Tim's first job in London paid about six pounds an hour, which even in the early 2010s was not a lot of money, and involved carrying very heavy barrels down some very steep stairs. He was fresh off the plane, still getting used to the London drizzle, and had somehow talked his way into one of the best little pubs in the city, The Southampton Arms, the kind of place where the cask is taken very seriously. For a young Aussie who already loved good beer, it was the best seat in the house, even if it was underground.

Nobody warned him that a full firkin weighs about the same as a grown kangaroo, and is roughly as keen to be carried down the stairs. Cask isn't really a thing back home in Australia, so while Tim had already been working in craft beer, this was uncharted territory: beer that arrived unfinished and expected you to know what to do with it. The casks were dropped/rolled/wrestled downstairs and heaved onto the stillage, then left alone while yeast finished its work and the beer settled and cleared in its own time. Over the weeks that followed, Tim got the hang of knocking in a spile and hearing the cask breathe out, pulling a sample and holding it up to the light to judge whether it had dropped bright, and telling the difference between a beer that was ready and one that only looked it. Upstairs, the customers never gave any of this a moment's thought, and Tim came to see that as the measure of a job well done: when the cellar is right, the drinker never has to know it exists.

He came home with bruised shins, cold hands and a big crush on cask beer. A beer that was fine on Thursday could be perfect on Saturday, and the difference was down to whoever was in the cellar that week. He thought that was brilliant then, and he still does; it's the reason we're writing this at all.

The cellar turned out to be the start of something. From the Southampton Arms, Tim went on to run the legendary Cock Tavern, and from there he made the jump into production, taking on the brewing at Howling Hops. Somewhere along the way he went from hauling other people's casks to filling his own, which is about as complete a conversion to cask as one man can manage.

All these years later, we find ourselves working together, running one of the best breweries in London, and this autumn, Pressure Drop beer is going out in casks. Fast Gary was first, a very limited release to test the waters. It's a 4.6% dry stout, all roast and treacle with a bit of cacao nib, if any beer was born to live on a hand pull in October it's that one. The second is brand new, and it's a bit special. Mardi is what our daughter calls her grandma, Tim's mum, who has never pulled a pint in her life but is about to have one named after her. It's a 4.2% pale ale made just for cask and keg, with Mosaic and Nelson Sauvin bringing peach, strawberry, a bit of mango and sharp white grape. It's soft and full, then finishes with a nice bitterness so you can go straight back in for another sip. Vegan, too!

When Tim and I took Pressure Drop on this September, we kept asking ourselves what was important- where we wanted to go with it, and we kept landing right back on the pub. Not just a brewery that just ships hyped up drops through the post, but the beer that's on at your local, the one you have with your mates after work. Cask is about as pub as beer can get. You can't buy it in Tesco, you can't drink it on the sofa, and it's only ever as good as the cellar that taps it. Thats not to say we're packing in the cans and kegs and reinventing ourselves as a cask brewery; Pale Fire isn't going anywhere, nor our beloved juicy, fizzy IPAs, crisp lagers and sweet, puckering sours. Cask is another string to our bow, a way of getting our beer onto more bars, and ultimately in front of you, our lovely customers.

Mardi won't be coming out in cans, sorry webshop pals, this one you'll have to leave the house for. Firkins and kegs are heading off to pubs across London and beyond, and we'll post on Instagram where it's pouring.
Run a pub and fancy some cask on the bar? 
Email beer@pressuredropbrewing.co.uk and we'll sort you out.
And if you spot it on a hand pull, have one for every cellar hand who ever dragged a firkin down the stairs for six quid an hour. And one for Mardi. She'd want you to.
Sienna x


Enjoy: a picture of a 22 year old Tim, probably fresh off a shift in the South.