UBREW

Closed brewery
Arches 29-30, 24 Old Jamaica Road SE16 4AW
First sold beer: March 2015
Ceased brewing: September 2019

Opened following a crowdfunding campaign by charismatic Canadian Matt Denham with graphic designer Wilf Horsfall in two railway arches behind the old Neckinger Mills in February 2015, this was the seventh of the current generation of Bermondsey breweries, though with a rather different business plan to its neighbours. It was an ‘open brewery’ analogous to the co-working spaces currently popular with urban start-ups and freelancers, and perhaps an echo of the communal brewhouses once found in some areas of central Europe. Would-be brewers could become members as individuals or groups, claiming their own small fermenting vessel and booking space on one of six 50 l or 100 l Braumeister homebrewing kits, with training, individual advice and supplies also offered. As well as homebrewers, the facility was pitched at small scale commercial cuckoos and people testing the water or piloting recipes before graduating to their own kit.

By the end of May, 150 brewing teams and individuals had signed up. A taproom was included from the start, initially selling third party products as at first UBREW lacked its own brewing license, though some of the cuckoos were selling beer brewed here at an early stage under separate licenses. In August 2016, the enterprise added a brewhouse of more professional proportions, an 8 hl kit sourced from Canada and the UK, with some tanks acquired secondhand from Heineken. It used this to brew and sell its own brand bottled and kegged beers for the first time, as well as helping some of its more serious cuckoo members to upscale.

At its peak, UBREW brought together commercial brewers and homebrewers in a uniquely productive atmosphere which spawned several well-regarded standalone breweries, including Beerblefish, Ignition, Mechanic, ORA and Spartan in London and Beatnikz Republic, now in Manchester, as well as continuing notable cuckoos like Mothership and Seven Sisters. It hosted the regular meetings of homebrewing club London Amateur Brewers for several years. But as time went on, there were complaints about matters like hygiene and management failures, increasing as the company stretched resources on developing promised branches in Berlin, Copenhagen and Manchester. The premises closed unannounced on a temporary basis in June 2019, and despite reopening a few weeks later with Matt promising to sort the problems in a lengthy statement, UBREW went into liquidation a few months later, the first casualty of the Bermondsey ‘mile’.

While I’ve heard some colourful stories about the place from former users, the overall consensus is that this was a great idea which failed in the execution. Nobody in London is currently offering anything quite like it — Brew Club in Hackney and London Beer Lab in Brixton have shared homebrewing kits, and the latter also sometimes hosts cuckoo brewers on a bigger production brewhouse, but neither offers similarly open facilities to aspiring professionals. It remains to be seen whether anyone else will have another go at making the model work.

Here’s a (likely incomplete) list of brewers known to have sold beer brewed at UBREW, or at least to have intended to sell it: I’m grateful to John Paul Adams for tracking most of them, and welcome further additions and corrections.

• 888
• B Sharp
• Beak
• Beatnikz Republic
• Beer Heart
• Beer Hug
• Beerblefish
• Bermondsey
• Big Drop
• Black and Amber
• Brewage à trois
• Brews Company
• Burner Bash
• Colbys
• Connecting Hops
• Diamond Dicks
• Dusty
• Elemental
• Golden Fox
• Hop King
• Ignition
• IntelligentX
• Left Bank
• Mechanic
• Mothership
• Old Kent Road
• ORA
• Owl Farm
• River Widow
• Ronseal
• St Mary’s
• Seven Sisters
• Several Great Blokes
• Six Bridges
• Spartan
• Stan & Al’s
• Tankleys (see Beerblefish)
• Thirsty Smile
• Tidal
• Vandells
• WorkShy

Last updated 5 June 2021

• London breweries
• Closed London breweries