‘You had me at £5 a pint’. Nick finds the beer at Long Arm isn’t just a very good price, but very good beer, too.
‘This used to be the loading bay for the Montcalm hotel,’ says Head Brewer, Jason Leeman. gesturing at the large semi-industrial looking space that houses Long Arm where every pint is brewed entirely on-site and served straight from tank to glass unfiltered and unf***ed with.
It’s very much the sort of spot you might expect to find in the trendier postcodes and not here just a pork scratching’s throw away from Finsbury Square. The thing is though, if you walk in the other direction down Worship Street you’re soon at Liverpool Street station and then in Spitalfields, still the epicentre of cool London.
Long Arm doesn’t look like a pub because it isn’t one, it’s a Tap Room. A Tap Room is tied to a brewery and serves only that brand’s craft beer. You can order pints of course, but also flights to sample multiple styles. It’s a proper ‘pub’for connoisseurs of beer, but thankfully not the kind of CAMRA place where bearded men ‘quaff ale’ and talk like Falstaff after a stroke.
Like most tap rooms, it leans heavily into an industrial look. Tables are workbenches with the kind of stools you’d once have found on the factory floor. And in the corner, of course, is the shiny micro brewery. There’s also an enormous TV screen on the wall for sports, but it’s possible for those with sportophobia (I was never picked for a team until last) to get far enough away for it to be only a mild distraction.
The brewery bit is where the whole process begins and ends. The last stainless steel vats in the chain are connected to the bar by pipes under the floor. This very short distance from brewery to drinker is one of the reasons costs are low, these are savings which can be passed on to the consumer. Yes of course Wetherspoons can also provide you with a £5 pint, but their model is different and their beers a bit boring. And you might also have to have to fight your way out. Only kidding Tim, only kidding.
Jason Leeman is an American who took over as head brewer about seven years ago and, in the way of these things, is ‘passionate’ about beer. If you think a sommelier can talk the hind legs off a donkey, you haven’t met Jason. And luckily few donkeys have
Fair enough though, he really does know his stuff and he makes excellent beer.
We had a ‘flight’ of six glasses of what’s on the beer menu this week and Jason was keen to wax poetic about them all, offering a ‘bluffer’s guide’ to beer tasting (I made careful notes) as well as providing six ‘snacks’ to help make his case and partner the beers. Snacks that ranged from a fiery Indian mix through fruit jellies to chocolate straws.
It was good to see that hops weren’t a feature of every half pint served. I got fed up years ago with beer that tasted like drain cleaner just so hipsters could say ‘Mmm you can taste the hops’.
The beers
‘IPA OK’ is what you might call ‘hop forward’ but it’s not at all overpowering, Made with pale and pilsner malt its a refreshing beer at a quite strong 5.5% abv
Arm in Arm is a Helles Larger (possibly a typo) is a traditional German pale lager beer, usually found in Southern Germany. Crips and light, just as it said on the menu, and quite sweet. 4.1% abv
Birdie Flipper uses a combination of New Zealand Pacific Jade, Pacifica and American Willamette hops. Dark with coffee and toffee notes. 4.9% abv
Lucky Penny. One of their flagship beers. A 4.0% to 4.4% ABV session pale ale, very fresh, very refreshing with citrus notes.
Shadow Wolf. This is a dark, smoked oat stout at around 4.7% ABV, very dark indeed actually. It uses nitrogen for gas to create a classic creamy pour that’s got great depth and flavour.
Hang Loose Heffe. A traditional German-style Hefeweizen, a white beer but not the same as the Dutch version which is brewed with coriander and citrus or other spices and is usually cloudy. This had banana and clove flavours from the Bavarian yeast strains used to ferment it.
Six glasses at half a pint each is (consults Texas Calculator), three pints, which was quite enough for me. Heading off for a well-deserved bathroom break, and a little bit woozy, I went through a door to find I had been transported from a designery ‘sleazy’ bar into the plush carpeted surrounds of a luxury hotel. Was I hallucinating? No, actually I had entered the Montcalm Royal London House Hotel which houses Long Arm. Quite surreal.
Luckily Long Arm also serves food, so I went back in and got myself a very decent burger and chips to absorb the beer and fortify me for the journey home.
It’s not usual to find a place like Long Arm in central(ish) London and much more unusual to find a range of excellent beers at a very reasonable price.
Well worth visiting for beer fans and for groups.
longarmpub.co.uk