Also contains information for Late Knights and Shamblemoose
Brewery
21 Southey Street SE20 7JD
southeybrewing.co.uk
First sold beer: 5 May 2013 (as Late Knights/Shamblemoose)
Southey is a successor to the Late Knights brewery, founded by former licensee Steve Keegan, who helped devise Fuller’s early ‘craft’ pubs the Barrel and Horn in Bromley and the Union in Westbourne Park. He began cuckoo brewing at Truefitt in his hometown of Middlesbrough in 2012, then formed a partnership with Graham Lawrence, longstanding owner of Brockley wine bar and importer Mr Lawrence, to create a small London brewery and pub chain.
They installed an 11.5 hl kit in a Victorian building just off Penge High Street that had once served as a slaughterhouse and a candle factory but had latterly been Graham’s warehouse. At first, the facility was also home to a separate brewing company, Shamblemoose, founded by Matthew and Lera O’Sullivan as a cuckoo at Sunny Republic in Dorset late in 2012. Both brewers used the same brewhouse, with each maintaining separate fermenters.
A few weeks later, Late Knights opened its first pub, Beer Rebellion, in Gipsy Hill, subsequently adding several others including some outside London. In September 2013, Sam Barber became head brewer after approaching Steve for feedback on his homebrewed beers. The rapid expansion contributed to both financial and beer quality problems and in August 2016 the company folded. The arrangement with Shamblemoose had already ended in June 2015 when Lera and Matthew moved to Montana in Lera’s native USA.
Sam and Graham then set up a new business and following a few months of closure and £20,000 of improvements, restarted brewing as Southey in December 2016 on a 10 hl kit formerly belonging to Clarkshaws. Output and beer range were both reduced to concentrate on quality and consistency. A taproom opened in March 2018, and the brewery retains three other former Late Knights outlets: the London Beer Dispensary (389 Brockley Road SE4 2PH), the Dulwich Beer Dispensary (481 Lordship Lane SE22 8PB) and the Brighton Beer Dispensary.
Of the other LK bars, the original Beer Rebellion in Gipsy Hill subsequently moved to a next-door unit and is now Bullfinch brewery pub the Bull and Finch; Beer Rebellion Peckham retains its name but is owned by cuckoo brewer and indoor skatepark operator Hop King, founded by an ex-LK brewer; Hopsmiths in Crouch Hill is now Brave Sir Robin, sharing ownership with the Rose and Crown in Kentish Town; and the Ravensgate Arms in Ramsgate is now operated by a former LK manager in partnership with Gadd’s. Steve briefly ran a brewery called Holler in Brighton, but this has since closed.
The name Southey is from the brewery’s street address, in turn named after the Romantic poet Robert Southey, so the vowel in the first syllable is pronounced like the one in ‘tough’.
Beers are in cask, keg and can, mainly sold online and through the taproom and bars.
Updated 15 December 2021.
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