Our vice chair, Paul Manning and his wife, Bev went on a baseball and beer trip to London in late June.
After travelling down on National Express we booked into our hotel which was the Hayden Pub and Rooms in Bayswater – a great base for our 3 day trip which was in 30C + temperatures (great timing before the July washout)!
The Hayden’s on tap beers were Meantime Anytime IPA (4.7%) and Salt Loom pale (4%) both very drinkable. The first evening we headed over to Brixton and after a pint of London Pride each in the Beehive Wetherspoons (cheapest pint we had all weekend at £2.49)
We visited London Beer labs in a railway arch in nearby Nursery rd. We joined another 12 or so drinkers for a 10 tap beer tasting mostly brewed by the London beer lab co. The company was set up in 2012 and to date have brewed over 9000 different recipes. The beers went from a Kaiser Pils at 4.6% to Brixton Haze NEIPA, Saison DuPont, Russia Coloda Whitbeir and Black lab stout. A great start to our weekend and a quirky place to seek out if in London.
The next day we had booked on a London Craft Beer cruise which ran for 2 and a half hours along the Thames from Millbank to Greenwich and back. We each had 6 craft beers in very generous portions along with a take home commemorative glass. The beers included close to home Thornbridge Jaipur and am/pm and Siren brews DDH Calypso and Soundwave.
We then had another couple of hours sat outside at the Morpeth Arms, a Youngs pub which had great views of the river opposite the MI6 building. We both stayed on Peckham Ale from London’s Brick Brewery which was a superb brew.
A visit to a Greene king The Kings head in Bayswater for a pint of Level Head pale preceded a number of fantastic cocktails back at the Hayden (Buy a Guardian and banana old fashioned being our favourites).
The next day we journeyed to the London stadium home of West Ham Utd to watch MLB baseball where the Chicago Cubs played the St Louis Cardinals. The game was excellent with the Cardinals winning in front of 56000 fans. A great surprise was to find two craft beers brewed for the event being London Series Pale and The Birds and the Bears Tart ale both at 4.5%. The MLB returns to London next year in June and we will be back. We finished our trip with a trip to Portobello market and had a fabulous brunch with gins at Portobello Road Gin distillery.
