There’s a pub in Deptford called the Job Centre. When it opened, a couple of years ago, it was the subject of lots of hand wringing and letter writing, and rightly so. Built in the empty carcass of what once was an actual, useful job centre that was shuttered by the Coalition government (remember them?), it stands as a stark, shabby-chic monument to the spectre of gentrification that is haunting the capital. Lewisham, the borough which Deptford is in, is one of the most impoverished areas in London. According to statistics published by the New Policy Institute, male life expectancy is 1.3 years lower than the London average. 44% of 19-year-olds have no qualifications. 12% of the working-age population of Lewisham are in receipt of out-of-work benefits - the fourth-highest rate in London. In short, it is an area in which a job centre served a vital purpose, and while I think pubs can serve a vital purpose themselves, I’m not sure if this was the way to do it.
If this makes it sound like I’m talking down Deptford, I’m not. Lewisham is the place I call home, the place I go shopping and get my hair cut, the place where my first child will be born. I walked down to Deptford last weekend when the high street market was in full force - not the sanitised, guidebook-approved market of Portobello or Camden or Borough, but a real market, with stalls piled high with saltfish and batteries, jeans and lightbulbs, fruit, veg, even an enterprising guy with a no-win no-fee “Have you been injured in an accident that wasn’t your fault?” stall.
At the top end of the high street, by the station, there’s Deptford Market Yard - a new development, built into the arches of the listed carriage ramp, which stands both as contrast and complement to the traditional market in the street beyond. Here, there’s a cocktail bar that serves drinks in teapots, an artisan coffee shop, and a place that sells nothing but cheese toasties and accompaniments (to be fair, they’re incredible cheese toasties). It’s old and new Deptford living cheek by jowl, like one of those images made up of two photographs taken from the same spot decades apart; slide your cursor over to see the present slip into the past.
A few arches down the line from the cheese place, you find exactly what you expect to find in a London railway arch - a brewery. Villages to be precise, a new operation that opened its doors in December last year. Currently producing a core range of three session beers, the brewery has a strong pedigree beyond its archway home. The brothers who set it up, Louis and Archie, have brewing backgrounds, at south London strongholds Gipsy Hill and Fourpure respectively, while the kit itself comes from Gipsy Hill - the names of their beers, Hepcat and Southpaw, can still faintly be seen in ghostly whiteboard marker pen, etched on the fermentation vessels.
There are strains of both the other breweries here at Villages. Gipsy Hill built its reputation on well-made, sessionable ales in traditional styles, and there’s no deviation from that here. The three starter beers, Whistle, Rodeo and Pontoon, are all comfortably under 5%, and each is a thoughtful take on a stock character. The Fourpure references come through in the forward-thinking decision to can the beers, the colour-coded artwork, and the clear ambition the brothers have - future-proofing the space with room to add six more fermenters to the four already in place, plans to add a whirlpool for extracting more hop flavour and aroma, and a smart attitude to waste and recycling. Instead of plastic keykegs, used by most small brewers, Villages is using traditional kegs, tracked with a QR code system to process their movement through from supplier, to brewery, to bar.
This thoughtfulness applies to the beers too. Dropping in to sample the offerings, Louis gave us an impromptu tour, and spoke of how the beers were an iterative process, with the recipes being tweaked through trial and error. Considering the strength of the first wave, it bodes well for what’s to come. The pale ale, Rodeo, veers away from the aggressively bitter or super juicy brews that have come to dominate the style, retaining a more sedate English character, with a touch of sweetness and an earthy hop bustle, with just a fringe of citrus from the use of Cascade. Pontoon, a red ale, makes use of its robust malt bill, it’s richer and fruitier than its pale cousin, with a hint of caramelised sugar balanced by a subtle but spicy New World hop bitterness. But for me, the initial standout is Whistle, the pilsner. It’s not afraid to embrace the rich, mouth-coating diacetyl butteriness that you find in authentic Czech pilsners, while the Saaz and Hallertauer Mittelfrüh hops impart a refreshing, minty grassiness. It’s the kind of beer you can drink by the gallon, and at 4.4%, you can - as well as the fact that the brewery is selling pints for £4 and cans for £2, making it as cheap, if not cheaper, than many local pubs.
As well as expanding their volume, their range will be growing too, with plans for seasonal releases and barrel-aging programmes all in the pipeline. They’ve already got their first collaboration under their belts, a sour cherry-infused dubbel called Les Gilles with Gipsy Hill that bodes well for future innovation. It might not be what Deptford is used to. But it’s the kind of change I can get behind.
