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Day 4 – Tunnels & Taprooms

No hashing on the fourth day, nor any BrewDog bars… Lots of taprooms on the schedule though, but first the Vagina Museum and the Brunel Museum!

Well, before that breakfast actually, and today exactly as planned: kejriwal—fried eggs on chilli cheese toast—at Dishoom

Then off to Bethnal Green, to the Vagina Museum. The tiny museum was quite interesting and educational—as are their toots—so I happily donated a bit to help them keep up the good work. 

Just a couple of railway arches down the track was coffee roastery La Tostadora. Here I learned that in Australia, my usual order of a double shot cortado with oat milk, is apparently called the “Magic”!

Another couple of railway arches further is Mother Kelly’s, where I bumped into Tasha, who I know from her Weird Beard Brew Co. days! The beer list was cracking, impossible to get through if I wanted to make it to another museum in time…

Ah That next museum was the Brunel Museum. Being a big fan of shows like “The Architecture the Railways Built”, I simply had to go there! As it turned out, it was a different Brunel who built the Thames Tunnel! While the famous Isambard Kingdom Brunel was involved for a while, it’s was actually the project of his father, Marc Brunel. Fun fact: my train to get there went through the tunnel the museum was about. 

And just like that, I ended up on the Bermondsey Beer Mile again, passing a couple of places I knew and liked, but I was here for one the newer additions: Mash Paddle Brewery. Did I mention that every single place I went to today so far—apart from the Brunel Museum—was in a railway arch?

Just a couple of minutes’ walk took me to the new The Kernel Brewery Taproom. Yes, another new one, it’s their third location I visited… As usual, a lovely cheese board from Neal’s Yard helped tie me over until dinner. 

From there it was an underground and overground ride to Distortion Brewing Company, another brewery I had never tried before. Well, I certainly missed out! And guess what? Another railway arch!

I actually had some beers by Mondo Brewing Company before at BBP Dansaert, but didn’t visit their brewery and taproom yet. It was also the perfect opportunity to have dinner, served by the resident pan-asian joint Kato Kitchen. You can’t go wrong with fried chicken and spicy noodles, can you?

From there it was back to the north, to Red Hand. Not a brewery this time, ‘just’ a beer bar. It definitely had a Friday night out vibe, so not your typical craft beer bar. Great music though, and some nice beers!

The last stop of the night was the House of Hammerton, a bar operated by Hammerton Brewery. I made it to their taproom once, but only just before last call… So tonight was a great opportunity to try some more beers of them. 

Day 3 – West, East, and West London Again!

While I covered quite a distance yesterday with my excursion to Enfield, today’s milage wouldn’t be much less, due to my destinations being in the western and eastern extremities of London. 

I had my heart set on a Syrian breakfast at Maroush Bakehouse this morning, but for some reason it was closed. The queues at my backup spot were horrendous, and even Gregg’s was way too busy! In the end, a Mighty McMuffin had to do…

After that, I was off to the London Transport Museum Depot, which by sheer coincidence had their open days this week. I did the Pallet Racking Curator Tour, and lots of just looking around. They were even selling pieces of underground moquette seat covers!

Since I was that far west already, I went to Artisan Coffee for my cortado. On my way there I passed BrewDog Ealing, and thought it would be rude not to go there for a beer afterwards. The next beer stop, at BeerKat, actually was planned, although I didn’t really plan on having a DIPA and a TIPA already that early in the day…

I had plenty of time to recover on the Elizabeth line to Canary Wharf though, where I visited the London Museum Docklands. Pretty neat for a free museum!

While in the area, I had to revisit the refurbished BrewDog Canary Wharf, although I couldn’t remember what it looked like before… To prepare me for more drinking—and some running—I had this month’s special, the Chor-ree-tho burger. 

By then it was already time to get ready for my run with the West London Hash. The start was in Richmond: true to their name, quite far west. Definitely the darkest run of the week, I hardly ever switched off my head torch! 

After the run and circle, I joined some hasher friends in the Richmond Tap Tavern, for a last couple of beers. 

Day 2 – Muffins, Money, and More…

My second day in London started with a full English Muffin Man breakfast, to prepare me for a day full of activities, ranging from ‘House’ visits, to meeting more Hash House Harriers…

In a place called Muffin Man, I had to have a muffin of course, so I ordered a toasted buttered English muffin in addition to the already more than filling breakfast…

The house I visited, was Leighton House, the former home and studio of the leading Victorian artist, Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896), on the edge of Holland Park. I hadn’t heard of him before this trip, but it must have been quite a character, and he left us a beautiful house!

Back in the centre, I visited the Bank of England Museum. A nice little exhibition, but most importantly: I got to touch and lift a real gold bar!

My selected coffee bar of the day was Rosslyn Coffee. Standing place only, baking in the sun, but what a location!

From there it was just a short walk to Pelt Trader, where I enjoyed a couple of beers, and their Sussex Hot pizza. By the time I finished it, I realised I was actually quite far ahead on schedule, which meant the next bar I planned to go to wasn’t open yet…

Luckily The Rake—the bar I finally went to in June—was only a London Bridge away, so I decided to cross the Thames and spend some time there. As expected, they once again had a great selection of beers!

After that The Bolter was open, so I had a last couple of beers there, before heading back to the hotel to change into my running kilt. 

The Piccadilly line was acting up a bit today, so I had to leave a little bit earlier to make it to Enfield in time to run with the Enfield Hash. By the time I arrived at The Cricketers pub, they had already almost finished chalk talk, so I gave my bag to Mick Mac—one of the Brussels hashers, but an Enfield native—and we took off! 

After returning in the pub, I managed to wolf down a steak and ale pie before circle started, so I was ready for a last beer stop before going back to the hotel. 

That last stop was in BrewDog Soho, a bar I hadn’t been in six years! I arrived just fifteen minutes before last call, so after two beers, I was on my way to a shower and my bed…

More Interscandi!

The first and only full day of Interscandi continues to follow the usual schedule: breakfast, run, lunch on the way, circle, and dinner and a themed party. Considering we were based in the second largest city of Germany, we had a surprisingly green run!

After last night’s pub crawl, the hot dorm room, and the loud music from the venues on the Reeperbahn, not everyone made it in time for breakfast, but luckily I did!

After an U-Bahn and an S-Bahh to Hoheneichen, we were ready to run the trail. My choice was the long trail, good for 14,3 km of running, including some ‘checking’ (running in the wrong direction to find out where the trail actually continues).

So, a note about the party and dinner: the theme was ‘vikings in drag or flip flops’, although the formulation changed over time, and mermaids were squeezed in there somehow as well… I decided to just go for a viking in a viking dress.

Since I’m not much of a party goer, I snuck out early to put my battle axe safely away, change into my usual kilt, and go back to Craft Bier Bar Hamburg, probably the bar with the most interesting taplist at the moment!

Interscandi!

After the hashy intermezzo on Thursday, it was back to normality for a couple of hours, before the main event of this trip would really start: Interscandi. What supposedly started as a joint hash event for/by the Scandinavian hashes, now extends to anywhere the vikings have been, hence the choice for Hamburg this year…

Normality usually starts with breakfast and coffee, so after a breakfast buffet at the ibis budget hotel, I headed to Milch for that coveted coffee. Unfortunately they were inexplicably closed, so I walked on for my only cultural stop today: the Kramer-Witwen-Wohnung, the ‘shopkeeper’s widow’s home’, built in the 17th century—so widows could move out of their husbands’ shops, so other shopkeepers could move in—and in use for this purpose until the 19th century. Reading this explanation probably took longer than the visit, because it was tiny!

To be fair: I limited myself to one cultural stop to be able to squeeze in one last beer stop before the less predictable part of the weekend would start… On the way there was the Elbgold coffee roastery though, so I could have my espresso macchiato after all!

But just a little after lunch time I found myself already at the Beyond Beer shop, tasting their draught beers…

I still had some time left, and I decided to kill it at BrewDog St. Pauli. I actually already dropped by there on my first night in Hamburg, but I just missed last call then…

Interscandi is with accommodation included, so I had to change venues on the day it started. So my home for the next two nights would be the Pyjama Park Hostel, completely filled with other hashers… The checkin was a happy reunion with people I met at other hash events, and of course a a substantial delegation of BMPH3 members. Let the mayhem begin! Well, as it turned out, the mayhem was too much for the people behind the bar of the hostel, so I fled to The Baby Goat Barn, and had some pizza while I was there.

After that, it was already time to start the pub crawl, no running involved this time. To my delight they had set a “beer nerds” trail as well! It brought me back to The Baby Goat Barn, BrewDog, and Bar Oorlam, but I was so happy to be drinking craft beer on a Nash Hash pub crawl!