Battersea Brewery Tap Room, Battersea, SW8

A railway arch brewery well described below. Dark and cold inside, bright and warm outside as long as the sun is out. The Admirals Best was the lone ale on with a cider on the other pump. We didn’t think much of it and it actually went off before we could get another round in, so we reverted to their keg products and thought these were a bit of a mixed bag as well. The location is great on a hot day if you can get space on one of the outside benches, and I would certainly use it if by the power station again. But what they brew here won’t have me making any special visits to this one.

Set in a railway arch opposite the super-ugly modern buildings that obscure Battersea Power Station and just a stone’s throw from the Thames, this is a decent brewery bar that provides a much more rounded drinking environment than many of the capital’s other railway arch taprooms. The first thing you notice on arrival is the vast amount of bench seating arranged outside, beneath the rail lines and sheltered by the tall surrounding buildings, so they don’t get all that much sun. the arch itself is quite wide, with undressed brick walls and a vaulted ceiling which gives it a nice atmospheric feel compared to the majority of metal-clad arches around the city. There’s a large servery to the right, with a hexagonal tile floor around it, a simple blocky square counter and two large beer tanks overhead, that effectively act as a bar back. Some small industrial style lamps hang above the counter and the rest of the room is lit by larger versions of the same lamp. Exposed utilities run across the ceiling and there are a few blackboards and a TV screen to the left which list the drinks options. The rest of the room is bare boarded rather than concrete floored, with tables and chairs to front, benches down the left side and high tables and stools in the rear part of the room. A staircase to the rear leads up to a mezzanine level where additional seating can be found with views down to the bar. A cool punk and emo soundtrack played throughout my time here and I noticed quite a few people seemed to be eating, but I didn't see any food menus, so maybe the food came from one of the eateries further along the track. There were two beers available on cask - Battersea Admirals Best and Oakham Citra - whilst six more Battersea beers could be found on keg, all over 5% abv for some reason, along with three guest kegs and a cider. The Admirals Best was not really at its best, or at least is a very disappointing brew, so I was regretting not plumping for a keg option. Service was torturously slow due to many orders being taken from tables, resulting in a queue at the bar that snaked its way outside at one point. I quite liked this place which benefits from its interesting location and doesn’t make the same mistakes a lot of railway arch brewery bars seem to make (the brewing kit is all in an adjacent arch, which helps matters for a start). The slow service and dubious beer would make me think twice about returning, but I may have been unlucky on that front.

With the (relatively) nearby Mason's Arms closed due to "unforeseen circumstances", my next stop in a crawl of South West London pubs was this brewery taproom inside some railway arches under the tracks from Victoria. As taprooms go, this one felt modern. But it lacked customers and therefore atmosphere. Just one other customer was present on a Thursday afternoon. There are a couple of handpulls, which were both clipped with Battersea Paddy Whack and Citra & Simcoe Pale. The craft beer choice is wider - Battersea Swagger Like Us, Lyrical Genius, Eye of your Mind, Redneck Agenda, Back to Black, Delirium on Helium & Complicated Illusions & Yeastie Boys Bigmouth. Staff were friendly, but looked a bit bored. Toilets were certainly clean. The mild was ok, but looked and tasted more like a pale ale than a mild.