The Royal Oak Marylebone becomes the only UK pub pouring Schönramer Hell on draught.

Award-winning Bavarian lager from a family brewery founded in 1780 arrives on York Street, imported direct.

The Royal Oak Marylebone is now the only place in the UK to drink Schönramer Hell on draught. Schönramer Hell is the flagship lager of Private Landbrauerei Schönram, a family brewery in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps.

Schönram has been brewing near the Austrian border since at least 1622 and has been in the same family since 1780. Eight generations on, it is still family-run. Its Hell (Bavarian for "pale") is the beer it's best known for, and locals call it the 1780er. It has won gold at the European Beer Star three times, and brewers on both sides of the Atlantic hold it up as a reference point for the style.

The beer is brewed under senior brewmaster Eric Toft, a Wyoming-born geophysicist who trained at Weihenstephan, the Technical University of Munich's brewing school. He has been at Schönram since 1998 and still guards the recipe, selects the ingredients and fine-tunes the process each year. Schönram ferments in open vessels and skims them by hand each day. The hops come from a small group of contracted farms in the Hallertau and Tettnang, the malt is all Bavarian, and nothing is pasteurised.

The connection runs back to Weihenstephan, where Eric studied alongside Alastair Hook, founder of Meantime Brewing. Alastair met Andy Ward at Oliver Peyton's Atlantic Bar & Grill in the 1990s. Andy went on to work for him at Meantime for 12 years before founding Urban Inns, which runs The Royal Oak, and Alastair is now a shareholder.

The Royal Oak is a free-of-tie pub, which means it is not obliged to buy beer through a brewery or pub company. That freedom is what made it possible to import Schönram direct, rather than choosing from a distributor's list.

To mark the launch, head chef Freddy Wilson, formerly Tom Booton's head chef at The Dorchester Grill, will serve a Bavarian Weekday Special from Monday 9 to Friday 13 November: chicken schnitzel with cucumber salad and a Schönramer Hell and mustard sauce, made to go with a pint of the Hell.

Andy Ward, Director of The Royal Oak Marylebone:

"We’re delighted to have one of the world’s best lagers on draught at The Oak. We’ve been pouring pints on York Street since 1807, so a brewery that’s been in one family since 1780 felt like the right company to keep.”

Eric Toft, Private Landbrauerei Schönram:

"Hell is a beer with nowhere to hide. It has to be balanced, clean and easy to drink, pint after pint. We've spent years fine-tuning ours, and I'm delighted London's first taste of it on draught will be at The Royal Oak."

Notes to editors

• The Royal Oak Marylebone: a free-of-tie pub at 74–76 York Street, London W1H 1QN, established in 1807 and a few minutes' walk from Marylebone Station and Baker Street. Seasonal food under head chef Freddy Wilson, a first-floor private dining room and exclusive venue hire. theroyaloakmarylebone.com | 020 7258 0222

• Private Landbrauerei Schönram: a family brewery in Schönram, south-east Bavaria, in the Köllerer and later Oberlindober family since 1780, producing around 100,000 hectolitres a year. schoenramer.de

• Schönramer Hell: 5.0% ABV Bavarian Helles lager. European Beer Star gold in 2011, 2017 and 2020.

For further information please contact Emma Bebb via marketing@urbaninnslondon.com.

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