Good Spirits - 500 Places for Food and Wine Lovers - page 344

Breweries

387

Fuller's Brewery
London's Pride
London, England

You'll spot it from the car window as
you're driving into London from the West
along the A4—a hulking complex of dull
brick Victorian-era factory buildings along
the bank of the Thames, with the name
FULLER ' S running up the slim smokestacks.
Although it's not quaint, this Griffin
Brewery represents a historic ale-brewing
tradition, as the last traditional family
brewery left in London (look for the gold
griffin figure on every beer label). With so
many other historic British brands—Bass,
Whitbread, Courage, Worthington—swal-
lowed up by multinational conglomerates,
Fuller's very survival gives it nostalgic
cachet.
Since the days of Oliver Cromwell, beer
has been brewed on this site, originally as
a private operation in the garden of Bed-
ford House, when Chiswick was a pastoral
country retreat for the aristocracy. The
original Fuller, John Fuller, joined the Grif-
fin Brewery business in 1829; by 1845,
when this factory was built, it had become
Fuller, Smith, & Turner, which is still its
name. Although it became a limited com-
pany in 1929, members of all three fami-
lies are still involved—which is why they
call it a “family company,” even though it's
technically no longer family owned.
Fuller's also owns more than 350 “tied”
pubs and bars around the country, which
primarily sell its brands of ales, both in
bottles and in casks (cask-conditioned ales
are designed to finish their fermentation in
a pub cellar rather than at the brewery).
Fuller's most famous brand is probably the
rich, mahogany-colored London Pride,
the U.K.'s leading premium cask ale; it's

also known for award-winning ales such
as Chiswick Bitter, ESB (which stands for
Extra Special Bitter), and their dark, rich,
hoppy London Porter, often rated as
the world's best porter beer. Their chief
export to the United States is Fuller's IPA,
a delicately amber-colored India Pale Ale
that's only seasonally available in the U.K.
They also make several other seasonal
beers and a specially boxed Vintage Ale
that comes out in a new recipe every
Christmas.
Daily tours of the Griffin Brewery fill up
fast—be sure to book in advance. It's defi-
nitely a major industrial site, full of massive
pipes and rattling conveyor belts and loud
pumping machinery. Nevertheless it's a
rare experience to walk around the brew
house; the fermentation rooms, which are
warm, unlike the cold cellars lager requires;
the bottling section; and the immense
cask racks. With so much territory to
cover, the tours last nearly 2 hours, though
of course that also includes a full tasting
session in the brewery's on-site pub, the
Mawson Arms.

Fuller's Griffin Brewery, Chiswick
Lane South ( & 44/20/8996-2048; www.
fullers.co.uk).
( Heathrow (24km/15miles); Gatwick
(40km/25miles).
L $$$ 22 Jermyn St., 22 Jermyn St.,

St. James ( & 800/682-7808 in the U.S., or
44/20/7734-2353; www.22jermyn.com).
$$ Vicarage Private Hotel, 10 Vicarage
Gate, South Kensington ( & 44/20/7229-
4030; www.londonvicaragehotel.com).