Tales from the Riverbank 3

Today it was announced that the Stag Brewery in Mortlake would probably close in 2010. Here is a posting from this blog last August that flagged that this was a possibility.

Although that post now looks spookily accurate, I did not need the foresight of Nostradamus to guess that this might be an eventuality.

One report today stated that
"Campaign group CAMRA said that although the brewery had not made any real ale for some time, it was still a "sad day" for the industry."

Luckily for me, my phone was out of battery all day and my office email had an ISP problem, so I was uncontactable. Otherwise there may have been a slightly different CAMRA comment.

Any tears should be shed by The brewery History Society. The Mortlake Brewery has been irrelevant to real ale drinkers wholly for 20 odd years when it has been a lager plant and for the 20 years prior to that it was real ale from Watney that was brewed here.

My personal view is that although it is a further loss of London's brewery heritage, it is of no consequence to the real ale drinker in the 21st century and we should continue to champion and support those breweries, large and small, who continue to supply good, tasty beer to our excellent pubs.