Brewery
Unit 11, 160 Hamilton Road SE27 9SF (Lambeth)
gipsyhillbrewing.com
First sold beer: July 2014
One of London’s biggest independent breweries, Gipsy Hill has a target to grow output to 24,000 hl in the next few years. Its footprint on the industrial estate in the like-named neighbourhood it calls home has grown from one to six units.
The credit lies with the three characters shown on the logo: founders Charlie Shaw (ex-Five Points), former City worker Sam McMeekin and head brewer Simon Wood, recruited from Dorset’s Piddle brewery. The first kit was a relatively generous 25 hl Malrex and the company was soon adding extra fermenters and warehousing.
Disaster struck in 2016 when the brewing floor began to collapse, but this proved a turning point with investment in a new high-quality floor and an upgrade the following year to a 60 hl brewhouse with a pilot kit and a canning line. A dedicated taproom opened in 2018 across the yard from the brewery itself. The brewery’s pub the Douglas Fir, on the other side of Crystal Palace Park, opened as a popup in a former shop in 2016 but soon became permanent.
In April 2021, Gipsy Hill became London’s first employee-owned brewery, but on 30 October 2024 it confirmed it had entered a ‘strategic partnership’ with brewing group Sunrise Alliance, without which it ‘would almost certainly be looking at administration’. The company promises that the brewery will continue to function as before, on the same site, with co-founder Sam McMeekin still in charge.
The new owner originated in 2006 as St Peter’s brewery near Bungay, and began expanding in 2023 with the acquisition of Curious Brew in Ashford, Kent, which already owned the Wild Beer brand. A few weeks before the Gipsy Hill deal, Sunrise bought another London brewer, Portobello.
Beers are in keg and can, with some hand bottling for barrel-aged specials and occasional one-off casks.
Updated 31 October 2024.
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