Pillars Brewery, Walthamstow, E17

This industrial estate on the fringes of Walthamstow Village, must hold some sort of record for having the most bars within its units. This particular effort is run by the Pillars Brewery who seem to specialise in creating different varieties of lager. On this visit, they had four such brews available, all on keg dispense it would seem – Untraditional Lager, Rebell Helles, More Hench and Experiment 001 which was a Chocolate and Orange Stout that I decided to give a try and found quite subtle and satisfying. The bar is typical of microbrewery premises across the capital, with a large concrete floored factory unit with large metal pillars and a corrugated iron roof, divided into two distinct areas – brewery and bar. The brewery is in the right hand portion of the room, whilst a small servery can be found tucked away in the far rear left corner with the rest of the left hand side given over to seating and vertical drinking space, with two sofas squeezed into the front right corner. Some effort has clearly been made to smarten up the seating space, with wooden boards stuck to the walls and painted purple with large letters splashed across it spelling out the word ‘Untraditional’. The servery has a concrete topped counter and four taps on the bar back above a brewery sign that has been designed to look like a London street-name sign. A couple of TV screens and games consoles have been rigged up to the left, with a few people playing Mario Kart when I arrived. There is low level lighting throughout and a quiet indie soundtrack played in the background. Ample overspill seating can be found outside which plenty of people were taking advantage of on a hot afternoon and I also spotted a table football game hidden away somewhat in a small side-room. These places are quite tricky to review as they are functional rather than comfortable and end up all feeling much like one another. What I can say is that this place stands out for having at least made some degree of effort to make the place feel welcoming and it certainly makes for an interesting mini crawl with the other bars, breweries and gin joints in this industrial estate.

Official site of Pillars Brewery - www.pillarsbrewery.com

Official site of Pillars Brewery - www.pillarsbrewery.com

The Pillars brewery just brews lager and is a neighbour of the Wild Card Brewery. The Tap is part of the brewery and is a bit better furnished than nearby Wild Card but with a smaller space outside it. The tap room is integrated within the brewery so you can find a seat surrounded by stainless steel vessels. They serve four keg lagers which are said to be unfiltered and cost £4.00 a pint which seemed steep to me. I tried the Citralicious which was very pleasant and the dark Slam Dunk which I found sweet and more like a brown ale. One of the others is called Untraditional Lager but I didn't write down the fourth. I'm not a lager drinker but found this place to be well worth a visit. It's open on Friday 17:00-23:00 and Saturday 14:00-23:00.