Closed brewery
Original site: 7 Ravenswood Industrial Estate, Shernhall Street E17 9HQ (Waltham Forest)
Final site: 2 Lockwood Way E17 5RB (Waltham Forest)
wildcardbrewery.co.uk
First sold beer: April 2014 (at original site)
Ceased brewing: October 2024
Wild Card was the creation of three university friends, Andrew Birkby, William John Harris and former chemical engineer and current head brewer Jaega Wise, originally from Nottingham. It began in January 2013 with an amber ale, Jack of Clubs, developed on homemade equipment in a garage and cuckoo brewed just outside London at Brentwood brewery.
For a few months from June 2013, the three friends were based in the cellar of Walthamstow’s Warrant Officer pub (formerly the Higham Hill Tavern, 318 Higham Hill Road E17 5RG, Waltham Forest: see Solvay Society), at first intending to install a small brewing facility there. Realising this was impractical, in the autumn of that year they took on a characterful unit on the Ravenswood industrial estate close to Walthamstow Village, already something of a public attraction thanks to neon sign specialist God’s Own Junkyard and Mother’s Ruin, producer of fruit gin. Here, from early in 2014, a modest 10 hl brewhouse from Oban Ales shared space with an increasingly popular taproom.
Following a crowdfunding round, in April 2018 Wild Card expanded to a bigger site on the Lockwood estate, becoming the first of several breweries to establish itself in the swathe of industrial estates along Blackhorse Lane in the west of Walthamstow, adjacent to the Walthamstow Wetlands. At first, the old brewing kit was retained while fermentation capacity was substantially increased, with a small canning line and then a new 20 hl brewhouse, also from Oban, added during 2019.
The Ravenswood site became a bar and barrel-ageing facility known as the Barrel Store, with a taproom at Lockwood too. Following the easing of lockdown restrictions in April 2021 the brewery set up a separate company to open its first ‘proper’ pub — appropriately enough, the Warrant Officer, now renamed the Tavern on the HIll.
Jaega, meanwhile, had become something a brewing celebrity, not only for her great beers and extensive brewing knowledge but for her tireless campaigning for diversity in the industry.
Unfortunately, post-Covid trading conditions proved tough for Wild Card, and in early October 2024 its Lockwood site was repossessed by the landlord, Waltham Forest council. A few days later the brewery, which according to its most recently filed accounts was around £500,000 in debt, confirmed it had entered liquidation, citing ‘the pandemic and the extended cost of living crisis’ as insurmountable challenges.
Both the Ravenswood and Lockwood sites were confirmed closed, though the pub, with its different ownership arrangements, remained open.
Beers were in keg and in can, some of which are sold in major supermarkets. Cask was discontinued in 2019 but revived in 2021, primarily to supply the pub.
Updated 18 October 2024.
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