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.
Brewery Unit G1 Coldharbour Works, 245A Coldharbour Lane SW9 8RR (Lambeth) brixtonmarketbar.com First sold beer: April 2021 (as Friendship Adventure)
Homebrewer Ed Pragnell and friends Toby Ejsmond-Frey and Neil Wates began working together as Friendship Adventure in 2017, subsequently cuckoo brewing at Reunion, Signal and elsewhere and developing a joyful sideline promoting comedy events.
They added their own 16 hl facility in Brixton in 2021, appropriately enough in an old grain mill right by the railway near Loughborough Junction station and close to Clarkshaws, with a generously proportioned taproom on site.
A percentage of sales was donated to the Baytree Centre, a nearby charity promoting social inclusion for women and girls.
The brewery opened a second, off-site, taproom not far away in Brixton market in September 2023 (5 Market Row SW9 8LB).
Fermenting vessels decorated with beer branding at Friendship Adventure: why don’t more breweries do this?
The brewery almost closed completely in June 2024 due to the usual financial challenges, but instead was bought out and rebranded by one of its customers, Supercute, a Latino-themed Brixton Market bar and club owned by local restaurateurs.
In July, the original facility at Loughborough Junction was relaunched under its new name, with former head brewer Stu Brown rehired to produce both rebranded and new beers.
Supercute also established a partnership with New York City’s Harlem Brewing, founded in 2000 by Celeste Beatty, the first African American woman to launch a craft brewery, and Stu is brewing a couple of its brands under license. The Brixton Market bar has accordingly been rebranded Harlem Brewing Taproom, though both Harlem and Supercute brands are sold across both sites.
Beers are in keg and can, mainly brewed to session strength.
23 openings and revivals, 8 closures and suspensions, net change +15.
By the end of 2017, there were 108 commercial breweries operating in London, including 25 brewpubs. One was part of a national group (N), three were parts of multinationals (M). These breweries were:
Old Street Brewery WC1, Camden, brewpub, in preparation for a move to a standalone site
Other changes
Affinity Brew Co (Five Miles) N22, Haringey, brewpub, expand to standalone site in one of the Bermondsey arches vacated by Partizan. The Tottenham site and kit will be taken on and revived by Hale next year.
Beer Hive (Clarkshaws Brewing, London Beer Lab) SW9, Lambeth. Clarkshaws moves out to re-establish its own brewery nearby, leaving the location as a production site for London Beer Lab.
Brick Brewery SE15, Southwark, relocates production to bigger site in Deptford.
Brixton Brewery SW9, Lambeth, becomes 49% part-owned by Heineken.
Bull N6, Haringey, brewpub, rebrands its brewery to Gorgeous.
Hop Stuff Brewery SE18, Greenwich, moves to a much-expanded site in Plumstead/Thamesmead.
Long Arm Brewery (ETM) W5, Ealing, brewpub, brewing relocated to a purpose-built brewpub in Shoreditch.
Partizan Brewing SE16, Southwark, move to larger Bermondsey arch a short distance away. Affinity occupies one of the former arches, the other will be used by Spartan from next year.
Redchurch Brewery E2, Tower Hamlets, adds a larger production site outside London, converting its original arch into wild and mixed fermentation specialist Redchurch Urban Farmhouse.
For definitions of a London brewery, see the current London breweries page.
Brewpub no longer brewing 2 Greyhound Lane SW16 5SD (Lambeth) First sold beer: October 2016 Ceased brewing: early 2018
This small brewery occupied an outhouse adjacent to the Railway pub by Streatham Common station, though was owned and managed separately from the pub. It made bottled beer for sale in the pub and other local outlets.
Brewpub no longer brewing 1 Finsbury Road N22 8PA (Haringey) theprincen22.co.uk First brewed beer: September 2017 (as House Brewing) Ceased brewing: by September 2019 (as The Goodness)
This Wood Green pub was equipped with a brewhouse in a side room soon after it reopened in 2017. Initially it operated under the name House, but activity ceased when the brewer left late in 2018.
During 2019, the brewhouse was used as a stopgap by the Goodness. Brewing was suspended once the Goodness’ own much bigger kit was commissioned elsewhere in Wood Green, and was never resumed: the brewhouse has since been sold to Werewolf and the space repurposed.
Closed brewery 344a Essex Road N1 3PD (Islington) First sold beer: March 2017 Ceased brewing: by June 2018
This small brewery in the cellar of the Borough Wines bottle shop in Islington made beer in bottles and 5 l minicasks for sale in the shop. Brewing ceased after just over a year and shop has since been closed.
Beer firm, planned brewpub The Green Goddess, 43A Vanburgh Park SE3 7AB (Lewisham) commonriotersbeer.co.uk Active since: June 2019
The brainchild of ex-Brewhouse and Kitchen brewer Stephen O’Connor and his beer sommelier wife Maryann, Common Rioters has been active as a southeast London-based cuckoo since 2019. Beers have been brewed at a variety of locations and sold through local outlets and various bars and stalls, and a popup bar at Charlton House.
In 2021, Stephen and Maryann began working on a project to open a brewpub known as the Green Goddess in a former bank building at the Blackheath Standard. This took much longer than expected, but the pub finally opened in July 2022. On opening brewing hadn’t yet commenced as some of the brewing equipment was still due to be delivered and commissioned. Brewing should start in the first half of 2023.
The brewery name refers to the successful 1876 protests opposing threatened further development of Plumstead Common.
Beers are in bottle, keg and sometimes cask, often modern twists on traditional European styles.
Launched in 2017 by three locals based in Purley and initially brewing at Hepworth in Pulborough, West Sussex, Coalition planned to open a brewpub in central Croydon during 2019 but the site fell through thanks to a regeneration scheme. In 2021, an attempt to open at a second site also failed.
In late 2022, Coalition head brewer Charlotte Cook began brewing the brands on the former SlyBeast kit at the Ram Inn, Wandsworth, with the beer eventually available in the pub. This arrangement ended at short notice in early January 2024 and Coalition returned to cuckoo brewing.
Closed brewpub and beer firm 184 New Cross Road SE14 5AA (Lewisham) First sold beer: March 2017 Ceased brewing: around July 2018, active as a cuckoo until 2020.
Paddy and Joseph Ryan began this brewery in 2017 with a 50 l Braumeister kit in the cellar of their pub, the White Hart in New Cross, under the name Paddies with Attitude. It was renamed in April 2018 and soon afterwards switched to cuckoo brewing at Bianca Road to address capacity issues.
The pub was threatened by plans to convert the upper floors to flats in 2019, which the licensees argued would make it unviable. The proposal was defeated following a local campaign but the threat of revived proposals persisted, and the business closed during the 2020 lockdowns. Cuckoo brewing has also ceased as one of the partners has moved from the UK.
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London’s Best Beer
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