Closed brewery
Original site: 66 Southwark Bridge Road SE1 0AS (Southwark, since closed)
Second site, later pilot brewery: 79 Enid Street SE16 3RA (Southwark, since closed)
Barrel Store: 1 Bellenden Business Park SE15 4RF (Southwark, since closed)
Production brewery: South Warehouse, Greenwich Beach, Morden Wharf Road SE10 0PA (Greenwich)
bbno.co
First sold beer (at original site): 12 December 2012
Brewing ceased: Early March 2024
Brew by Numbers, or BBNo as it was later branded, was started on a very small scale by Tom Hutchings and Dave Seymour. They met each other while rock climbing in southeast Asia and became close friends with both the Kernel and Partizan in the early days of those breweries. Homebrewing began in the basement of a house a friend was renovating near Bankside, using a 50 l kit. The duo kept track of their experiments with a numbering system, the origin of the name and the later beer designations. Following positive feedback, in summer 2012, they upgraded the equipment and were selling bottled beer by the end of the year.
BBNo became the third Bermondsey brewery in May 2013 when it moved into an arch at 79 Enid Street, around the corner from the original Kernel site, with an 18 hl kit hand-built from recycled stainless steel vessels. The expansion was partly thanks to investment from BrewDog, which later sold its shares back at cost price.
The brewery then expanded several times, leasing a second arch a few doors northwest, with a new bottling line, cold store, barrel vault and taproom in action by summer 2015. Various improvements including the addition of a canning line increased production to around 5,000 hl a year in 2019, by which time Dave had stepped back from day-to-day involvement, leaving Tom to lead the project.
A second arch-based site in Peckham opened in January 2019. Known as the Barrel Store, this was primarily a barrel-ageing facility and satellite taproom, though it was equipped later in the year with a small brewhouse used intermittently to make small runs for ageing. The site was closed in autumn 2021.
Following a crowdfunding campaign, BBNo undertook a major expansion in 2021 to a much bigger site beside the river Thames, a former glucose refinery dating from late Victorian times in the redevelopment area of Morden Wharf on the west side of the Greenwich peninsula. This was open to the public from September when it hosted a riverside beer festival, and beer from the 50 hl brewhouse was flowing by November.
BBNo retained its presence in Bermondsey but vacated Arch 75 in January 2022, continuing with a taproom at Arch 79. This was equipped with a 1.5 hl pilot brewery previously belonging to Josh Mellor (see Mellor’s), and was used to brew specials for the taproom.
Due to licensing problems, brewing at the Bermondsey arch ceased and the kit was removed in March 2023. The arch continued for a short time as a taproom but closed completely in early May 2023, with the brewery announcing it was concentrating activities in Greenwich ‘due to the combined COVID-19 debt burden and the recent cost of living crisis’, while undergoing financial restructuring and seeking new investors.
BBNo entered administration as a going concern in June, originally in the expectation that it would be bought out by a group of friendly investors. But on 24 August private equity company the BREAL group confirmed it had acquired the company, adding a third brewery to its portfolio after its well-publicised acquistion of Black Sheep in Masham, North Yorkshire, and Brick in London. BREAL closed the latter late in 2023, relocating its kit to Masham.
Initially the BBNo taproom remained open and no staff were laid off. But on 5 November the taproom closed at short notice ‘for the winter season’. Following much speculation, a news report on 12 February 2024 confirmed that though brewing continued for a short time under an ex-Brick brewer to build up a stock of both BBNo and Brick beers, the kit was to be moved ‘in three weeks time’ to Masham where a new brewhouse is being created for both brands, with the Greenwich site subsequently vacated. In future some brewing may also take place at Purity in Alcester, Warwickshire, which BREAL bought in January 2024.
In late February 2024, BREAL renamed itself the Keystone Brewing Group.
Beers were almost entirely in keg and can and follow a numbering system: originally there was a two digit number indicating a broad style and another designating a specific recipe, though today only the first number is used. They were in a wide range of styles with varying recipes: by April 2021, BBNo had produced around 400 different beers. It’s unclear which recipes Breal will retain.
Updated 11 March 2024.
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