EP-209 Ben Freeman and Graham O’Brien of Pressure Drop Brewing

Pressure Drop may have been founded during the early days of London’s
brewing renaissance, but its trajectory has been very different to many of
its compatriots.

While other UK breweries of the same age—the likes of Beavertown, Five
Points, and Fourpure—expanded rapidly, putting together sales teams,
attending trade shows and contract brewing overseas to hit demand, Pressure
Drop’s founders have chosen to grow slowly and organically even when the
opportunity to explode seemed in reach.

Back in 2013 their flagship beer, Pale Fire, was probably the most
sought-after Pale Ale in London and way ahead of its time. Even though the
recipe changed frequently, its reliably soft wheat body, haze, and juicy
aroma was unlike anything else on the bar, a precursor of what would become
the New England craze. It was so talked about that some people thought Pale
Fire was the the name of a brewery, not a beer.

It still amazes me that some of the seminal Pale Fire I drank back then was
made on a 50L homebrew kit in a shed in Hackney. Even in 2016 they were
still brewing on a five-barrel brewhouse down a dingy side road in East
London. At this site they were only able to dedicate around 30% of their
volume to the more idiosyncratic beers that had got them excited about
brewing in the first place—beers like their Wugang Chops the Tree, their
foraged-herb Hefeweiss and Nanban Kampai, a yuzu wheat IPA.

I met Ben Freeman and Graham O’Brien at the Experiment, a taproom they
opened in that archway after moving the brewery out.

A much bigger expansion in 2016 has given them more tank space to play
around, leading to a belated move into true New England brewing and
canning, as well as putting them next door to Beavertown, where the brewery
stands proud as a symbol of their different way of doing things.