Shekha catches up with Steve Ryan of 40FT in Dalston to talk beer, food and what’s next post-pandemic for the brewery now that summer is coming.
Could you please give us an overview of how the brewery started?
I’m a food and drinks photographer by trade, but [in 2013], I started homebrewing with my housemates. Around the same time, I started a food magazine called Root and Bone where I featured local breweries. We became good friends with Ben Ott at the London Fields Brewery and my housemate had an office in the Bootstrap Building, where they were based, and where we would bring beers we made.
Eventually, we were looking to move the brewing operation and take the hobby to the next level out of our kitchen so when the space became available in the year Abbot St, we thought maybe we could put it in shipping containers. We realised it would be really expensive. Somebody would have to quit their job and do it properly and at that point, Ben was over at The Truman Brewery. He invested and we took it to the next level. We were drunken artists – basically, we did it very organically and for seven years we’ve been building it. We now have 11 containers from the original two!
What can we look forward to from 40FT in the foreseeable future?
Our short-term plan is to get open, get staff and now we have the restaurant to add so we are going to be able to make food to complement beer, as well as cocktails, and offer the full experience. In autumn and winter, we need to think about how to use that new indoor space fully with private hiring, Christmas parties etc. Now we have Andrew and Dan from Acme Fire Cult in the ground floor unit, setting up from scratch what they did here last summer.
Tell us more about that:
We had pop-ups before and brought in guest chefs. Pre-pandemic, the yard was one big shared space, just us and [the bakery] Dusty Knuckle. They would have the lunch crowd during the pandemic but wanted to focus on their new place in Green Lanes. The space was thrown to us in late December, which used to be a workshop, then it was a wine bar with a restaurant license. We’ve turned it around in three months, relying on zero trade since then.
It was right in the middle of Omicron, that second Christmas and we had brewed tonne of beer; it was supposed to be the wind in our sails to march. I made a list of all the ideas it could be, event space or pop-ups, then this great opportunity comes in, they haven’t got massive backing. We are all literally just flying by the [seat] of our pants! But we are open, we are going to start reinvesting into the space with barbecue and live-fire cooking. We are really looking forward to the next few months. As they say, fire is a wild thing – let’s see how it develops naturally.
What do you think makes a good bar? Is there any one bar, or bars, you draw inspiration from when thinking about what you wanted 40FT Taproom to be?
I’ve always wanted to be like a small-town Irish bar. England’s got a wonderful pub culture with some of the most beautiful pubs in the world – but being in an Irish pub is like being in a living room. What was great about opening our taproom in shipping containers is that it’s a tight space and people really like that aspect of coming down and making new friends.
We were also very conscious when we started the brewery that we are Irish, Swedish, and German – four hipster white kids not from Hackney, and not from England, and here we are opening a brewery – in shipping containers! The optics were horrible! Craft beer is full of white guys with beards, very male, and we were thinking, how do we break the bad things of craft beer? There is a lot of that sense of exclusiveness, pride and arrogance in that culture. We wanted to be really inclusive. With our beer – our tagline is that this is beer for drinking – and while we’ll always keep something special on tap, like a really interesting stout – we want to make beer for the people. Our pale ale, Dalston Sunrise, is really easy drinking.
But not just with our beer, with our employees as well. We care about diversity and we want to make sure we are reflecting Hackney as the most diverse borough in the UK. In fact, I was chatting to a guy who was down here on Saturday who said it’s the most diverse in Europe. The divide you get [with the atmosphere and people] comes from those kinds of decisions that you make early on, in the heart of a business. You can see that in corporate chain bars. They have the most expensive kit, artwork – money has been spent on that place – but it’s got not no soul.
Take Dingle in Kerry, there are like four of five pubs in that town that I absolutely love. There is one that is a men’s clothes shop tiny, like our taproom and, on one side, there is a bar. Across the street, the exact same format but a hardware shop and a bar!
Another place I admire is Amass in Cophenhagen for the way they use beer by-products.
What makes a good beer?
I would say it needs to be fresh – our whole thing is that with small breweries we aren’t bringing out massive quantities that aren’t sitting in a can. It needs to be a balanced beer. You want to make sure it isn’t too bitter and balance between the hop editions and it also needs to be consistent – this is a flaw with some breweries.
What made you decide to choose the food and drinks industry as a career? Was there a particular moment that you fell in love with it?
When I was doing photography in college, I skipped the food classes. I wasn’t really into it. I wanted to be a music photographer or do travel stories, before there were influencers! That was in Dublin, then I moved to Berlin and London. When I moved to London, I had this one client, the charity Movember, I did all their campaigns. The first job they wanted me to do was a cookbook and I realised it had all the aspects of stuff that I like – storytelling, action in the picture, portraiture – food photography itself and I loved cooking.
What has been your favourite memory in your career to date?
Even the bad memories are good memories now! One fond one that comes to mind right away – when we started the brewery we were making an Irish stout in 2016-2017. At the time, Guinness held an international stout day and they invited me over (they have been a client since 2014). So I thought, I’ll bring a couple of bottles of our stout for the bar staff to try.
In the end, we brought a keg and took it all the way to Dublin. We ended up putting it on tap and the CEO and all the top dogs, come into the bar and ask what I was drinking. I said, “I’m drinking my own beer – the guest beer”. They were like, “who told you this was ok?* No other beer has ever been poured here since 1759!” But then, they make it a thing – now every year they invite five to ten different breweries to bring their stouts.
What has been (if any) the biggest challenge you’ve faced? How did you overcome it?
It’s been the hardest thing – the craziest time, last year was harder than the first year. The taps turned off the first year and everyone was in the same boat but last year, you know, you’ve got to start repaying loans. Even now in the last six weeks, there has been zero support [for hospitality anymore]. To be fair, the fact that we have made it through has been a real learning curve and I can speak in a positive way about it – but my beard’s gone grey and I’ve aged more years than I should have!
If you were a beer, which one would you be? Why?
I think I would be Guinness, you know, I’m the Irish one of the group and I am getting old now. I’m the one that’s been around the longest. I also think Guinness is like your uncle that you’re happy to have a couple of pints with.
If you could travel to any bar, anywhere in the world, in any period of history, where would it be and why?
Roman Empire – I want to go decadent. I’ve been listening to the Fall of Civilisations podcast and each episode is about how the world’s giants crumble.
Finally, if you weren’t doing what you do now, what would you be doing instead?
I can visualise myself doing lots of things, but I am really happy in the world I am in now.
*Steve added that he had cleared with the bar managers to bring a keg to the event, not just showed up with one!