Location: 72 Enid Street
Opening hours: Saturday 1200-2230
Other days: Sunday 1200-2230, Wednesday-Friday 1600-2230
Official site: https://www.gosnells.co.uk/pages/gosnells-meadery-taproom
Last updated: 21/01/2024
Ah, mead, the preferred drink of the sort of people who say ‘a flagon of your foaming best, stout yeoman of the bar’... but this is much better than that. Gosnells have been brewing in Peckham for yonks – their mission statement is ‘Connecting people to bees via crafted honey drinks’ - and now they’ve got a taproom on the Mile where London Calling Sweden used to be. Because of the whole humming and hahing we’ve been doing about whether we cover non-beer drinks here, we first visited the bar in autumn 2022 and then wrote nothing about it for a year.
Back then, we were impressed by how far back they were using the arch compared with its former occupants, with some hexagonal tables and a non-functioning (we hope) beehive to remind you where their product comes from – although with the small number of people in attendance clustering near the bar at the back, it made the place look really empty when you first walked in. They’d offer you tasters from their half a dozen meads (including an alcohol free one going at a reasonably cheap price) and a couple of beers from Brick, their Peckham neighbours. I didn’t make many notes about the meads at the time, preferring to focus on its two toilet cubicles, an improvement on the Viking height urinals of LCS that assumed your dick was four feet off the ground.
Returning in late 2023 after a year away, we suddenly realise the power of a simple redesign. The bar that used to be at the back of the arch is now halfway along it, changing the focus and making it a lot more inviting and less empty-feeling once you’ve got one or two small groups inside. There’s also been a change in what the bar is selling – the focus is more on lower ABV nectars (8 on tap) than the higher ABV meads (three available when we visited). As before, the bar staff are well aware that your previous experience of mead is likely to be limited, and will be happy to give you recommendations, on our visit going so far as to suggest which ones to avoid, and apologising that the mulled nectar was still heating up.
Mead is apparently considered the nectar of the gods, so for our visit we chose to stay at the mortal end, with the spiced tangerine nectar and the one they call West London (which we don’t think is intended to be an actual flavour). They’re both nicely sweet without being sickly so. Aside from the meads and nectars on tap, Gosnell’s also do takeaway cans and the odd guest beer or two, including Lucky Saint for the non-drinkers. No food on offer most of the time, but at the time of writing if you buy a pint on Sundays they’ll throw in a wedge of Neal’s Yard cheese for free.
Now walk 10m to Cloudwater ----->
<----- or go back 15m to Moor Beer
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