Brewery
Original site: 7 Ravenswood Industrial Estate, Shernhall Street E17 9HQ (Waltham Forest)
Current site: 2 Lockwood Way E17 5RB (Waltham Forest)
wildcardbrewery.co.uk
First sold beer: April 2014 (at original site)
Wild Card is 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, 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 has been retained as a bar and barrel-ageing facility, now known as the Barrel Store, with a taproom at Lockwood too. Following the easing of lockdown restrictions in April 2021 the brewery opened its first ‘proper’ pub — appropriately enough, the Warrant Officer, now renamed the Tavern on the HIll.
Jaega, meanwhile, has 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.
Beers are in keg and in can, some of which are sold in major supermarkets. Cask was discontinued in 2019 but has been revived in 2021, primarily to supply the pub.
Updated 16 December 2021.
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