Anarchy in the…NE6 🍻
Anarchy Brewery has been a reliable NE brewery for a solid number of years now. You must have had the sessionable Citra Star somewhere in Newcastle before? But only fairly recently did they open their shiny new taproom and larger brewery on Benfield Park (Benfield Rd, NE6 4NQ), making their beers that much more accessible, as well as moving into much more modern styles, flavours, and expanded range of beers.
Before all this lockdown nonsense, I spent a Saturday on the brewery tour/tasting. It’s a tenner which gets you a tutored tasting of 4 of their current beers, and the usual mooch around some fermentation vessels.
As ever, if you’ve done a brewery tour before, there’s nothing really new to this one. Water + malt + yeast + hops, mash, sparge, boil, repeat, etc. But it’s nice to get under the skin of the brewers and one thing I took away was a pride of the working class background of the owners. And I’m all about that, I’d 100000x prefer my penny went to someone who’d worked hard for their business.
None specifically in mind here, but it must be easy for some rich kids to just say nyar, let’s open a brewery with mummy’s money. It’s a moment which I think you only get from speaking direct to the business owners. The penny drops and makes you love what they’re doing just that little bit more.
Similarly, they go hard on having a hands on approach to everything. I guess there’s pros and cons to both methods, but you’ve gotta respect the tactile get stuck in mentality vs. ‘push a button on my £1m kit and beer comes out’.
To match this, the brewing floor feels like it’s been worked on, it’s imperfect and rough and ready, and there’s a lot I like about that. It’s kinda cold as well, but for me that’s part of the experience, trudging to an industrial estate, kinda gritty. A ‘proper’ beer experience.
Also a big fan of the experimentation – ‘we brew what we like, not what’s commercially successful’ although there’s obviously limits to that. This month, for example, Anarchy Brew had on a stout with raisinée, two brown ales, and a hoppy sour. There’s maybe 15-20 beers (including tins) on the go at any time, and enough to have a very tipsy afternoon-into-evening.
Very hard not to like head brewer and our tour guide for the day Les, too, who honestly seems grateful for getting to do his passion every day. We could all be a little more Les 👏🏻
The taproom has a permanent resident in Two Knives Kitchen (formerly Rib & Rub) who do burgers, brisket, and look like they’re branching out into more things presumably as Anarchy gets more and more popular.
The burgers (£7ish) are top notch. Good beef flavour, and though a tad over for me, good accompaniments keep it juicy and satisfying right ’til the end. Lots of beers in the sauces, and great fries too. If you come here and don’t smash one of these in, you’re mad.
So quality beers, good craic, weekly bands, regular events, solid scran. It’s another taproom experience but one that you can’t ignore if you’re in the NE, so once this has all blown over, book yourself in and enjoy yourself a few excellent beers🤘🏼
Dog & family friendly ✅
On-site parking & 2mins from Walkergate Metro ✅
Stuff for non-beer drinkers ✅
Tins to takeaway ✅
Contact: anarchybrewco.com
For more NE-beer based musings, check out Anarchy’s marketing bod Daisy on Twitter 🍺
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