Fuller’s Brewery tours always start at the Mawson Arms. They sometimes end there as well, when thirsty tourers want to take in more of that favourite beer enjoyed at the tasting in the Hock Cellar, which always comes at the end of their tour. Tours usually begin at 11am, sometimes earlier depending upon demand. They leave every hour until the last one at 3pm, except on special occasions when a late tour has been booked for a large party. Numbers are usually restricted to 15 max, to help easily navigate the tour group through the 170 year old brewery and allow for everyone to get the chance to view the various items of heritage breweriana located around the tour route. Its quite common to have 2 or 3 tours leaving at 5 minute intervals on the hour – again, depending on demand. Tourers may stop by in advance of their tour for some breakfast or a spot of lunch depending upon their departure time. Alternatively, many come back to the pub for a later lunch with a couple of well deserved beers following one and a half hours of tramping around the brewery. A more in depth description of the tour can be found here:
https://pauldav1963.wordpress.com/2015/05/10/fullers-brewery-tour-so-good-we-did-it-twice/
Many of our tourers are either on holiday or business – or a combination of both. A great number of our tourers are either representatives or owners of breweries. We receive many Americans and Europeans hailing from Scandinavia, Germany, Spain, etc. Visitors from South America – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay to name a few and the far East are also heavily represented and that probably makes the Mawson one of the most cosmopolitan pub in London. You never know who you are going to bump into and the other Friday we had a one day conference on ‘Recreating old beers styles’ by the British Guild of Beer Writers and the Brewery History Society. It was held at the Hock Cellar and culminated in all of the tour guides taking groups from the conference on a trip around the brewery. After a lengthy tasting the attendees ended up at the Mawson for further research into Fuller’s wonderful beer and I was able to meet and chat to beer writers Tim Webb, author of the Good Beer Guide to Belgium and Tom Stainer, editor of What’s Brewing’s quarterly magazine, aptly named Beer.
The conference also coincided with our monthly Fuller’s Friday, this time held on a Thursday due to the bank holiday! Thirsty attendees jostled for position at the bar with the Fuller’s team enjoying the monthly thank you to employees for a job well done.
The following week saw the Spring edition of the London Brewers Market at Spitalfields. I went along to support Fuller’s who had a stall there and were promoting Frontier, Montana Red, IPA and Wild River. The great and the good were also in on show: Orbit, Anspach and Hobday, Four Pure, Gipsy Hill, Trumans, Southwark, etc. The good weather diverted me from the Sambrook’s brewery tap launch to hook up with wifey at our local Fuller’s pub and enjoy some much needed sunshine on the outside terrace.
Back to the Fuller’s tour, we recently we had owner Jamil Zainasheff and Beer Ambassador Travis Combe from Heretic Brewing Company, based in Fairfield, California come in for breakfast before hooking up with their tour. Jamil and Travis were over to spend some time in London and to meet up with other craft brewers as they have some interesting brewery collaborations in the can, no pun intended. I had a great time chatting with them about beer, the scene on the West coast of the US and the beer world in general. Jamil generously gave me a couple of his beers to sample and they were tasted and reviewed last weekend. It always amazes me how friendly and helpful beer people are. I may just be very lucky but everyone that I have met over the past 3 months has been warm, engaged and interested in what I am trying to do with my career.
Speaking of tours, beer chum Fiona Sadek and I headed off to Bruges the week after Easter for a day touring the beer bars of this great city. We were blessed with wonderful spring weather and the Eurostar brought us to town by lunchtime. Visits included the tap house Brugsch Bieratelier, oldest pub Cafe Vlissinghe, most romantic pub De Garre and world’s best pub ‘t Brugs Beertje. A truly wonderful day.
Last week, our leader Jill came back from a well deserved break in Thailand so its back to normal. Next week sees my first visit to the Beer O’Clock Show and I will update you on that next time. Cheers!
Beer Sommelier Kew 