Railway arches have become quite synonymous with breweries and tap rooms over the last 10 years or so. They seem like the perfect venue, they are spacious, with high ceilings to accommodate brewing equipment. They quite often have some outside space and the are close to train stations or other modes of public transport. I often find myself looking at empty railway arches and begin to start building my dream brewery and tap room in my head. I’ve already imagined the design of the layout, complete with a mezzanine floor for seating, all in a split of a second. This will probably forever remain a fantasy project for me but for many others, like this month’s featured brewery Gravity Well Brewing, it becomes a reality.
Ben Duck, founder for Gravity Well Brewing, started out by home brewing for a hobby whilst working as a lawyer for an investment bank and at first never had the intention of setting up his own commercial brewery. After spending a year practicing and perfecting his recipes in his London flat he looked at moving into a commercial premises to begin working on a larger scale. He too had seen the popularity and potential of railway arches for start up breweries and found the perfect one in Leyton, East London. Here Gravity Well was born, focusing on hazy New England styles and IPAs with big hop flavours. The modest but delicious core range consists of Cosmic Dust 3.8% Session IPA, Termination Shock 5.3 Pale Ale and Galaxies Apart 6% New England IPA but the brewery also enjoy experimenting with different styles. Recently, with the help of their reverse osmosis filter to purify their water source, they have played around with styles such as sours, goses and stouts.
I absolutely love NEIPAs so I was looking forward to my delivery from Gravity Well Brewing who also share my adoration of this style. I was also excited to try their range of sour beers, another style that I am particularly fond of. Here are some of my highlights from my box this month:
Planetary Alignment Fruited Gose 4.6%
As soon as I was pouring this beer into my glass I was hit with the smell of tropical fruits and the vivid yellow colour was reminiscent of juice. The scents on the nose were echoed by the flavours of mango and passionfruit that burst in my mouth. The juice-like mouthfeel that coated my tongue was followed by the prickle of carbonation and tart sourness, balancing out the fruity sweetness. I was worried that with such strong fruit flavours that the subtlety of the added salt for this style would be lost but I was pleasantly surprised to find that touch of salinity on the finish. This was both a very mouthwatering beer as well as a great thirst quencher. I think I may have to crown it as one of my favourites from the range.
Cosmic Dust Session IPA 3.8%
I can’t write about Gravity Well without mentioning one of their core beers. Don’t be fooled by this beer’s modest ABV as it is delightfully flavourful and had a much thicker mouthfeel then I was expecting. The bold piney, hoppy flavours followed up with tropical papaya fruit makes this the perfect session beer. In the blink of an eye I had finished my can of Cosmic Dust which goes to show what an easy drinker this it was. Definitely a great beer to always keep to hand in the fridge.
Pale Blue Dot Imperial Stout 11.5%
This is Gravity Well’s first stout and it was absolutely delicious! Really fruity on the nose which was mirrored in the taste as blueberry is the dominant flavour. The cacao flavours follow giving this beer both a rich chocolate finish as well as some complimenting fruity notes that I often detect when I am eating very dark chocolate. I find that sometimes blueberries are quite tart but with the fruitiness of the cacao this is smoothed out before you get the boozy warmth that you associate with Impy Stouts. This is a lovely beer to finish with at the end of an evening.
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Not content with having just one archway, Ben went on to open his brewery tap room a couple of arches down from the brewery, right next to Leyton Midland Road overground station. The location was perfect, close to the brewery and potential customers could see the taproom from the platform of the station, great for catching those thirsty commuters!
Although I might not ever have an opportunity to have my own place to run a bar, I hope to make the trip to Gravity Well’s tap room to drink more of their beers fresh as well as take a few ideas for my own dream railway arch.
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