Alex Woods was climbing a mountain in Gran Canaria while on holiday when he received a message telling him one of his beers had won CAMRA’s Champion Winter Beer of Britain competition.

The brew is Beer Street (4 per cent), a bitter with a powerful spicy character due to the generous addition of a rarely used malt – crystal rye.

When he’s not climbing mountains, Alex is head brewer at the London Brewing Company in Finchley, North London. The brewery is in the Bohemia pub close to the historic Tally Ho Corner that was on the road to the north in the days of horse-drawn coach travel.

Bohemia started life as a furniture store in the 1930s and has an impressive Art-Deco design. It became a Firkin brewpub, then an O’Neill’s Irish bar before being bought in 2014 by a genuine Irishman, Sennan Sexton, who has run pubs for some 30 years.

It’s an enormous pub over two floors with room for 400 drinkers and diners. The brewery is at the back of the ground floor. It produces 1,500 hectolitres/900 barrels a year. It’s a conventional kit based on mash tun, copper and fermenters. It was built in China and is 11 years-old with some recent additions.

Alex Woods is a vastly experienced brewer. He spent three years with Beavertown in Tottenham and left when Heineken took over. He then spent 3.5 years with Kernel in Bermondsey before being headhunted and offered the job at Bohemia. He will mark four years at Bohemia in May and produces a big range of cask and keg beers with his assistant brewer Charlie Green.

Beer Street takes its name from the 18th-century drawings by William Hogarth that counter-posed the squalor and depravity of Gin Lane in London with happy and healthy drinkers in Beer Street.  

The beer was a traditional bitter and Alex discussed with the local North London CAMRA branch the need to make it stand out from the crowd. Alex says the branch is “most supportive” and members suggested he should use crystal rye.

Alex gets his malts from Bairds in Suffolk, which supplies the bulk of his pale malts, along with amber malt from French and Jupps in Hertfordshire. Crystal rye came from Fawcetts in Yorkshire.

Crystal malt – also known as caramel malt – is made in a similar fashion to toffee. It’s a stewed malt and a proportion of the sugars are turned into dextrins that can’t be fermented by conventional brewer’s yeast. The end result is a nutty, vanilla and caramel note in the finished beer. Rye adds its own special dark bread and spice notes.

Alex tried different versions of the beer for six months, constantly tweaking the recipe to get the best balance of the malts.

“I went on tweaking until I got the right level of bitterness,” he said. “I late hopped it with Fuggles.”

The revamped Beer Street was entered in the Speciality class of the competition, held during the Liverpool Beer Festival last month. It came top of the class and went forward to the final where it was judged the champion with a gold award.

It will now go forward to the Champion Beer of Britain competition that will be held during the Cambridge Beer Festival in May.

Alex says Beer Street is brewed all year round. It joins other cask beers on the bar including another award winner, 100 Oysters Stout (4.6 per cent) and London Lush (3.8 per cent) golden ale, Ruby Mild (3.4 per cent) and Mosaic Pale Ale (5.3 per cent).

Alex and Charlie produce a new cask beer every month and those that prove popular with punters become part of the regular range.

Around 15 per cent of production is cask and Alex says the proportion is growing. Sexton owns a second pub, the Three Lords in Aldgate, and London Brewing supplies it with beer. The two pubs account for 20 per cent of London Brewing’s output, the rest goes to the free trade.

Beer Street, the beer of the moment, has a glowing amber colour and a big biscuit malt aroma with pronounced notes of caramel, vanilla and toffee. The palate offers herbal and spicy hops balancing ripe malt with continuing notes of caramel and vanilla. The long bittersweet finish has a growing spicy hop note balancing malt, caramel and vanilla.

Sexton said: “The CAMRA award means a tremendous amount for a brewery of our size. It’s not only a proud moment for our team but is also a boost for the enduring appeal of quality cask ales.”

The Bohemia is at 762 High Road, London N12. Food, including veggie and vegan options, is served, there are brewery visits and live jazz is staged in the basement bar. There are regular quiz and comedy nights. Visit thebohemia.co.uk