Fourpure

Location: 25 Bermondsey Trading Estate

Opening hours: Saturday 1200-2200

Other days: Sunday 1200-1800, Friday 1600-2200

Official site: https://www.fourpure.com/

Last updated: 07/08/2022

One final walk in the direction of the Trading Estate (look for the Screwfix sign), a couple of minutes picking your way through the warren of small businesses there (watch out for the NO URINATING IN THIS AREA signs), and you'll soon find yourself at the biggest brewery you've seen all day. Enormous tanks outside the building! Two stories of seating space inside! More seating and a barbecue outside! And 20 taps of beer, making this for a while the only brewery on the Mile that needed video screens to keep its tap list up to date! (Craft Beer Junction does that now, too.)

Assuming you started at the Maltby Street end, you've saved the biggest brewery till (almost) last. But making this the last stop on a tour of independent breweries is a bit problematic. Back in the summer of 2018, just a few days before this site went live, Fourpure announced that they'd sold 100% of the company to Australian beer giant Lion, the owners of Castlemaine XXXX. They justified the sale by saying this would give them the money to expand to the degree they'd always dreamed of (and to be fair, the taproom got a fabulous makeover as a result), but it wouldn't have any impact on the beer itself - arguments that sounded fairly hollow when Beavertown had rolled them out a month earlier, following their own buyout by Heineken.

Could we still consider Fourpure to be a craft brewery any more? The Belated Birthday Girl thought not, and went so far as to suggest that as of that point, the Bermondsey Beer Mile should end at Partizan. For my part, I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. And that was our view of Fourpure from the launch of this site all the way up to January 2022, when it was suddenly announced that Lion were selling off the brewery, along with the similarly acquired Magic Rock.

So, where does that leave us? Will Fourpure survive? Will they regain their independence, or be devoured by someone else entirely? And what will this do to the beer? If nothing else, it gives us an excuse to revisit the Mile again in the future to see what else changes. We'll let you know.

Now walk 500m to Small Beer ----->

<----- or go back 400m to Partizan

or return to the home page

Comments

[Cassius]

A few comments...

Firstly, you don’t mention the words independent or craft anywhere in the article, until you use them at the end to describe what, in your opinion, Fourpure aren’t. In addition, as you mention, Hawkes have sold to Brewdog, who have had massive investment from the company who owns Pabst Blue Ribbon. And there are no negatives in your review of them. Just seems a bit contradictory, really.

A&H didn’t take over their arch from The Kernel. It’s a different space. Same street, different number.

Finally - speaking of the Kernel - to call the experience of going to one of the best breweries in the UK, buying bottles and talking to the people who created them, disturbing - well, I don’t think you could possibly have missed the point any more spectacularly.

There’s an embryo of a good idea in what you’ve done, but you need to research better, be consistent - and keep your personal feelings out of it if you’re trying to present it as an information source.

[SpankTM]

Cassius - To give each of your points the attention it deserves:

- There was a mix-up on our part between 98 Druid Street (the old home of The Kernel) and 118 Druid Street (currently home of Anspach & Hobday). That's now been corrected in the post.

-

[James Roberts]

Being a bit harsh here Cassius. I am grateful for the info the writer gives but his opinions made it a lot more of an enjoyable read and he's very welcome to them. When I do the mile I guess i'll form my own.

[Don]

Perhaps Cassius could do a better job and do his own site instead of disparaging this one. As said this is an unofficial site so might have a few mistakes. Thanks to the authors for his and her valuable time taken to write this helpful blog

[Magnus]

Thanks for this site, and please do the mile again to keep us updated on any changes. Will hopefully be going on my third mile this Christmas.

[Danny]

Going to do some of the mile this weekend. Massive thanks to the creators of this website. Very helpful for planning!

[Trevor Lahey]

Really interesting and useful blog - looking forward to following the route once lockdown has finished! I think Cassius has missed the point here - the authors made clear this is an unofficial site and why shouldn't they include their personal opinion - I for one found it made the posts much more interesting...

[Ian]

I agree with Cassius. This is a site about the BBM, Give us the facts and I'll make up my own mind what constitutes 'Craft Beer' and which bars I want to visit/avoid as a result.