The Little Yak, Deptford, SE8

Official site of The Little Yak - www.feedtheyak.com

Official site of The Little Yak - www.feedtheyak.com

Taproom for the Little Faith brewery, this place occupies the premises of a former church alongside a railway arch carrying the Docklands Light Railway. The breweries beers are not brewed on the premises, leaving a rather large space for drinkers, including 2 separate indoor rooms and a large outdoor yard too. Beers are all craft ones - Little Faith New Colours, Squeaky & New Triumphant, Anspach & Hobday London Black, Lost & Grounded Hop-Hand Fallacy, Drop Project Shifty, London Brewing Company All Ripe!, Westerham Nova Anglia, Pressure Drop Understanding Whole Systems, Sureshot/Pomona Island Blueberry Still Connects, Amundsen Scream Egg Series Peanut Butter Choc Chip & Jam & Drinkscraft Gravity Theory Cider. Unlike the Duke up the road, the staff here were well prepared for a large influx from the May Day Parade, having several pints of lager poured and ready to serve. However, there were probably less lager drinkers than they had anticipated, with many ordering one of the craft options! As taprooms go, I thought this was quite a smart and trendy looking place. I'd not heard of Little Faith before, and I still didn't try their beers, but I was suitably impressed with their taproom and will endeavour to look out for their beers.

Tucked away in a part of Deptford I never knew existed, this is a decently put together brewery taproom, located in what looked to me like an old mechanic’s workshop but is apparently a former Pentecostal church! Entering through large folding front doors, you find yourself in a decent sized concrete floored room with some very uncomfortable pew booths down the left-hand wall, presumably salvaged from the aforementioned church, a couple of regular tables and chairs over to the right and a row of faux-distressed tables surrounded by benches and low stools through the centre. The walls have mostly been painted white, which helps to brighten things up a little, although an unusual set of heavy, dark wood folding doors has been retained to the front left, which is quite a unique feature and adds to the impression that this place was once some sort of workshop. The room has been decorated with various old movie posters, a few bits of modern art, some whiskey mirrors and various old enamel advertising signs, including one for Michelin tyres that really sealed the ‘mechanic-theory’ for me. There are also a lot of seemingly unrelated items available for sale including coffee pots, license plates and some stained-glass art pieces. The servery, to the rear of the room, has a nice herringbone effect counter front in a multi-coloured pattern in front of a glazed tile bar back which hosts a decent row of keg taps with a beer board above. To the left of the bar there’s an open-plan area beneath a skylight, which has limited seating, wire-mesh wall coverings and a table football game. Plenty of people had chosen to sit out on the decent sized side patio garden area which was seemingly only accessible by exiting the pub to the front and walking around the side of the building, despite it being visible through the windows the bar area. A great 80’s indie soundtrack played throughout my time here and the place seemed to be doing good business despite the main room being almost entirely empty. The beer board listed four Little Faith brews alongside five guest beers from the likes of Siren, The Kernel and Lost & Grounded. Gluten-free, alcohol-free and cider options were also available. I tried one of the home brews but forgot to note down the name – suffice to say, it was a rich stout with strong coffee overtones that thankfully was served at a sensible temperature that brought the flavour to the front. The staff all seemed friendly and industrious and in different circumstances, I would’ve liked to stay a little longer to try some of their other beers. I was quite impressed with this place, which I assumed would just be another bog-standard micro-brewery operating out of an industrial estate, so it was a pleasing surprise to find a smart taproom in an interesting building for a change. The beer seemed pretty good, although the lack of cask will obviously be disappointing to traditionalists. A nice little place and perhaps the pick of the handful of pubs I visited on this Deptford mini-crawl.