London – Southwark (Borough of) – Hawkes Cidery

I admit that I hadn’t heard of the Bermondsey Beer Mile until last week, which is probably another one of my little oversights. There are quite a few of these to be fair. Anyway, there are some tremendous bars along this route, although a lot of them are closed mid-week and a few haven’t re-opened due to the current health issue. I definitely need to come back on a weekend.

I can’t judge which venues in London will be busy and which won’t, and I booked a table probably needlessly as it was relatively quiet. But, best to be sure. I took advantage of their two pizzas offer when I booked, but then had to e-mail to check that one person was allowed to do this. They replied promptly saying that was fine and the staff member who replied remembered my e-mail when I turned up. On that matter, the staff here were personable, laid-back and keen to welcome customers, all very lovely.

It’s a while since I’ve thought much about ciders, but I think that I might start thinking about them again. I went for the Dead & Berried Mixed Berry which was sweet, elegant and way too drinkable, with lovely flavours of raspberries. I also tried some Pineapple Punch, which was again so smooth it would be easy to forget that it was alcoholic. The pineapples certainly took the taste of the apples away, something a little different. I think there are some tasting trays available for those who want to try more, which I should have probably experimented with. Incidentally, I’m moderately obsessed with blackberries, I hope they do a cider packed with them with the apples.

This is all beautifully on-trend, but they probably aren’t aiming for that. Instead, I’m guessing, although I didn’t ask, that they just created somewhere they liked and hoped other people would like it as well, rather than going for something formulaic. This venue is in a railway arch and they also have a cidery on site where their products are made, it’s quite a sizeable location. Indeed, if anyone wants to send this place some apples, they send back cider, which seems quite a good deal to me. I might collect all the apples that Accor hotels keep giving me and send them here en masse.

I didn’t need two pizzas, but the staff member reassured me that this is a common thing to do. I bet it isn’t and she wanted me to feel better, but I didn’t much care. I liked the Diavola Chorizo, on the left, the best, but the Prosciutto on the right was also sufficiently tasty for my needs. I finished them both, but then realised I should come back here to get a Nduja pizza, I’ll just have to find someone to come with me to avoid ending up with two pizzas to myself though. Actually, on reflection, that would be fine.

The pizza menu, which is different to the one on the web-site.

On a customer service technicality, no-one mentioned the app (excuse the pun) to me and there was apparently a £5 off offer on there to anyone who spent £10. As someone who likes these sort of offers, I’d have merrily gone for that. It slightly annoyed me that they didn’t mention it. But not enough to dislike this place, which is a beautiful concept and one which I hope rolls out to more locations around the country. As an aside, they have a few beers which I think are from Brewdog, as well as some wines for those that insist on drinking them.

All told, I haven’t been to a place like this where it’s all about the apple, and, well, some other fruit as well. Friendly, laid-back and comfortable, I’m pretty sure that I’ll come back. All rather lovely.