Bandit Pale Ale Gipsy Hill Brewing Co London 3.8% 33cl

Founded in 2014, the Gipsy Hill Brewing Company is but a toss of barley away from Crystal Palace’s iconic radio masts in south London and is the brainchild of two men who love beer and wanted a change of direction in life.

Charlie Shaw had been a journalist and keen home brewer who got some experience of working at the Five Points Brewery in Hackney, while Sam McMeekin’s more business-like background was in development funds for Africa. They quickly recruited a head brewer in Simon Wood of the joyously named Piddle Brewery in Dorset, and set about making ale with a 15 barrel mash tun and 7 fermenters at a small industrial estate near Charlie’s home.

Just a couple of years later and there are four regular brews and a number of seasonal beers which they put in to bottle, cask and keg, and a broad range of London outlets selling their beers. They are not shy of trying new things, one reason why head brewer Simon was glad to move from his Dorset post, but they also do some things very traditionally. For example, bottling by hand and without fining making them attractive to vegetarians (a common fining agent is isinglass, sourced from the swim bladders of fish).

Their aim has always been to buy the very best ingredients they can and turn them into a range of regular beers and seasonal brews, most of which are made at alcohol levels that fit with the owners’ lifestyle. As they point out, they both like their beer but as fathers and no longer twenty-somethings they can’t afford the dubious luxury of recovery time the next morning!