We’ve always felt out of step when it comes to London brewery The Kernel. Why do others love their beer while we’re left cold?
When we posted about our transcendent experience at the Saint Mars of the Desert taproom in Sheffield several people told us that The Kernel taproom in Bermondsey was similarly wonderful.
Having moved to Cornwall just as the Bermondsey Beer Mile was coming into existence, and being awkward buggers who are averse to crowds and queues, we’d never actually got round to visiting.
Recently, in London for a long weekend, we decided to correct that, and to give The Kernel some serious thought and attention.
First things first: the taproom did not do anything for us.
It’s on the ground floor of a modern block on a street lined with modern blocks and could be almost anywhere in the world. Not only is the interior lacking character but actually felt to us rather cold and austere.
We found ourselves comparing it to the reception area of an apartment hotel in Vienna, or a branch of Wagamama.
There was no sense of it being run by a particular person, or people – no greebling or personal touches. Instead, there were only stretches of plain wood, concrete and metal piping.
The person behind the counter was friendly and welcoming, though, even if their patter did seem to have evolved in response to tourists who know nothing about beer. We got warnings about, and unasked for explanations of, sour beers, or beers with Brettanomyces. There are, we suppose, only so many times you can watch someone grimace at the beer they’ve ordered, and/or abandon it, and/or request a refund.
Of the beers we drank, we found a couple excellent, a couple merely fine, and one (Simond’s 1880 bitter at 5.8%) no better than garden shed homebrew.
We were particularly impressed by Brett Pale at 4.6%, not only as a beer in its own right, but also as a concept. Just because Orval is the most famous Brettanomyces-inflected beer doesn’t mean all Brett beers need to have 6+% ABV. Session Brett beers should be more of a thing.
It also served beautifully as a ‘Brett top’ for some of the less interesting beers, a splash providing the complexity and extra dimension they were missing.
We left with our long-held impression of The Kernel reinforced: they are a perfectly OK, perfectly ordinary brewery whose reputation for particular brilliance probably rests to some degree on warm feelings toward the founder; the brewery’s admittedly laudable anti-growth ethos; and its willingness to experiment with unusual styles and historic recipes.
That would be the end of the story except that, after walking through the back streets of Bermondsey and New Cross, we found ourselves back at the excellent Dog & Bell in Deptford. There, one of the cask ales on offer was Kernel London Porter – and it was truly excellent.
We often talk about our enthusiasm for Five Points Railway Porter and The Kernel’s effort struck us on this occasion as very similar. It had dark sugar sweetness balanced with bitterness from both hops and roasted malt. Most importantly, it had a soft subtleness that the keg version at the taproom seemed to be missing.
Each pint made the case for the next and it was difficult to break free of the “same again” loop. That it was on sale at less than £5 a pint didn’t hurt, perhaps contributing to the sense that it was a pleasingly ordinary beer for ordinary drinkers rather than some craft beer oddity.
Warmer, more characterful, more human surroundings can’t have done any harm, either.
Where does this leave us? We haven’t fallen in love with The Kernel, which is what we hoped might happen. But we’ll continue to order their beers from time to time, and no doubt continue to enjoy some of them in some contexts on some occasions.
