Last Saturday saw the first birthday of one of London’s newest craft beer houses which has been supplying its six varieties of beers to local pubs and events for the last few months. Born out of the trend for boutique breweries London Fields Brewery was started in August 2011 with an aim to flood the drought of craft beers in Hackney.

The brewery, which is based in the arches of the railway bridge, produces six types of beer ranging from its 3.7% Pale Ale which starts “off as a classic citrussy English Pale Ale and with the addition of modern Galaxy hops from Tasmania, it finishes with a kick of tropical fruit” to their current seasonal beers which this month is a 6% single hop IPA made from the full earthy yet melon flavoured Motueka hop which comes all the way from New Zealand.

Even though The London Fields Brewery is one of the most up and coming breweries in London there are several mico-breweries which were started with the same aim but have evolved into well-known brands which have begun to rival the superbrands in many of London’s top bars. One such example is Sipsmiths which was started in late Spring 2009 in Hammersmith by Sam and Fairfax aka sip-smiths who wanted to offer an alternative to the typical super brands which were dominating the menu with a locally produced spirit.  Sam and Fairfax’s had “always dreamt of creating a truly artisanal family of spirits of uncompromising quality”. They have realised their dream as they now produce a whole range of small batch (just a few hundred bottles at a time) which includes their London Dry Gin, Barley Vodka and special editions us the Sloe Gin 2010 and Summer Cup.

All of these spirits are made in Prudence, the first copper still to launch in London for over 200 years. She containes a five plate fractional distillation column which the founders claim is the key to the purity of their spirits. Since their launch in 2009 Sipsmiths have grown into one of London’s best known breweries and is now stocked by most of the top bars in the capital.

The Worldwide Cocktail Club with the Sipsmith’s team

Microbrewery is a brewery which produces a limited amount of beer. In the UK, the term has become synonymous with small scale breweries operating under the UK Progressive Beer Duty threshold of 5,000 hls. The most common product is cask conditioned bitter.

India Pale Ale or IPA is a beer style within the broader category of pale ale. It was first brewed in England in the 19th century. The first known use of “India pale ale” is an advertisement in the Liverpool Mercury in 1835. It was also referred to as “pale ale as prepared for India”, “India Ale”, “pale India ale” or “pale export India ale”.