So there I was in Charing Cross train station waiting to meet-up with a friend. It's not the sort of place you expect to stop a leading edge piece of licensed retail innovation.
But, to my amazement, I spotted one. SSP operates food and beverage concessions in airports and train stations. Its brands include Café Ritazza, Upper Crust, Camden Food Co, Montreux Jazz Café and Real Food Company. Chances are you've been fed by SSP without realising it.
And there on the Charing Cross concourse was evidence of SSP not just hitching its wagon to a coming trend, but leading the way. An anonymous looking and rather small pub operated by SSP has been turned into The Beer House at Charing Cross.
It offers a Victorian-style shop window to the concourse that stresses its craft beer credentials. Attractive lettering trumpets its retail offer – craft beers, more than 50 of them, from around the world: "Beers from Germany, Beers from Belgium, Beers from Brooklyn".
Don't worry, the UK gets a look-in as well. The Beer House's bottled beer menu lists eight "favourites" – four of which hail from our shores. There's Sam Smith Organic Best Ale, Innis & Gunn Rum Beer, Hogs Back Burma Star Ale and Timothy Taylor Landlord on the menu. The draught selection majors, as you'd expect, on crafty beer with London's Meantime Brewery doing rather well in terms of presence.
The "Beer is the Hero" credentials are underscored by menu "beer pairings". And the menu itself is a return to basics, consisting of five types of pie and The Cheese library – a ploughman's with a choice of four cheeses, each with a couple of beer recommendations.
Décor has an authentic Victorian tinged feel to it with bottled beers proudly displayed by the bar in earthenware sinks. Customers are offered to chance to try before they buy with the draught beers. And there's a permanent offer to try three one-third pint glasses of beer for £5.
All in all, it's another shot in the arm for the beer category, making ale as interesting an experiental journey as wine.
Manager of Kanza Luzolo tells me The Beer House is SSP "raising its game" in terms of its pub offering.
It joins a select group of London pubs and bars – witness the Euston Tap, Cask Ale and Kitchen, Punch Taverns' Sussex Arms in Twickenham, and Charlie McVeigh's Draft House concept - that are all pioneering in the same direction. Beer, with all its many facets and dimensions, can be a powerful Unique Selling Point.
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