Wide Awake in Brixton

The late May bank holiday saw us making our way to south London for the Wide Awake Festival in Brockwell Park.  Ever foolhardy, I suggested it would be a good idea to squeeze in a few visits to pubs and brewery taprooms beforehand, as if standing in a park for 8-hours wasn't going to wear me out enough.

We made incredibly good time on a smooth trip on the Oxford Tube, changing to the Victoria Line, and arriving in Brixton earlier than planned.  Earlier than the pubs were open.  Except for 'Spoons, of course.

The Beehive (407-409 Brixton Road, SW9 7DG)
This is somewhere I used to regularly visit en-route to the Brixton Academy, not that I remember it very well.  An early Wetherspoon pub, it's pretty small, seeming more cramped on this visit by being super-busy with a mix of late breakfast trade, pre-noon boozers, and plenty of folks in obscure band t-shirts who looked to be on their way to the same festival as us.
We grabbed an Elgood's 'Golden Newt', one of the guest ales alongside a couple from local brewery Sambrook's.

The luck of a large group leaving saw us get seats at the back of the pub under the skylight.
"The sun is kissing you", said a very cool Mediterranean fella as he passed by.  "The sun is kissing the beautiful people".
Hmm...I don't know about being beautiful or kissed - all I know is it was too hot. 

Twelve noon and our brewery tap was open for business.

Brixton Brewery Tap Room (Arch 548, Brixton Station Road, SW9 8PF)
This was a basic tap-room in one sensibly sized railway arch where Brixton Brewery have been concocting ales since 2013.
There were eleven beers on offer, plus one cider.  The list was a bit pale ale-heavy, with a couple of exceptions.
Mrs PropUptheBar braved (and then raved about) the peculiarity which was 'Raita Passage', a cucumber and mint ale.  I stayed safe with the 'Life on Mars' dark mild: not bad, but - downfall of the keg - served too cold for a mild.

Walking down the road alongside the railway arches, we'd spotted the impressive Pop venue made out of old shipping containers.  We opted to call in there on the way back from Brixton Brewery to get a bite to eat.

Pop Brixton (49 Brixton Station Road, SW9 8PQ)
Pop was founded by Lambeth Council in 2015 on the site of a disused ice rink.  It's made up of 55 shipping containers, featuring street food, bars, a stage, and start-up businesses.
It's certainly a colourful place. 

I procured the Forest Road pale ale in plastic cup; Mrs PropUptheBar sorted the sustenance from the Sri Lankan kitchen. 

Heck, that was spicy!

Brixton currently has two places appearing in the 2024 Good Beer Guide, so we figured we'd try to visit them both.  Starting with Craft, a couple of minutes along the road from our lunch spot.

Craft Beer Co (11-13 Brixton Station Street, SW9 8PA)
This opened in 2012 as a sister venue to the Faringdon branch, which I spent a fair bit of time in when it was brand new to the capital's fledgling craft beer scene.
This location shares the same ornate mirrored ceiling as the Faringdon venue, and an impressive beer list.  All the draft beers were served from up high, the taps being on the brass piping that runs over the top of the bar, which was an unusual feature.

I stuck to the cask - lots of hand pulls but just two in action serving ales from Leatherbritches or Two Flints.  I picked the 4.5% ABV pale ale, 'Yonks', from Two Flints - a lovely murky brew that was so easy to drink.
Here's a picture of the empty upstairs room - the vast majority of custom content with pavement seating in the Brixton sunshine.

The second Beer Guide entry is in the side-streets, handily in the direction that we had to walk for Brockwell Park.
This is a kind of pub that I think London does especially well - an impressive looking street corner local on a quiet square, oddly calm after the manic bustle of Brixton's main thoroughfare. 

Trinity Arms (45 Trinity Gardens, Brixton, SW9 8DR)
The fixed bench seating out front in the sunshine was proving popular, as well as there being a busy, shaded back yard with fire pit to the rear.
Nice mansard roof. 
Nice old Young's livery...

Cask ale on the bar was the 'Original' or 'Special', plus that intriguing 'London Mixed' pump clip in the middle.  That was what I asked for, thinking I'd been misheard when the staff went straight to the 'Original' handle.  Except it was exactly what it said - the two beers mixed together.
Looking closely at the pump clip, there was a note that this was pub local David's drink of choice.   

It wasn't a bad beer - although I'd have to line up both the Young's beers and the Mixed and try them each in turn to decide whether it was worth going for the half and half.
And we didn't have time for that, as we had a festival to get to.

We encountered a much heftier queue to get into the Brockwell Park site than expected, getting through the gates in time for the second half of a set of punk rock vitriol from Brighton's Lambrini Girls, playing in a greenhouse...

At least we get to drink 'craft' beer in paper cups at festivals these days, a step-forward from when one frothy lager was available from whoever was sponsoring the event.
I was skeptical what the prices would be like though, especially after some recent highlighting of bar tariffs at the Co-Op Arena and O2.  All things considered, £7.50 at a festival in London at the Draft Punk bar didn't seem too extortionate.

Despite the blank space under the 'guest craft' heading, there was some.  I grabbed a Signal 'Turbo Joost IPA', taking it to watch NYC indie rockers Bodega on the Desert Daze stage. 

Dry Cleaning wandered down the road from their South London abodes to play this local gig but were on an odd proposition in the afternoon with the sun shining on them.  "Boring", according to Mrs PropUptheBar, who disappeared to procure a couple of pints of the Orbit Belgian Wit beer.

My highlight of the day was South London outfit Fat Dog, who may have only have a couple of singles out, but drew a huge crowd in front of the second stage.
'Night Boat to Cairo' on psychedelic drugs, at a rave, with a manic preacher man.  Great stuff!

We also caught Mercury Music Prize winners Young Fathers, followed by the reformed Slowdive, generating more interest in their shoegaze tunes than they did first time around.  "Boring" opined the hard-to-please Mrs PropUptheBar for the second time in the day, leading me to forfeit the end of Slowdive's set in favour of Lynks on the Disco Pogo stage.  Lynks was anything but boring.

Which just left headliners King Gizzard and Lizard Wizard as the skies darkened and the prospect of the Oxford Tube whisking us up the M40 loomed larger.   Hard to know what to expect from the Aussie psych-rockers, with various strands of psychedelia covered on their prolific back catalogue of LP releases.  They veered to the very heavy metal end of the spectrum this evening, with guitar riffs straight out the Slayer playbook, a dazzling light display, and energy which saw them barely pause for breath. 

A fine day out in South London. 
I'll pencil the dates for next years festival in the diary now.  And start planning a race around the pubs of Elephant & Castle before the first band.