Bob Hendrickx Launch Day in London: A Tale of Two Trays

Reproduced by kind permission of OBER; originally published in OBER'tje, July 2005

It is lunchtime on a summer Friday in the middle of London. The streets are heaving with throngs of people and the traffic is solid. Slowly and uncertainly through this urban mayhem meanders an ill defined procession of international beer geeks. At the head of the column with a tray from Harvey's Brewery held aloft as a much needed guiding light for his disciples, is the tall and angular figure of Jeremy Gray, our leader for the day and a fellow OBER member. Bringing up the rear with an identical tray raised triumphantly above his head to attract the stragglers, is the stockier and more thickset form of our hero and main man of the day, Mr Bob Hendrickx. Observing, as if for the first time, our motley crew of drinkers from three countries and two continents sandwiched between these two dissimilar men with twin trophies hoisted high towards the heavens, as we roll along dodging people and traffic, the absurdity of the situation suddenly strikes me and I begin to chuckle.……

So what is this all about then? Now with 332 entries, the recently published new edition of Bob Hendrickx’s popular book Originele Cafes in Vlaanderen has once more been expanded - not only numerically but also geographically, as I shall explain. Many of you will be familiar with the guide but briefly this is how it works. One page for each café where you will find a short description, details covering the number of draught and bottled beers available, opening hours, specialities of the house and clear simple directions for finding it. Visit the café with your copy of the guide, buy a drink and the next one is on the house; your book is then stamped, signed and dated to say that you have had you freebie. Collect enough stamps and there is more free beer up for grabs from Brasserie Lefebvre or even hard wood garden furniture from Royal Arrow. The featured cafes comprise a quirky collection. Only a few are specialist beer cafes per se and many are not great in the classical sense, but usually they are interesting and all have something more than the free beer to make then worth a visit. Despite most of the cafes being in and around Vlaanderen, Bob’s book has for some time enjoyed a cult following in the UK - and now this has been acknowledged by the inclusion of five entries in London! Bob is in town to mark the launch of the new edition over here with a whole day pub crawl visiting all five of the London watering holes.

Friday 3rd June began early - particularly for our Belgian visitors who had come over on the Eurostar. By 10.30 am some twenty pairs of bleary eyes had converged at Waterloo International Station to welcome Bob to London. Introductions were made and names quickly exchanged. As well as Bob and Jeremy, notable companions for the day included John White of White Beer Travels all the way from Grimsby and Bart Verhaghe of Belgian Beer Imports, a man who has done much to improve the access of we impoverished Brits to your wonderful beers. Adding a truly international flavour to our eclectic company was Sylvain Dupuis, a French speaking Canadian from Montreal. And so, formalities over, it was time to find the first pub!

The Royal Oak in Borough is a traditional English pub which has won many prestigious awards. It is a rare outlet in London for Harvey's ales, a respected brewery in Lewes on the south coast. Arriving as we did just after eleven, I was surprised to find that we were not the first ones in the pub. Surprised that is until I saw that those already ensconced - and in one case at least already drinking Harveys 9% Imperial Russian Stout - included Chris Pollard, aka Podge, and his cohorts from Chelmsford. Our numbers had swelled to nearly thirty and the stage was set for the day. We received a very warm welcome from licensees John and Frank including a complimentary buffet to line our stomachs for the long day of drinking that lay ahead! All Harvey’s regular beers were available (Sussex XX Mild ,3%, Sussex Pale Ale, 3.5%, Sussex Best Bitter, 4% and Armada Ale, 4.5%) as well as a particularly pleasant seasonal offering, Knots of May, a 3% light mild. Thus a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the subtle flavours of the whole range, and one I was not going to miss!

Glasses charged we enjoyed a light hearted welcoming address by Jeremy, who’s obsession with the previous edition of Bob’s guide had “changed his life” and led to the suggestion that a London section be introduced. Bob had greeted the plan with enthusiasm and the rest, as they say, is history! With the speeches over, John and Frank generously produced complimentary jugs of Harvey's Copper Wheat, 4.8 %, a very tasty and slightly spicy wheat beer which was waiting in the wings to take over as Seasonal Beer. What had been a very pleasant visit was then finally brought to a conclusion when our hosts presented Bob and Jeremy with a handsome pair of Harvey’s trays…..

Next stop Borough Market, with its cosmopolitan selection of food and drink stalls. Here, the guide's entry is actually not a at all pub but a specialist beer shop! Utobeer sells hundreds of bottled beers from UK, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and elsewhere. A single draught beer is also available, on this occasion being St Peters Mild ,3.7%, from Suffolk. Another rare find in London and, thanks to the generosity of owners Richard and Miles, provided for us to enjoy free of charge as we perused the tempting rows of glistening bottles. Progress on the rest of the crawl would be marred by the handicap of heavy clinking backpacks……

We all took a deep breath as we tackled London’s ageing and infamously decrepit public transport system for the journey to Beer Circus in East Croydon on the south western edge of Greater London: the days tight schedule lay in the lap of the gods! But we need not have feared - Jeremy’s guardian angel was with us and obviously enjoying the crawl: trains, buses and trams were to be more of a dream than a nightmare for the whole day!

Taking its name from the specialist beer café in Brussel, Beer Circus is unique in London offering as it does a list of some 250 quality bottled beers mainly from small independent Belgian Breweries, but also from France, Germany, the Netherlands and the USA. They have another 10 beers on draught, 3 being British and the remainder Belgian, Dutch and American. Opened just two years ago by Graeme Harker, Beer Circus was an immediate success with Belgian beer enthusiasts: now it has made its mark in the mainstream having just been named Pub of the Year by the local branch of CAMRA, the UK pressure group which champions traditional top fermented beers (CAMpaign for Real Ale). Available on draught and a beer I had not come across before was Marikenbier from Stadsbrouwerij de Hemel in Nijmegen in the Netherlands, a 6% blonde beer brewed for the summer. Pleasant enough but not sufficiently so to stop me from indulging in a couple of draught Hommelbiers, the hoppy 6.5% blonde from Van Eecke in Watou - very nice but lacking the character of the 7.5% unfiltered bottled version I always feel - and finally a bottle of the 7.5% easy drinking, high quality amber Trappist, Rochfort 6.

Back towards Town, Parsons Green near Fulham is the home of the White Horse, probably my favourite pub in London. There is always a wide range of British cask conditioned ales available as well as several Belgian, Dutch or German beers on tap. These are complimented by a thoughtful list of bottled beers from the same countries. Owner Mark Dorber made us very welcome in an especially reserved area - welcome relief from the crowds of Friday evening punters - where we were plied with tasty food from his deservedly well renowned kitchen. Beer-wise, I kicked off with a refreshing 4.8% kolschbier from Kuppers in Cologne, and then the more familiar 5% wheat beer from Bierbrouwerij Gulpener in Dutch Limburg, Korenwolf. Both on draught and both drinking very nicely. Having now been eased back into the saddle with these relatively low strength beers, I felt well prepared for what was to be a rare treat. Courtesy of the house once again, Mark produced a selection of aged beers from his cellar for us to sample! Sharing a 1984 bottle of Lees' Harvest Ale with John White was my drinking highlight of the day and possibly even the year so far! This is an 11.5% barley wine from the John Willie Lees brewery in Manchester and by chance I had very recently had a bottle of the 2003 vintage so is was interesting to compare - less carbonation, less sweetness, a darker colour but a much improved and complex, almost vinous palate with just a hint of mustiness. Not bad after 21 years for a beer that has been filtered or pasteurised! How do you follow that? Well, a bottle of Westvleteren Extra 8 from way back when seemed to be the answer and I was delighted to find that it had fared just as well over the years! Sadly, at this juncture Bob had to leave for Waterloo and the Eurostar back to Brussel - but not before buying the biggest round of the day, a drink for everyone in the group! As I returned to the comfort zone of another Rochfort 6 - 7.5%, but table beer after the previous heavyweights - we listened to the closing speeches thanking Bob not only for the drink but for the pleasure of his company for the day. This against the backdrop of a sudden storm of near Armageddon proportions - perhaps not inappropriate for these sad farewells?

Clapham’s Microbar was to be the final stop of the day for those of us who remained and were still standing! This is a modern minimalist style bar specialising in mainly bottled beers of high quality from all around the word: they also offer four draught beers which are again sourced from far and wide. With my constitution now beginning to flag, and to check out the international flavour of their list of about 50 beers, I traded down to an enjoyable bottle of Coopers Sparkling Ale, 5.8%, from Adelaide in Australia and a draught Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, 5.6%, a hoppy brew from California. Both excellent beers although the Australian gets my nod.

With a very early morning ahead (I was off to the Viche in West Vlaanderen and the Karakterbier Weekend HOP!) for me at least what must be one of London more unusual pub crawls had to come to an end. Meeting Bob Hendrickx had been a privilege and a pleasure - his was one signature I had not expected to collect for my guide! A gentleman and an ambassador for Belgium and its beer heritage, he is to be commended on the new edition of his book. Jeremy’s selection of pubs in London demonstrates shrewd judgement and gives a representative tastes of the diversity of drinking establishments available to our capital’s drinkers, and he is to be congratulated not only on his input to the book, but also for organising the day so perfectly. So, thanks to him, to Bob, to the five venues which welcomed and entertained us so handsomely and of course to everyone who turned up for one of life’s more memorable drinking experiences!

By the way - does anyone know if Bob and Jeremy got those bloody trays home safely??

DAVID KERNICK
London,UK

July 2005