Drinking with the brewer: Logan Plant

Meeting us in the brewery taproom is cheerful social media manager Kamilla, who instantly pours us a couple of very welcome pints of its latest creation – Lupuloid, a mega hoppy 6.7% straight-up IPA. She tells us that the “MTV in the 90s-style” animated promo video for the beer features her boss, Logan, signing in a recording from his previous life in a rock band. 

Having just got back from a weekend at the End of The Road music festival, this link between beer and music is fresh in her mind. “People commit themselves to a brewery in the same way that fans commit to a band,” she suggests. 

And, certainly, Beavertown is a brewery that people have gone crazy for, with more than 4,000 showing up to attend its fourth birthday party in February of this year. “We used a whole pallet of Gamma Ray, just handing it out to the people waiting in the queue,” she laughs.

Finishing off our drinks, it’s time to catch up with the man himself. Looking pretty laid back, having just got back from a trip himself, Logan invites us to grab a spot outside in the sun. He tells us that he was just out in San Diego brewing a collaboration as part of Stone’s 25th birthday celebration and also got a couple of weeks of relaxation; the first time off he has had since starting the brewery.

When you consider what Logan and his team have been able to build in just four years, it’s safe to say that this guy deserved a break. Having started out brewing beer in the kitchen of his restaurant in De Beauvoir Town – Duke’s Brew and Que – his beers have become a fixture behind bars all across London and far beyond.

We first met each other at BRUS, To-Ol’s bar in Copenhagen, when we were both over there for CBC, one of many events that he and his team attend around the world. They’re taking part in CBC in Boston, Stockholm Beer & Whisky Festival and, in a few weeks’ time, Indy Man Beer Con up in Manchester. “Meeting the drinkers face-to-face is a great chance for brewers to feel the love and realise that what’re we’re doing is all part of a bigger thing,” he explains.

Talking about where he first discovered his love of beer, Logan says: “When I was growing up in the Midlands, there were a couple of breweries that had pubs which I would go to. I started to get this connection between the beer and the people who made it.” He seems to have a strong belief in fate and that he is doing what he was born to do.

“I did feel quite alone in the beginning, because it was just me. I had a couple of guys at Duke’s; they were my companions and there was great camaraderie. Even now, with 56 people, although it’s changed, there’s still this great sense of team.” He’s full of praise for his head brewer, Jenn, and for Nick, who designs Beavertown’s iconic artwork (and the cover for this issue).

Ultimately, his plan is to capitalise on its incredible following to date by opening a Beavertown bar. Where he is from, the West Midlands, people live and laugh, get married and get divorced in the pub. “So we’d love to have that for Beavertown; to be able to have this inclusive environment where we can bring people into our habitat, stimulate and educate, and give them an experience,” he explains.

On the future of craft beer bars, we talk fondly of the brewery taprooms we’ve each visited in Colorado and Logan says that he’s keen to take inspiration from some of these places. 

“We want to open a bar that is a further extension of what Duke’s is, with not just our beers but those of our contemporaries and some from abroad, biodynamic natural wines and homemade cocktails – but most importantly we want to heighten the experience of beer,” he says. 

Logan’s Dad (Robert Plant, of Led Zeppelin fame), used to drag him around pubs in the West Midlands and, as a kid, he thought it was boring, except for playing in the stream outside their local pub. “I didn’t really like it as a kid, I was only up to his waist and everyone was drinking this disgusting brown stuff and all I had was a packet of crisps and a Vimto. “But then when I was a teenager and I could start to appreciate beer for what it was, my friends and I would drive to specific pubs to drink our favourite beers.” 

By 20, the romanticism of brewing and the pub had taken hold and he knew he would one day open his own brewery. At that stage, he was a student in Cardiff and all he could drink was Carling at the NUS bar. Coming back to the midlands every break and hooking up with his old mates down the pub, he had this idea of opening a pub in the middle of Wales, on an old farm that his parents had bought. He dreamt of opening a brewery there but didn’t -– he figured that there were only sheep there to drink his beer. He talks with a twinkle in his eye that perhaps one day that’ll be his out song; growing his own produce and brewing beer in the hills.

After university, he travelled around America in a couple of bands and saw what was happening to craft beer in the States. Coming back to London, he opened Duke’s and, from there, Beavertown was born. On the similarities between running a restaurant and a brewery, he says that it’s all about creating an amazing team, delegating well and finding people who are better than you at each stage of the process, letting them lead when they need to.

“What I feel I love – and am hopefully good at – is lyric, passion, expression, art and design, being different,” he says, drawing paralells between his experience as a musician and as a brewer. “Both are a blank canvass onto which you can express yourself.”

He says that he is surprised by how much being a successful brewer is like being a rock star. “When I first started brewing, I didn’t expect that it would be about creating a fan base, and now we see people getting our logo tattooed on them.” 

He talks about going to Craft Brewers Conference in Washington DC in 2012 with his brother, who was 21 at the time and until then wasn’t a craft beer drinker. Taking him to Church Quay, one of the world’s top craft beer bars, he ordered up a flight of ten different beers and talked his brother through them – converting him to hoppy beers for life over one drunken bonding session.

Reminiscing on this experience, we talk about what the perfect bar would be like. “It’s got to have variety – maybe 20 draught lines is good – as well as servers who are passionate but not overbearing. There needs to be some great beers in the fridge, maybe to take home, or to drink along with some great bar food that has been paired well.” 

Great bars and breweries can help to transform a neighbourhood and Logan speaks with excitement about being a part of the community in Tottenham, surrounded by other great producers like Square Root Soda and Soffle’s pitta crisps. Beavertown’s yard parties have been a welcome addition to the neighbourhood and they’re looking forward to having an even bigger party for their next birthday in February 2017.

So, how does it feel to run one of the country’s hottest craft breweries? 

“Well, doing this you’ve got to put everything on the line – beer never sleeps and we can’t be second best,” he says. “Doing something like this is the hardest thing you can do with your life, but also the most fulfilling.”