I find myself eating a beef burger in London’s first ‘fully sustainable pub’. It seems Long Arm is at the beginning of its journey to closed-loop drinking and dining. The end goal, as a mural on one wall informs us, is to have a fish farm filled with tilapia that feed on waste grains from the pub’s brewing process. Their waste would then be used as fertiliser for herbs for the kitchen, before the fish themselves end up on the menu as tacos. Ouch.
It’s already there on the eco-friendly beer front though, with a row of silver brew tanks glimmering and tended to by the bar. Tank Fresh technology delivers unadulterated beer a mere matter of metres to the bar, thereby shrinking Long Arm’s carbon footprint.
The brewery’s full beer family – including the excellent Shadow Wolf stout, served by the bottle and rich with coffee aromas – is joined by specials on tap, such as a distinctively sour Mexican-style Cerveza. Some beers are used to make relishes that feature on a menu of the aforementioned ‘craft burgers’, which made for satisfying pub grub, although my cheeseburger was on the greasy side.
In terms of more trad pub features, look to a pool table and pinball machine for that well-known conviviality. But with its gloss concrete floor and exposed ceiling ducts, Long Arm feels more like an industrial beer bar than a comforting pub, especially as it’s tacked on to The Montcalm, even sharing a bathroom with the hotel. Still, the after-work crowd seem to love it, whether conscious of the conscious cause or just happy to have even more craft beer in the neighbourhood.