Partizan Brewery & Tap Room, SE16

Since my last visit to the Bermondsey beer mile, Partizan Brewery have expanded and moved to this new site, just a short distance from their previous location, on the other side of the rail arches. These new premises afford the brewery taproom plenty of extra space for punters to fill each weekend, but in many ways, by expanding to this extent, they have become even more undistinguishable from other breweries on the mile than they were before. The front part of the room is a wide, single arch with hard wooden bench booths to the left, canteen-style benches through the centre and drinking ledges with no stools along the right-hand wall. The space has a concrete floor, unpainted, cheap-looking wood clad walls and a corrugated iron vaulted ceiling. To the rear, there is a horseshoe-shaped servery with messy, confusing blackboards on the bar back listing the beer options. One feature that stood out among all the same-old same-old was the wacky bespoke keg fonts on the bar counter, and as with their original taproom, they’ve made a feature of the excellent artwork that adorns their beer bottles and pump clips, with framed examples leant against the left-hand wall, next to the bar. Behind the servery, the room becomes a double arched space where all the brew-plant is located. Tinny sounding music played over a sound system that struggled to compete with the echo of a modest midday crowd and the rumblings of the trains overhead. The arch has shuttered frontage that was closed on a cold afternoon, but no doubt gets opened out fully in the summer, where it fronts onto a modest sized patio area. I deciphered seven Partizan beers from the blackboard behind the bar and ended up giving their Porter a try at £4.00 a pint. It was a pretty good example of a keg Porter and served to me by a very friendly barman in far less torturous circumstances than when I ordered a pint in their old taproom. It was interesting to see how this brewery have progressed in terms of their expansion and yet not really advanced at all in terms of providing a pleasant space to enjoy a few of their beers. I was happy enough to sit here whilst enjoying my pint, but nothing compelled me to stay on for a second pint and, much like other places on the mile, the urge to move on quickly won out.

Official site of Partizan Brewery and Tap room. - www.partizanbrewing.co.uk

Official site of Partizan Brewery and Tap room. - www.partizanbrewing.co.uk

A walk underneath the railway lines from the tap rooms on Almond Road will bring you to the other side of the tracks and the larger railway arch occupied by the Partizan Brewery and Tap room. Started in 2012 by a home brewer from Leeds and a brewer who jumped ship from Redemption in Tottenham, with second hand kit passed on from the Kernal Brewery, this is another of the Bermondsey railway arch craft brewers who seem to be doing alright for themselves. Technically on Raymouth Road their tap room has a decent external space with plenty of bench tables (and obligatory street food van) that you have to walk through to enter the arch. Here there is further inside seating before you get to the bar and then beyond is the brewing kit occupying the end of the arch. Seven of their beers were available on tap with a different mix of styles most at £3.50 for 2/3rds or £5.50 a pint. I tried their porter and X-Ale collaboration with Redemption and both were decent craft offerings. I enjoyed this tap room as it was more spacious than others visited on the day, had decent toilets (important) an absolutely banging Jazz Funk soundtrack being played at a reasonable volume and a very passable craft porter. Opening hours for this one are 5pm to 11pm on a Friday and 11am to 8pm every Saturday.