The Wild Card Project: Tales from the Marshland

We were motivated to create this range of beers after becoming fascinated with several Marshland events in northeast London: Hackney, Leyton and Walthamstow. Marshland has a long cultural history of being associated with hidden wildness, and a tension between nature/industry. The histories we found around this area, so close to our Brewery, were no different.

Event #1: This story is one of local resistance. In 1890, the East London Water Company laid a railway and erected fences across Leyton Marsh, blocking access to the common land. The enraged locals ripped down the fences and removed the railway tracks. 130 years later, the marsh remains a space for everyone to use.

Event #2: In 1909, the first aircraft designed and built in Britain took flight across Walthamstow marshes. The Arvo 1 triplane was imagined and constructed by Alliott Verdon Roe. His workshop lay underneath the railway bridge which crosses the marshland. This represented a huge progress in technology, but the engineer was a member of the BUF, Britain’s then-fascist political party.

Event #3: Only about 200 metres from the plane build/takeoff site, on 11th February 1945, a V2 rocket fired by the military forces of Nazi Germany landed on Walthamstow marshes. The rocket, one of 1258 such weapons fired at London during WW2, blasted a huge crater in the marsh, which remains to this day (filled with water!). 

Again, the V2 represented huge progress in science - much of its propulsion tech and even some of the developers would later become involved in the NASA moon landing. The sinister aspect of this ‘progress’ was that it was achieved by the genocidal Nazi regime. 

The idea of the marshes as an unexpected site of science and progress was deeply interesting to us, and so we approached the artist Jonathan Wilkinson. We were immediately drawn to his surreal and architectural style, and its strong industrial edge.

On his designs, the artist says, ‘Each can design would lead with its’ own object/icon that related to these particular pieces of the marshland history - a plane, a rocket and train. The imaginary dreamlike depiction of the marshes and their function to the here and now (recreation and football) creates an interplay with a certain reality and the mythos of the aforementioned events from the past.’

Tasting Notes:

51°34’01.0”N 0°02’55.5”W, 5.0%: Juicy pale ale brewed with Pale, oat and Vienna malt and a generous amount of Cascade hops at the end of the boil.

Crossing A Line, 5.6%: Hoppy IPA brewed with a hot Pale and Vienna malt mash. Fermented warm with our innovative yeast blend and dry hopped with Cryo Mosaic, Azacca and Bru 1 to finish.

Heavier Than Air, 7.5%: Hazy double IPA with a pale, oat and wheat malt base. Fermented with our special in-house yeast to finish sweet and dry hopped with Cryo Mosaic, Cryo Cascade, Citra and Vic Secret.

Beers available here!