, the beer and staff could not have been much better. There were six keg beers to chose from and the extremely friendly barmaid talked me through a few options before I settled on the Eccles Stout – a rich and moreish beer brewed in collaboration with the St John restaurant in Smithfield. It was a great drop, very reminiscent of an Eccles cake and probably one of the more memorable beers I’ll try this year. Based on this visit, I would say it’s worth a quick visit for the beer and friendly welcome, but staying beyond a quick pint would be nothing but a chore. However, I returned again recently to find the place closed for what appears to be a significant renovation. If this addresses some of the major design flaws and tidies up the surrounding area, then this could become a destination venue – just make sure you know where to find it before you set off.