We Brought Beer, Tooting

Progress is a comfortable disease - E E Cummings

The headline is that I wish this place didn't exist, yet I really like it and will definitely visit again. I was beginning to believe that my animosity to the core concept was actually my problem. It seemed I was wrong and needed to change with the times. This it turned out was a very brief mistake on my part and i now know that my instincts were completely, absolutely 100% correct, as always. Those momentary doubts are now long behind me and I have something else to blame, which is odd really considering that I'm writing this article about a bar which is perfectly nice.

We Brought Beer is in Tooting Market, which is in many ways fantastic. It's got a record stall, a traditional sweet shop (in the same unit), places to eat, a butchers... But very little else that is actually recognisable as a market that I would be familiar with.

I spent a lot of time in markets as a child, growing up between several market towns that my dad worked in. Each market would contain at least one of; butcher; baker; fishmonger; greetings cards (looking back I wonder how lucrative this ever was); haberdashers; kitchenware; a cafe; and always a stall selling black t-shirts with pictures of wolves or tigers on them. Never understood that one. 

The point is, it had always been the same, and even in the age of the supermarket it was still the first port of call for a lot of people. And people would spend far more time talking than actually buying things. I mean like a 90/10 ratio.

This is not the same in Tooting Market, or Tooting Broadway, or most market halls in UK cities. To rent a market stall and expect that you can sell groceries to enough people with enough profit to live on does not make sense for most people. Because supermarkets will sell the same items at a loss just to get the punters through the door it's impossible to compete. As for the kitchenware and greetings cards, Amazon. Clothing and fabric have been seen off by fast fashion.

The cafe in my experience made up about 90% of its business with jacket potatoes and awful coffee, which is slightly more difficult to defend.

So almost all of these stalls have gone, and a lot of the markets have been replaced. Those that haven't been knocked down have been a breeding ground for some fantastic restaurants. Plenty of shit ones too, and I don't want to go on about those too much but these are the salient facts: Meat is bound to be 'pulled', potatoes will be always in the form of 'skin-on fries', rainbow slaw is everywhere whatever the fuck that is, and the pricing method is distinctive. To wit, and item priced at twelve pounds and fifty pence will not be listed on the menu as costing £12.50. Oh no. It will say 12.5. 

Avoid.

On a more positive note, some of the gaps have been filled by purveyors of high quality alcoholic beverages. One such, taking up perhaps the tiniest slot in Tooting Market is We Brought Beer. Yes, the name's silly, but thank fuck it hasn't followed the tedious and cliched formula of

(something related to beer) & (something else related to beer)

The gangway between the well stocked fridges and the bar only really allows one punter in at a time, or perhaps two who are very comfortable with each other. Seating is on a few scattered benches and stools out the front of the unit, though the metal is not greatly comfortable.

Three beers on keg, and as is the modern way they are skewed towards ultra pales and strong stouts. I chose a 'Bohemian Pilsner' (made in England) and a bright yellow pale ale. The 6.8% IPA I sampled was a hop-bomb and quickly discarded.

The fridges are well stocked, which is a boon compared to some bars which have most of their beers on the shelf at room temperature, meaning it isn't always appealing to drink a bottle or can directly. The can selection is heavily skewed towards the over-hopped ultra-pales (Polly's, Verdant, Deya etc) but there are some good quality imported lagers too.

The bar staff are extremely welcoming and helpful, they are amenable to providing tastes of the kegged beers, and knowledgable with it. I was even informed by the barkeep of a nearby beer festival, which meant I drank less at We Brought Beer than I might have otherwise, but the magnanimous way in which this information was proffered endeared me to the establishment.

The market was busy, it was heaving in fact. I felt bad whilst sat in the hubbub with my quaffable kegged pale ale that I so lamented the conversion of these markets from one use to another. A building in use full of small businesses which appeared to be prospering, what's not to like? Useful is beautiful.

Well I thought about it, and what I don't like is fucking capitalism. Because people should be able to make a living out of making and selling good quality essentials in a market hall, which they now can't. The people running We Brought Beer shouldn't be displaced to a tiny grotto in a market hall. They are fucking brilliant and should be running an amazing pub somewhere that can fit more than three people in it.

But it isn't going to happen any time soon considering rents. And anyway, I'm supposed to be reviewing pubs, not scrawling polemic diatribes. 

I like We Brought Beer. They're nice people. See you again.