London loses another brewery

My second ever blog post was about the poor state of brewing in London today when compared to the capital's glorious, beery past. Since then, we've seen brewpubs open and close. The remarkably successful Sambrooks started up in Wandsworth last year, and has already managed to gain access to dozens of pubs. Meantime of Greenwich are going from strength to strength (hopefully, I'll soon be selling their lager here at The Gunmakers).

However, I'm sad to report that the only Central London brewery is no more. Bünker in Covent Garden has closed down. When I passed today, men in reflective jackets were gutting the shop.

This is the first place I've used regularly myself to become a victim of the recession. Whenever I succumbed to a night on the chav in the West End, we usually started at Bünker. On Saturday afternoons, it was a great place to retreat after picking up new trainers on Neal Street. It even had the SuperDry store - a favourite of mine - right next door.

The combination of house brewed lagers, passable cocktails and middle-of-the-road, relaxed tunes seemed to work, so I'm surprised to see it go. The multiple operator that ran Bünker in recent years - Alphabet Bars - appears to have gone bust. Perhaps as a unit the place turned a profit, and instead it was the group taken as a whole that failed. Either way, for me this represents seriously uncool beans.