Another lost brewery.

Another lost brewery.

by | Apr 11, 2024 | Community

Brew by Numbers

With the looming demise of the Meantime brewery from the borough of Greenwich it is regret that we have also lost another brewery from the borough and that is the Brew By Numbers brewery, which last December reported that they were leaving their riverside taproom and brewery at Morden Wharf.

Having moved production and its taproom from the Bermondsey Beer Mile at Enid Street in May 2023 to Morden Wharf, it closed the Bermondsey taproom but kept the brewing production and taproom the Greenwich taproom at Morden Wharf last December and now all production this year will be going up North.


I used to love the beer festivals at the Morden Wharf site as it was the nearest yearly festival to me. Every weekend the taproom would be buzzing with people enjoying their beers and a pizza.


The Brew By Numbers which was originally based in Bermondsey and was founded by David Seymour and Tom Hutchings in 2011, and the Brewery became a mainstay component of the Bermondsey Beer Mile.


Having been sold to a private equity company the, Breal Group last summer production has been moved to the Black Sheep brewery, Masham, North Yorkshire. The Black sheep is another brewery that the Breal Group bought in May 2023.


Like the Meantime brewery, beers will still be produced under their brand name but will now have no connection to whatsoever to its London origins.
Having worked for a few companies that were bought out by private equity companies, I can state that it is never in the interest of the workers that make up the company.


First they strip the company down to the bare minimum, starting with the staff then the equipment then the premises. Text book action that has happened to Meantime, Brick and Brew by Numbers.

All that is left is a recipe and a brand name that is as valuable as the original company, that has now disappeared.
I suppose if the company is going under it’s always best to sell up, rather than go bankrupt and have a massive debt hanging over your head for years to come.


The craft beer and real ale brewing businesses were experiencing a boom time just a few years ago but what with the state of the economy and the cost of living crisis, many brewers are struggling and many are going under.
Another factor is as a result of the boom times we now have an over saturated craft beer market, and a shrinking customer base that is not drinking as much due to multiple increases in the prices.
The Brew By Numbers said they were hit hard by increased material costs following on from the pandemic.


Another brewery, the Brick Brewery which was founded in Peckham by Ian and Sally Stewart in 2013, also went into administration at the same time that the Brew By Numbers brewery went into administration and both breweries were saved by being bought up by the Breal Group, and production will also go to Masham, North Yorkshire.


While trying to find out more about the Breal group you will find it very hard. They have a website but it tells you absolutely nothing interesting or useful about the company, like what other companies it controls. Very cagey if you ask me.

Dangerous Dogs.

Dangerous Dogs.

by | Oct 19, 2023 | Community

Greenwich Dangerous Dog Incident. 

On 3rd October at about 10 am, in Catherine Grove, Greenwich just outside the Hilton Hotel, a 20-month-old toddler had just left the hotel with his mother when out of nowhere an XL bully came running up to the toddler and attacked him without provocation.

The toddler’s leg was mauled and he will probably be scarred for life if it wasn’t for brave members of the public and his mother coming to his aid the child could have been killed.

The parents an Indian couple from the Netherlands over here on business thought their child would lose his leg but luckily after a two-day stay in hospital, the child is going to be OK.

The XL bully’s owner was with the dog at the time of the attack, a 29 year-old man who like just about every other dangerous dog owner who sees their dog attack someone, he did the usual thing he pulled his dog off, picked up his shopping and nonchalantly walked off as if nothing had happened, leaving the poor child bleeding and helpless in the road.

My blood boils with anger against this heartless and uncaring piece of worthless shit. Unfortunately, it’s a scenario that is played out frequently all over the country.  In their mind, their obviously dangerous dog is more important than anyone else’s life. Anyone who can just walk off and leave a child bleeding and injured in the street when they are directly and personally responsible, I can only describe as a human turd.

Thanks to members of the public who followed the man and called the police he was arrested a few streets away and now hopefully he will get what he deserves, and the dog will be destroyed.

The Pitbull and XL bully breed have generations of inbreeding to make them deliberately aggressive and confrontational and they were bred exclusively for one purpose to fight and kill.

It only takes one irrelevant and elusive reason to trigger a Pitbull or XL bully into a wild rage and when that happens you, yourself or any of your family do not want to be anywhere near it.

There’s a certain type of person who thinks owning a pit bull or XL bully will enhance his or her status in society. ‘I need a macho dog because I am macho’. In reality, people will view you as arrogant and uneducated which is more likely the truth.

The Internet channel JOE which mainly deals with political issues interviewed XL bully owners who were protesting against Prime Minister Rishi Sunaks announcement that he intends to ban the breed after numerous attacks and deaths caused by this type of breed.

If those protesting thought, they were going to persuade the public to make them come around to their point of view they must have been delusional.

Some were in complete denial that any XL bully had attacked anyone and there was no evidence to prove any claim, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

One muscle-bound uneducated moron who struggled to complete a whole sentence without sounding like an uneducated chav showed off his dog’s collar and chain, and both were studded with big spikes. It was like looking at the complete stereotypical cliché of Mr macho and his macho dog scenario.

The XL bully and the Pitbull seem to go hand in hand with the anti-social and criminal community who use it to intimidate members of the public.

Look at your local drug dealer and by his side you will more likely find a Pitbull or XL bully dog, not a poodle or a chihuahua.

 

Look at the XL bully or Pitbull owner and you notice that when their dog fouls the pavement or grass, they never pick up their dog’s mess like responsible dog owners.

Any parent who brings any dangerous breed into the home thinking it will make a wonderful family pet for their young children needs to take a good hard look in the mirror and ask themselves “Am I a good responsible parent or is the safety of my child a risk I am willing to take in order to make a statement about myself to other people” because you will be judged by others over your choice of a dog in a family setting.

Here are the initial reports from the Daily Mail.  Many other media outlets reported the incident, but few showed or named the owner who was charged.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12597005/american-xl-bully-attack-toddler-dog-owner-charged.html

Royal arsenal Summer Lates

Royal arsenal Summer Lates

by | Jun 3, 2021 | Community, Eating Out, Street Food

As stated in a previous post about the farmers market at Woolwich, the farmer market has now become more of a food festival rather than a place to buy organically produced raw fruit and vegetables, and now it would appear the organizers have come to realise this fact.

Starting this Saturday 5th June and repeating each first Saturday of the month throughout the summer period there will be on the same site a Street food festival along with live music, bars and other entertainment.

The weather is predicted to be fantastic this Saturday (but this could change) so the day should be a very, joyous, happy and entertaining event.

(See events calendar for dates and details)

To cull, or not to cull.

To cull, or not to cull.

by | Mar 1, 2021 | Community

To cull, or not to cull.

The sight of parakeets flying around certain areas of London is becoming almost as common as seeing squirrels or foxes. In Greenwich, they are very common especially in the parks and along the railway track treetops.
The government has announced that they are looking to cull the wild parakeets as they are not native to the British isle and as such are decimating the natural ecosystem by dominating the smaller native birds.

I personally love seeing the brightly coloured parakeets flying about outside my window especially in the summer. They brighten up the place. I would like to see maybe a partial culling that would not destroy the whole parakeet population but maybe keep them to a level where they do not impact so much on the native smaller birds. I’m no expert, so this may not be feasible.

In a way, I can understand the governments position as these birds are native to mainly Australia, South America, and parts of South Asia and not the UK. During the last century, grey squirrels were introduced to the British isles from North America and this has had disastrous consequences for the native red squirrels, which were driven to almost extinction by the more aggressive grey squirrels.
Similarly, when the non-native rabbits were introduced to Australia they found that the rabbits bred like….well rabbits. This spelled disaster for the farmers crops which the rabbits feasted on like there was no tomorrow.
The Australian rabbit problem got so bad that the Australian army and prospecting bounty hunters were called in to try and eliminate the devastation they were causing. Although the problem is now contained the rabbits are still in abundance on the subcontinent of Australia, a testimony to the endurance of mother nature over man.

In the case of the British parakeet problem, the birds were not introduced on purpose but were caused by numerous escaped parakeets escaping from the confinement of cages to which parakeets are not meant to endure, so they will attempt to escape at any opportunity. These free wild birds then managed to congregate and breed.
I’m still amazed they manage to breed so fast and managed to adapt to our climate so easily but that is just what they have done.
Whether it is accidentally escaped birds or the intended introduction of a non-native species to a country to solve another problem, the final problem of non-native species destroying the ecosystem or the native species is always the fault of humans who do not think enough of the long term consequences of their actions.

All hail the British entrepreneur.

All hail the British entrepreneur.

by | Mar 1, 2021 | Business, Community

All hail the British entrepreneur.

At the corner of Greenwich High Road and Stockwell Street, just outside the Mitre pub sit three old red telephone boxes. To anyone idly passing by that is just what they are but upon closer inspection, you will realise that they are not telephone boxes at all.

These three red telephone boxes are part of a growing phenomenon that is spreading across the land whereby the telecoms equipment is removed, and the units are turned into small businesses. In the case of these three boxes, one is a locksmith key cutting service, one is a mobile phone repair business, and one is a coffee selling kiosk.
At the moment we are still under lockdown trading restrictions so the only business working there at the moment is the coffee selling kiosk.

I can only assume the rental on such a small plot of land must be minuscule and with just basic utilities such as electricity as overheads, this is what you call a win, win business scenario if you want to stay small and is the ideal start-up for the budding entrepreneur.

The advent of the ubiquitous mobile phone meant the demise of the old telephone boxes since almost everyone has a phone with them all the time so the need for the old telephone boxes is not needed anymore. A working telephone box actually being used as a telephone box is a rare sight to behold these days.

St Valentines day in Greenwich

St Valentines day in Greenwich

by | Feb 10, 2021 | Community

I have tried and tried to find some solution to the quandary of what to do special on St Valentine’s day during the lockdown in Greenwich and the only thing that I have come up with is an online romantic concert streamed by the Blackheath Halls.
If you stick to the rules (as we all should) then unless you are happily married or living with your special someone, then a nice evening in with a lovely meal and a few glasses of wine is going to be an easy option during the lockdown. Unfortunately, if you are single and living on your own and have that someone special in your life then getting the person you love to pop around for an intimate meal and other intimacies is against the rules. Although if your young and in love I don’t think the rules are going to stop you.
If you are interested in an evening of intimate loving, food, wine, and entertainment, and you have a passion for classical music and culture then you can watch on Sunday 14th February at 19:30, the online stream of LOVE: Brahms Liebeslieder-Waltzer, Op. 52 & 65 for £10 per household by booking online from the link: https://www.blackheathhalls.com/whats-on/love-brahms-liebeslieder-waltzer-op-52-65-2/
Hopefully this Covid mess will be sorted out by next year and we can all get back to the restaurants to celebrate St Valentines as usual with the special one we love and care about.
See the events page on the 14th February for more details of the St Valentines day concert by the Blackheath Halls.