An overnight success nearly 12 years in the making, Anspach & Hobday have long since cemented their place in London\u2019s rich brewing fabric. Through a commitment to classic and heritage styles coupled with a focus on drinkability and consistency, the brewery has become a byword for quality in the capital and beyond.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes it can take an awful long time to really find the one thing that pulls it all together. Everything prior to London Black has essentially been the groundwork for the one beer that has given the business a real, true identity and also the hope of a sustainable future,\u201d says Paul Anspach. \u201cI suppose you could say that this beer is kind of a distillation of what we were building from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
The liquid in question is London Black, Anspach & Hobday\u2019s flagship beer. A 4.4% nitro porter, it\u2019s a beer that had long been in the hearts and minds of brewery founders Jack Hobday and Paul Anspach. But its one that, through the pandemic lockdown, and the associated disruption to daily lives and routines, that enabled the duo to research how best to transform and specify their session porter for nitro dispense and can package.<\/p>\n
The end result is a beer that brings together the rich history and heritage of London Porters with the modern techniques of brewing nitro beers, London Black is characterful, yet smooth, balanced and effortlessly drinkable. Notes of roasted coffee and chocolate are balanced by a touch of red fruit from the hops, and brought together with the smooth, creamy mouthfeel achieved by the use of nitrogen.<\/p>\n
Jack Hobday adds: \u201cThe success of that beer doesn\u2019t mean we take it for granted. I feel that after the last decade or so, the big lesson of business is that just because you\u2019ve made something you think is of real quality doesn\u2019t mean it all simply works out in your favour.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of learning, finding your way and working really damn hard. I guess that\u2019s the sort of dream of youth meets the practical reality of brewing for some 11 years. Some things work, others don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Friends since nursery, Paul Anspach and Jack Hobday founded their eponymously-named in Bermondsey back in 2013. A part of the capital that has seen breweries both come and go, Hobday is acutely aware of his brewery\u2019s established position on that famed stretch.<\/p>\n \u201cBack when I was working in Brixton at the Craft Beer Co, I\u2019d always be suggesting to our customers that they must visit breweries such as Partizan, The Kernel and Brew By Numbers,\u201d he recalls. \u201cSo to then start your own brewery in the same area and find that the beers you were producing were being recognised in a favourable manner alongside businesses and people you have so much respect for meant a lot. It gave us encouragement and fed into our ambition.\u201d<\/p>\n And that ambition was underpinned by a desire, like many great brewers, to make the beers that they want to drink and hope that the consumer will come along that journey with them. Over the years this has resulted in the production of beers such as \u2018The Rauchbier\u2019, \u2018The Pale Ale\u2019 and \u2018The London ESB\u2019 to \u2018The Imperial Baltic Porter\u2019, \u2018The Pfeffern\u00fcsse Stout\u2019 and \u2018Sea salt & Lime Gose\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir London Black has become more than a craft beer. It is the British nitro porter,\u201d<\/em> Jason Hackett aka Prime Mutton<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Chasing trends has never been the duo\u2019s raison d\u2019\u00eatre. \u201cI feel that London Black emerges very naturally from everything we were doing before,\u201d says Hobday. \u201cLook at New England IPAs, for example. I don\u2019t want to speak for everyone that has worked here previously but we collectively just don\u2019t like them very much.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are, of course, great examples, but they are just not the beers that we want to produce. Don\u2019t get me wrong, we have had conversations about making them because commercially there might be a really sound business case for it.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I just don\u2019t think the market would find it particular believable coming from a brewery that\u2019s never ventured into that territory previously.\u201d<\/p>\n He adds: \u201cWhereas with London Black we feel that it does all kind of make sense and it\u2019s more of a believable style for us to be making and drinking.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to London Black, visitors to the brewery\u2019s ever-popular Arch House in Bermondsey can enjoy beers such as the \u2018Smoked Brown\u2019, \u2018The Porter\u2019, \u2018 Bermondsey Pale Ale\u2019, \u2018Ansbacher Lager\u2019 and \u2018Ordinary Bitter Smooth\u2019. Beers that remain testament to the styles the team continue to enjoy making, drinking and selling.<\/p>\n \u201cJack has always been more of a historian than me but I think it\u2019s maybe the fact that we learned a lot about beer and its history when we were initially learning how to make beer that it all really resonated,\u201d says Paul Anspach. \u201cIt\u2019s hard not to learn about what came before and not be inspired and enthused by it. For us the history of beer and our enjoyment of making beer are somewhat wedged together.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf we can continue to contribute to the fabric of London\u2019s brewing fabric through this beer then that will be amazing,\u201d Hobday adds: \u201cFor me, it\u2019s a bit like science or music. You are standing on the shoulders of giants of those who have come before you. That gives you a direction regarding what others have done before. We are not so \u2018anoraky\u2019 that every beer has to be from a recipe we have found in someone\u2019s attic but at the same time, why not riff on that or at least have a look at it.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is something humbling in having the awareness to go back and look at how things were done. Not least because you will often find surprises. For example I can\u2019t imagine many would expect us to feature American hops in our London Black recipe but historically the import of hops from America was quite a big thing. Or that our Ordinary Bitter features corn in the grain bill, which is again very traditional but not something that everyone would expect either.\u201d<\/p>\n Anspach & Hobday beers are produced on the team\u2019s 40HL brewhouse that operates out of its production facility in Croydon alongside six 80HL FVs and a quartet of 40HL and 60HL vessels. There is potential to double, or even treble production capacity but the duo admit that with such a move would likely come the need for an additional unit, too. \u201cWe have a bunch of tanks for single brews and some for double brews, with London Black going through on that side,\u201d says Hobday.<\/p>\n London Black accounts for approximately 450,000-500,000 litres of production per annum while the rest of the capacity is primarily accounted for by its Bermondsey Pale Ale, The Ordinary Bitter, Ansbacher Lager and the brewery\u2019s special releases. While London Black dominates much of the spotlight, Ansbacher Lager and The Ordinary Bitter continue to swell in popularity, too.<\/p>\n At 5.0% the lager is a bright, brilliant gold in colour, and is clean, crisp and refreshing. It has a delicate aroma of traditional and contemporary hops is paired with a subtly sweet malt base. While the 3.4% Ordinary Bitter is brewed with US Chinook hops and boasts a delicate hop aromas of pine, spice and dark fruits are followed by a smooth, velvety palate, with cascading notes of biscuit and caramel.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of learning, finding your way and working really damn hard,\u201d The Ansbacher Lager is typically lagered for 30 days but never sent to package unless its ready. \u201cTank capacity is obviously a premium when it comes to beers like lagers so you find yourself inclined to put them into a bigger tank but then you also find yourself moving into London Black territory so its a balancing act,\u201d says Anspach.<\/p>\n Hobday adds: \u201cThere\u2019s definitely some tension<\/em> in that respect because we want to carry on making really great lager. It doesn\u2019t sit well with us if you\u2019re planning on cutting corners when it comes to lagering and we\u2019re seeing more and more accounts considering taking it on as their main lager in addition to London Black. It\u2019s an unusual situation to be in where we\u2019ve inverted it and the lager or pale is an add-on beer to the porter rather than the other way around!\u201d<\/p>\n Keeping everyone happy and all products in growth are all-too familiar growing pains for many breweries but it\u2019s also a challenge the brewery is facing head-on. And with London Black at the helm, they know they are in a great position to push on, too. <\/p>\n \u201cAt one point in time porters produced in London were the biggest beer in the world in terms of volume and this year, there\u2019s a good chance we will overtake Fuller\u2019s as the largest porter producer in London,\u201d says Anspach. \u201cIt\u2019s at a much smaller level than the Victorians had it but still, it\u2019s quite a step for a small brewery like ours. The way the dark beer market is growing, why can\u2019t we start to bring back some of those historical volumes?\u201d<\/p>\n And while the volumes of London Black produced at Anspach & Hobday continue to grow, the team acknowledge they are \u201cminute\u201d compared to the production volumes that emerge from Guinness at St. James\u2019s Gate brewery in Dublin. But the frequent comparisons with the famed Irish liquid are something that spur on the brewery rather than deter them.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve not tried to clone Guinness. There was obviously a gap in the market for a local London alternative to it,\u201d says Hobday. \u201cIt filters back to that respect for the past and what came before. There are so many lessons to learn from such a business. And if you are entering the market as the smallest David to the biggest Goliath and think you are simply going to take them out then that is just mad.\u201d<\/p>\n He adds: \u201cWhat we respect and learn from Guinness is the importance of a clarity of message, a singularity and a focus on what you do. There are obviously some aesthetic cues that we flirt with but I hope that enough of our originality comes across so it\u2019s clear that we\u2019re actually coming up with something new and interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n And the beer that was once called the \u2018Nitro Porter\u2019 and then \u2018London Dark\u2019 before becoming \u2018London Black\u2019 is proving just that. As a company Anspach & Hobday has experienced year-on-year growth of approximately 24% but over the last six-to-nine months that\u2019s tracking at closer to 50% thanks to the success of their beloved 4.4% porter. <\/p>\n That beer continues to attract a growing legion of fans and\u00a0 among those ranks is Jason Hackett. A bridge expert who has won titles across the globe, he\u2019s also a beer and food reviewer. The content creator and social media star, known as Prime Mutton, has nearly 150,000 followers on Instagram and has clocked up millions of views on YouTube.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brewersjournal.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/DSC04560.jpg?ssl=1\")
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Paul Anspach<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n
Jack Hobday<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n