Includes some information for Ha’penny, Hops and Glory and Warrant Officer.
Closed brewery
223 Dyers Hall Railway Arches E11 4AF (Waltham Forest)
First sold beer: March 2014 (at Warrant Officer)
Ceased brewing: 17 December 2022
Closed brewery
8 Aldborough Hall Farm, Aldborough Hatch, Ilford IG2 7TD (Redbridge)
First sold beer: October 2009 (as Ha’penny Brewing)
Suspended brewing: by end 2014
Restarted brewing: May 2016 (as Solvay Society)
Ceased brewing: May 2021
Warrant Officer (since renamed The Tavern on the Hill)
Brewpub no longer brewing
318 Higham Hill Road E17 5RG (Waltham Forest)
First sold beer: March 2014 (as Solvay Society)
Ceased brewing: by end 2014
Hops and Glory (since renamed The Seveney)
Brewpub no longer brewing
382 Essex Road N1 3PF (Islington)
First sold beer: February 2014 (as Hops and Glory), January 2015 (as Solvay Society)
Ceased brewing: November 2015
Solvay Society was one of London’s more unusual breweries, describing itself as “Belgian born, London brewed” and drawing on theoretical physics for some of its branding. Head brewer and founder Roman Hochuli, who grew up in Brussels, is a physicist who took time to complete his PhD before returning full-time to beer.
A keen homebrewer, Roman made his first steps towards commercial brewing in 2014 with a 500 l Braumeister homebrew kit in the cellar of the Warrant Officer pub in Walthamstow (since renamed the Tavern on the Hill), which had previously briefly been used by Wild Card as a distribution base.
This didn’t work out, and Roman and his business partner J P Hussey found a better home for the kit later that year under a Canonbury pub then known as the Hops and Glory, where the staff had already been experimenting with house-brewed beers at an even smaller scale. Solvay worked to perfect recipes here, with pub staff also brewing occasionally on Solvay’s kit, an unusual example of a beer producer cuckoo brewing in its own nest. All this activity ceased when the pub changed hands in November 2015: it’s since been renamed the Seveney and no longer brews.
On the lookout for a new site to relaunch Solvay at a more serious scale, Roman learned through the London Brewers Alliance about a suspended brewery known as Ha’penny, located in an unusually rural setting in an outbuilding on a farm at Aldborough Hatch in the Green Belt between Ilford and Romford. This had played a role in the early days of London’s brewing revival in 2009 when Gavin Happé and Chris Penny began work on a 10 hl kit originally built as a demonstration model by Malrex of Burton upon Trent. Gavin and Chris brewed part-time while holding down their day jobs as, respectively, a barrister and an accountant, an arrangement which ultimately proved too challenging, and by 2014 the equipment had been mothballed.
The building, likely originally built as a stable, had some claim to an earlier brewing history as it may once have housed a brewery attached to the Dick Turpin pub next door. This was so-named because another nearby house, Cuckoo Hall, is one of hundreds of places claiming to have sheltered the peripatetic highwayman. More recently the unit was used as a pottery.
Following delays in obtaining a license and essential work on the floor, the beer started flowing again in May 2016 under the Solvay Society name. The setting was idyllic: surrounded by fields, it was a working farm until the early 21st century and retained an old farmhouse, a pond, ancient willows, ducks, geese and a few white peacocks for good measure. But there were numerous practical problems, particularly in winter, and it was too inaccessible for a taproom.
The situation eased a little in March 2019 when Solvay opened an offsite taproom in Leytonstone, in an arch under the Gospel Oak to Barking Overground railway line. In 2021, the arch next door became vacant and the brewery took the opportunity to relocate the brewhouse here, with production resuming in May.
Following “struggles with the COVID hangover and rising costs”, the brewery sadly closed for good in December 2022.
Beers were Belgian-influenced but with a contemporary sensibility favouring lighter, drier flavours, discreet dry hopping and British-style session strength ABVs. Some barrel-aged and blended beers were produced. Packaging was in kegs, cans and 330 ml and 750 ml bottles.
Updated 22 December 2022.
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