Arrow Factory’s Thomas Gaestadius and Will Yorke could easily pass for brothers. To begin with, the bottom half of Thomas’ head looks suspiciously like the top half of Will’s – each could be an upside-down version of the other. Until, that is, the latter shaves off his hair before our photographer can visit, rendering our split-head Photoshop idea useless. You’ll just have to imagine it.
Nonetheless, there is a friendly, fraternal antagonism between the two brewers. If they were brothers, Will would be the boisterous older rabble-rouser and Thomas the laid-back, younger son who never gets in trouble (and who picked up a Swedish accent for some reason).
“The first time I saw Thomas was on the dance floor,” Will recalls. “I was DJing, he was dancing – it was in a club called Cloud 9. His dancing style in a word? ‘Lolloping’. It was a bit of a lollop. But a good lollop.
“So we met on the dance floor and then we were living together. We got pets together. And then we didn’t live together. Tom went to do [infamous Beijing nightclub] White Rabbit. I went off and opened the Vineyard or something.”
We had initially asked how the two first met. But Will is already deep into a potted history, his account imbued with droll sarcasm, off-the-record remarks and surreal digressions that transport us so far from the original conversation that we must accept that we shall never return. Soon we’re talking about Thomas’ first sausage-maker.
“It was like a sewing machine. It took forever. We were making like one a week,” Thomas says of his hand-made sausages, which have become a signature offering at Stuff’d (the gastro-pub that the pair also co-own). Will interjects: “Our whirlwind romance was rekindled and we thought ‘maybe we should make more sausages.’”
Discussion trundles haphazardly toward the present day. For brevity’s sake, we’ll summarize: Founded around four years ago, Arrow Factory initially made its beer in the space we now find ourselves in, next to Stuff’d. The tanks moved to Charcoal (the Shunyi brewpub set up with a group of other local restaurateurs) leaving their old brewing area to be converted into a dedicated taproom.
The beers on offer are, by and large, excellent. But although we could gush about how well-balanced and delightfully complex they are, we’ll settle with a simple recommendation. Go and try them for yourself. Because what we really want to know is: how many people have had sex on the walls?
“This is all repurposed bed wood,” Will explains, without directly answering our question (answer: probably lots). “Finding this much wood was not easy. We had feelers out looking for beds – people just throw them out. The brief was: no concrete – other than these tables – and no brick.”
“It was designed by another Swedish guy,” Thomas adds. “He’s from the forest.”
It shows. The taproom feels like a Scandinavian boat house, its intimacy stemming not only from the room’s size and narrow shape, but from the warmth of decor. A consistently outstanding music selection adds to its charm.
“Tom [makes the playlists] because he’s got a lot more time on his hands – he wakes up at, like, midday,” Will jibes, before backtracking and suggesting that his brewing partner is forced to walk home from Shunyi each day. “You’ve got the journey down to what – about, five hours?”
Thomas makes a valiant effort to steer us back toward a sensible conversation about the taproom’s music selection. But his brother’s not done with him yet.
“I’ll turn up with a couple of women on my arm,” he continues,“ check everything’s OK and then leave. Tom finds his own way home. It takes a long time.”
The fact that the brewers don’t take themselves too seriously (in interviews, at least) is reflected in their thoroughly unpretentious taproom. But let this not imply that they don’t take their craft seriously. The pair just want the beer do the talking – they’ve got plenty to say as it is.
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