Promoting an international beer culture that recognises and celebrates beers of quality, distinctiveness and local character, brewed with care and passion.
Best beer and travel writing award 2015, 2011 -- British Guild of Beer Writers Awards
Accredited Beer Sommelier
Writer of "Probably the best book about beer in London" - Londonist
"A necessity if you're a beer geek travelling to London town" - Beer Advocate
"A joy to read" - Roger Protz
"Very authoritative" - Tim Webb.
"One of the top beer writers in the UK" - Mark Dredge.
"A beer guru" - Popbitch.
Closed brewery and beer firm Original site: Harringay N4 (Harringey) Second site: Suffolk, outside London First sold beer: May 2021 (at original site) Moved outside London: September 2021, ceased brewing on own kit by end 2021, company wound up January 2024.
This was originally a part-time self-built 1.5 hl nanobrewery created by homebrewer and philosopher Josh Mellor at a private address in the area known as the Harringay Ladder. Only a few months after opening, in September 2021, Josh relocated to a site in rural Suffolk, where he’s originally from. But this didn’t work out, and by late November he’d returned to London, based in Deptford. By now, he was cuckoo brewing on a larger scale.
Early in 2022, Josh began working for BBNo, which was in the process of reconfiguring its presence in Bermondsey following a major expansion to a new production brewery in Greenwich. Josh’s nanobrewery moved to BBNo’s Bermondsey arch and was used for producing BBNo specials for the taproom, though this ceased in March 2023.
Josh continued to cuckoo brew as a side project but wound up the company in early 2024.
Beers were in keg, naturally conditioned bag in box and bottle, often brewed to unusual and distinctive recipes.
Mellor’s beers on sale at Stroud Green Farmers’ Market.
Brewery 1-28 Echo Building, East Bay Lane E15 2SJ (Waltham Forest) mammothbeer.com First sold beer: January 2021
London beer veteran Mark Pether bought the disused 16 hl brewhouse (once at Ascot Ales and now on its seventh owner) from his former employer Crate when they went into administration and took it across the River Lee Navigation to a new home at Hackney Bridge, a recently developed quarter of the Olympic Park.
The brewery is a collaboration with music entrepreneur Vikram Gudi and takes its name from one of Vikram’s companies. There’s no capacity for a taproom at the production site, so in April 2022 the brewery opened an offsite bar at Leytonstone High Road London Overground station.
Beer firm, suspended brewery Original site: Stamford Brook W6 (Hammersmith and Fulham) Taproom: 1 Bouverie Road, London N16 0AH (Hackney) macintoshales.com First sold beer: January 2018 Brewing suspended: by June 2023
Charlie Macintosh began commercial brewing with a mission to make “modern, balanced ales that respect the ingredients and tradition” on a domestic scale, using a self-built 2 hl kit in a converted garage in Stamford Brook.
As demand grew, he began cuckoo brewing for larger runs, and as of July 2023 has set aside his home kit in favour of a long-term arrangement with Orbit. The same month he opened a taproom in a secluded yard near Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington, with an adjacent space used as a warehouse and office.
The current site is slated for redevelopment, but likely not for a few more years, and Charlie retains an ambition to move to his own kit at some point.
Beers in cask-, keg- and bottle-conditioned form are made with home-crushed malt and whole leaf hops.
Closed brewery Wood Green N22 (Haringey) greywoodbrewery.co.uk First sold beer: March 2020 Ceased brewing: by end 2021
Designer and beekeeper Adam Armstrong had been a keen homebrewer for several years when the management at his local pub suggested he make a commercial brew for them. The result was this part-time home-based brewery working in 1.5 hl batches.
Following a successful first brew, activities were suspended during the lockdown but briefly revived in 2021. By the end of that year, however, Adam had given up his brewing license. He’s continuing as a homebrewer and may revive commercial brewing at some stage if market conditions improve.
The name is from a possible derivation of the place name Haringey: ‘enclosure in the grey wood’ (though a more likely etymology is ‘Hering’s enclosure’, from a personal name).
The Greater Good Fresh Brewing Co (Pinter), London E17.
Brewery (of sorts), no visitors please 11A Uplands Business Park E17 5QJ (Waltham Forest) pinter.co.uk First sold beer: September 2020
The brainchild of two former musical festival promoters, Ralph Broadbent and Alex Dixon, this isn’t a conventional brewery but supplies a hi-tech home beer-making gadget, the Pinter, billed as a ‘Nespresso for beer’, and ingredients packs to use with it.
Technically, it’s not a homebrewing system as there’s no liquid to heat up: instead you use a special ‘fresh press’ concentrate, cold water and yeast in a single 10l vessel which took seven years to develop. This is cunningly designed to accommodate fermentation, conditioning and dispense, typically taking 4-5 days to produce drinkable beer.
Ralph and Alex point to the environmental benefits of their system which they say reduces packaging by 70% and CO2 emissions by 50% compared with bought-in beer. The business is located in the Walthamstow brewing hub of Blackhorse Lane.
I couldn’t get the Mark 1 version supplied as a review sample to work so can’t comment on the results, but I understand others have had better luck. The Pinter 2 was released later in 2021.
Fresh Press packs are created by ex-Camden Town brewer Evangelos Tsionos and are designed to fit through a letterbox.
Closed brewery 5B Elms Industrial Estate, Church Road, Romford RM3 0HU (Havering) First sold beer: May 2021 Ceased brewing: October 2022
Founded by lawyer and homebrewer Rash Singh Mahal with the help of brewer Thomas Newman on an industrial estate in the Ingrebourne valley near Harold Wood, this 8 hl setup was originally planned to launch in 2020 but delayed by the pandemic.
A taproom opened at the brewery in spring 2022 but soon closed due to licensing problems. The brewery itself closed in October 2022.
Prolific Danish nomad brewery Mikkeller, founded by Mikkel Borg Bjergsø, opened its first London bar in October 2018, teaming up with Mikkel’s unlikely childhood hero, 1980s pop idol turned beer connoisseur Rick Astley.
A second London venue, also in partnership with Rick, began as a popup in a former menswear shop in the atmospheric surroundings of Exmouth Market in October 2019. During the 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns, this was converted into a brewpub, with a bespoke 7.5 hl brewhouse from Premier Stainless in San Diego in pride of place at the rear and fermenters downstairs.
Beers are sold in-house from tank and sometimes kegged for export to Mikkeller outlets elsewhere. Brewers have autonomy to develop their own recipes, mainly producing rotating specials in a wide range of styles, though some recur more frequently than others
Brewery Original site: The Rose and Crown, 71 Torriano Avenue NW5 2SG (Camden) Current site: 87 Randolph Street NW1 0SR (Camden) werewolfbeer.com First sold beer: December 2020 (at original site) Brewing suspended: Early 2021 Brewing resumed: February 2022 (at current site)
This “American brewery in London” (thus the name, a reference to the film An American Werewolf in London) is the brainchild of US expat and former London Brewing head brewer Rich White. Cuckoo brewing started at Little Creatures early in 2020 but plans for a site were disrupted by the lockdowns.
The first commercial beers flowed at the end of the year from a pilot kit installed in the cellar of Kentish Town pub the Rose and Crown, and in 2021 the project successfully crowdfunded for a move to its own arch under the London Overground close to Camden Road, with its own haunted train ride rescued from a derelict theme park.
Follwing a one-off opening for Hallowe’en 2021, installation was completed in early 2022 and brewing commenced at the end of February. The 8 hl brewhouse was previously at the Prince, but new fermenters have beenadded. The taproom opened fully on 1 April.
Brewery moved outside London Original site: 4 Thrapston Road, Woodford, Kettering NN14 4HY (Northamptonshire, outside London) London site: 7 Almond Road SE16 3LR (Southwark) Current site: 5 Cosy Nook, Thrapston, Kettering NN14 4PS (Northamptonshire, outside London threehillsbrewing.com First sold beer: October 2016 (at original site), September 2020 (at London site) Ceased brewing in London: Spring 2023
Andrew Catherall worked as a brewer in China before founding Three Hills as a small batch nanobrewery in a rural setting at Woodford, Northamptonshire. A longstanding aspiration for a London outlet was realised in 2020 when Affinity moved from a Bermondsey arch to the cellar of the Grosvenor Arms in Brixton, leaving its old kit behind as it waas too tall for the new location.
Three Hills was the arch’s third brewing tenant since 2015 when it was first occupied by Partizan, founded next door. Three Hills used Affinity’s old 10 hl kit, originally at Long Arm in Ealing, though with modifications and the addition of a new set of fermenters.
The brewery retained its original site, though for some time produced most of its beer in Bermondsey, which also provided a taproom. Late in 2022, it relocated its Northamptonshire activities to a larger site not far away at Thrapston, and began concentrating production there. The brewhouse was moved from Bermondsey to Thrapston in spring 2023 and the arch is now just a taproom.
The logo consists of the Chinese characters for ‘three hills’ (三山).
Beers are in keg, tank, can, bottle and occasional cask.
Interestingly customised piano at Three Hills The Outpost.
Brewery Unit C, 1 Strawberry Vale, Twickenham TW1 4RY (Richmond upon Thames) jawbonebrewing.com First sold beer: December 2020
Energetic former Weird Beard brewer Ben Hughes has found a characterful and attractive location for this solo project, in a working boatyard on the Thames by Swan Island in Twickenham, next to riverside Radnor Gardens. The brewery even occasionally dispatches beer by boat.
The generously sized, steam-heated 30 hl brewhouse was formerly at Wylam and Mad Hatter. Beers to take away have been sold from the opening and a drink-in taproom was added in autumn 2021, with decor that suggests both the industrial heritage and the building’s immediate past as an artist’s studio.
Beers are in keg and 440 ml can, with some cask. Packaging makes use of views of the surroundings.
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