BEER: Truman’s reborn
13th May, 2011 by Patrick Schmitt - This article is over multiple pages: 1 2 3 4“standfirst”>Truman’s beer has risen like a phoenix in the East End of London, reports Patrick Schmitt.
For those who have visited the East End’s bastion of Indian dining, Brick Lane, you may have noticed something haunting the streets of Shoreditch, that is other than Jack the Ripper.
It’s the ghost of Truman’s beer, a brand once deeply embedded in this diverse community, but killed off at the end of the ’80s. It’s still visible on the Victorian brickwork, stained glass and panelling of back street boozers, and its former Brick Lane brewery, now offices and event spaces, has retained its branded chimney, a beautiful beacon above the curry houses.
In fact, so prominent are the architectural remnants of Truman’s in this corner of the capital that, some believe, similar to Elvis, it never died.
Today they would be right – well almost – because it’s been brought back to life. Without making any loud pronouncements, two east London residents and entrepreneurial beer enthusiasts, James Morgan and Michael-George Hemus, have spent the last few years trying to revive it, and eventually gained the rights to the dormant label with its distinctive black eagle branding in January last year.
“Established 1666; closed 1989; re-established 2010” states newly-printed beer mats for the brand, partly because, as Morgan acknowledges, such is the lasting imprint of this label that some long-standing Shoreditch pub-goers think production never ceased.
He explains with a pleasing example. “There was an old boy in the pub, a regular, and when he saw the new Truman’s tap badge, he said: ‘I haven’t had Truman’s for a while,’ so I asked him when his last pint of Truman’s was. ‘Around six months ago,’ he replied.”