Closed brewery
25 Bermondsey Trading Estate, Rotherhithe New Road SE16 3LL (Southwark)
fourpure.com
First sold beer: October 2013
Ceased brewing: September 2024
Always one of London’s most ambitious new breweries, Fourpure became one of the biggest. Founded as the fourth Bermondsey brewery by former City technology firm executive Dan Lowe and his brother Tom, both homebrewers, it rejected the railway arch model in favour of the less restricted space of a conventional industrial unit. Located between the diverging lines near South Bermondsey station and Millwall FC’s New Den stadium, for over a decade it marked the southeastern extremity of the Bermondsey ‘mile’. The name refers to the four traditional ingredients of beer.
The Lowes recruited John Driebergen, formerly of Meantime, as head brewer and installed a 30 hl kit bought second-hand from Purity in Warwickshire, alongside a 1 hl pilot kit. From the start, the brewery was equipped with a canning line in a nearby unit, one of the first in a new London brewery.
It subsequently expanded several times, with additional warehousing, a 2017 enlargement into an adjacent unit to make space for a new 50 hl German-built GEA Craft Star brewhouse and three outdoor silos for base malts and spent grain. The old kit was sold to Brockley Brewery for its expanded site at Hither Green.
In July 2018, Fourpure became the sixth London craft brewer acquired by a multinational, the Japanese group Kirin, as part of its Australian-originated Lion Little World Beverages subsidiary, though with the same management as before. Further expansion into two more adjacent units followed in summer 2019, one of them entirely occupied by an extensive taproom.
In 2022, John Driebergen and his assistant Ollie Parker left to found Great Beyond.
Following the trend of multinational breweries reducing their craft-style interests in the UK, in August 2022 Lion Little World sold all its UK breweries, including Little Creatures Regents Canal in London and Magic Rock in Huddersfield. The new owner was In Good Company, also known as Odyssey Inns, founded by Stephen Cox, a co-founder of Utopian Brewing in Crediton, Devon, who stepped down from his role there to run the new group.
Fourpure was for some years also the major production centre for Big Drop cuckoo-brewed low alcohol beers, and in May 2023 invested in that company.
In March 2024, Fourpure announced it was seeking a Company Voluntary Agreement (CVA) with its creditors, but this apparently proved unsuccesful as the brewery confimed in August that it was soon to close. Both brewery and taproom had closed by late September, with production of both Fourpure and Big Drop shifted to Magic Rock. CEO Steve Cox expressed regret at the closure and confirmed there would be job losses, but said it was necessary to ‘safeguard the brand for the future’. The subsidiary that owned the Fourpure brand was then put into voluntary administration.
In January 2025, In Good Company announced it was now seeking administration for Magic Rock. While that brewery is still operating as a going concern, the future of all the company’s brands is uncertain.
Beers were in keg and can, with much sold through supermarket chains.
Updated 27 January 2025.
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