If you happen to be an eager drinker that’s still on the hunt for Ballwanger, a mythical beer from Pressure Drop Brewing folklore, then bad news, it’s time to give up the search.

Because, you see, Ballwanger, never really existed. Yet beer swap sites still have a listing for it and forums still have it on record but little beyond that. In fact, the most comprehensive acknowledgment of this fabled beer is on the app that spawned its existence, Untapped.

“Yep, we sure annoyed some people with that one,” laughs Ben Freeman, both a brewer and a third of trio that founded Pressure Drop back in 2012.

“Someone logged our Wallbanger Wit beer on Untapped a couple of years ago as Ballwanger. Rather than just leave it at that, we got 200 or so labels printed up with the new name and labelled a fair few of the Wallbanger bottles that went out with that name instead,” he says. “Next thing we know, it was causing chaos on the ratings sites with people shouting: ‘This is the same beer’.

“So yeah, never again!” smiles Freeman.

But with its impressive new London unit, along with the equipment to boot, you get the impression that the Pressure Drop team will continue to do things their way. And, that’s by keeping things personal, making the best beer they can, and to enjoy themselves while they’re doing it.

Drinkers, too, are enjoying what they’re doing. Beers like the evergreen Pale Fire, the IPA Bosko, brown ale Stokey Brown and Alligator Tugboat, its Simcoe IPA, have resonated with consumers that have found them in bottle shops and bars across London and further afield. Their new release, Parachute, a double-dry hopped (DDH) pale ale, is sure to be a success, too.

But, rewind a couple of years. Freeman met the brewery’s other co-founders, Graham O’Brien and Sam Smith, back in 2012.  O’Brien, who has known Smith since school, stuck up a friendship with Freeman at London Fields Brewery, a brewing operation that often seems to have had more alumni than Oxford and Cambridge put together.

“We’d be brewing in Graham’s shed during the Olympic summer of 2012,” says Freeman.

And for a moment, he muses.

“The world seemed a different place back then! It’s almost like it never happened,” he sighs.

Much has changed in London, and the UK, in the years since that summer of celebration. The brewing industry has transformed and evolved, too.

The team carried out several hundred brews on O’Brien’s modest 50L Braumeister setup, something that joined the trio when they took their steps into bricks and mortar when they moved into a railway arch in Hackney’s Bohemia Place in late 2012.

By the following January, they had sold their first beer – a foraged herb hefeweisse in the form of Wu Gang Chops The Tree, a beer that initially came together during the team’s third ever brew.

“That beer came together pretty much immediately. But Graham and I were somewhat amateurs on the brewing front so something like Pale Fire, on the other hand, seemed to take forever to nail, in comparison,” says Freeman. “It needed lots of tweaking and work to get it to where we wanted it to be. It was obviously important that we did.”

At this point, Pressure Drop were brewing on a five-barrel kit, something they had kit capacity on a little more than six months after installing it. Beer was being preordered before it had been brewed and attractive export accounts were being turned away to ensure the team could service existing customers.

“The brewing sector in London was really starting to grow at that point, but in comparison we were still very small,” says Freeman. “We bought some old FVs from Beavertown when they moved from Hackney Wick and expanded our kit where possible. But after brewing as much as we could, with ever-decreasing space, it was time to look elsewhere.”

The desire to take the next step in the Pressure Drop journey became reality in early 2015 with the team scouting out possible locations. “We know every industrial estate in East London quite intimately these days,” he laughs.

But it was important to get somewhere that met the teams’s criteria. It needed to be local enough for the employees and also accessible for consumers to take advantage of the taproom they had planned. But as importantly, the lease agreement needed to offer more than the two years that many Hackney properties had in place.

“We wanted somewhere that allowed us to build for the future,” says Freeman.

With a 10-year agreement, the team’s new facility in Tottenham Hale gives them that.

“There was not point moving in to somewhere and then two years later having to up-sticks, rip everything up and start again,” he says. “In reality, the landlord knows you don’t want to do that so they’ll have you over a barrel with rent increases. It’s so important to get things right and I think we have.”

The team got the keys to the Tottenham Hale facility in January 2017. Located at Unit 6 on the Lockwood Industrial Park in North London. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Pressure Drop can call Beavertown, located just over the yard, neighbours.

The unit, previously used by a clothing business, has been remodelled to fit the brewery’s needs. It’s hard to fathom the current setup upon looking at those early shots, but six-months graft – while brewing continued in Hackney – enabled something resembling a smooth transition. Deposits were placed on the new brewhouse at the beginning of that period in early 2017 to ensure the team could be up and running later in the year.

“I was based here in Tottenham while the rest of the team were holding fort in Hackney. It meant that both sides of the business were progressing at the same time and there was no point where we weren’t producing beer,” he says. “At those times, Katie and Craig were absolutely fantastic.”

And with Katie McCain and Craig Willmott, alongside Sam, Graham and the team’s new sales and marketing coordinator Sienna O’Rourke, Freeman gives you the impression he’s at his most comfortable.

“Sam used to work in project management in the city and he’ll often say that he doesn’t wanted to go back behind the spreadsheets again. We keep things lean and we all do our bit across brewing, packaging, and cleaning,” he explains.

Brewing and cleaning has changed somewhat since Pressure Drop commenced production on its new kit last year. They now operate a 20-barrel brewhouse from UK-based Gravity Systems, technology used by Redchurch, Burning Sky and nearby Beavertown.

“They obviously had a good existing order book!” he says. “We wanted to work with a British firm so they could come down, discuss our requirements and ensure the system was built with this facility in mind. They listened to what we wanted rather than offering us something off the shelf.”

The new brewhouse is complemented by six 32hl FVs, with room for modest expansion if required. Packaging of kegs and bottles is carried out in-house, an area Freeman is particularly passionate about.

“We’ve always packaged in-house and it’ll stay that way, We believe we should be responsible for every stage of the process and control the quality that way,” he says. “If you’re sending something out, you don’t know what’s coming back. To me, the beer’s journey is only starting at the point of packaging therefore it’s so important to control that as much as possible.”

Pale Fire remains the brewery’s most popular beer. The 4.8% beer is hopped with different varieties, depending on the version, but accounts for more than 50% of what Pressure Drop produce. Elsewhere, Bosko and Wu Gang are kept in stock year-round, while everything else is released seasonally.

The kit investment is enabling Pressure Drop to produce new beers, too. It’s latest release, the aforementioned Parachute, is one such example. The 5.5% Pale Ale was a foray ahead of a collaboration with one of many breweries the team have admiration for, Cornwall’s Verdant.

“Our mission for Parachute was to create a soft stage for the hops to dance on. We focused on the idea of softness and worked on the water profile to achieve the mouthfeel we were after. Low bitterness was key to the plan, as was a grain bill with the inclusion of oats and wheat to build the texture of the beer,” says Freeman.

He adds: “When it came to the hops we used our recent experience with our Pale Series beers to inform the choice; Ekuanot and HBC431 both being stand-outs. We also included Citra to put the matter beyond any doubt. The first dry-hop took place during active fermentation, we then hopped again post fermentation to bring the total dry-hop rate up to 16g/L.

“It was our first time using this technique of hopping during fermentation, our research on the style and advice from fellow brewers yielded a resounding message of ‘hop early and often’, so that is precisely what we did.

“We’re very pleased with the results of this mini-adventure into New England territory. The beer is gold coloured and hazy, with a rich aroma of hops, low bitterness and, we feel, a soft palate that allows the hops to express their fruity goodness.”

Freeman and the team are enthused about the new beers, but also how all beers are tasting with the new kit. He pinpoints improvement in quality across the board and is equally relieved they are no longer at the mercy of temperature fluctuations at its old Hackney arch.

“Having a large cold store means the beers we produce, aside from those such as stouts, have never been at a temperature higher than 6C when they leave us. So if you order direct, or go through The Bottle Shop, you can have complete confidence in that,” he says. “We’ve also invested in conical fermenters where the previous dish bottom vessels limited us on the dry hop side.

“In addition to a whirlpool kettle and a BrauKon hop gun, we continue to focus heavily on the laboratory, which is so, so essential. It’s a great feeling to be able to realise and apply everything we have learned during these last five years, knowing the beer is coming out as good as we can possibly make.”

The additional capacity has also enabled the team to return to customers they previously had to turn away, while attracting new ones in the process.

“Around three-quarters of the beer we produce stays in London, but it pops up everywhere. And, exports continue to grow, with beer going to France, Italy, Australia and Switzerland, among others. It’s really rewarding.”

It’s a focus on exports that will continue to play an increasing role for Pressure Drop as they look for opportunities away from their London market.

“It’s definitely more competitive in the capital now. People are having those transformative moments where they drink good beer and find it hard to go back to what they had before. But is this happening at a faster rate than the amount of breweries expanding and opening? I’m not sure. It’s a fantastic scene to be part of, though,” he says.

And, being part of that community, making great beer and giving people a living is what remains the priority for Freeman and the team.

“I think we all like the fact that we’re a tight, efficient unit. We don’t want to be a massive brewing outfit,” he says. “We don’t want to take over the world. If we’re making beer people enjoy, making a living and providing the team with a healthy work/life balance, then I’m happy. That’s what we’re about.”