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Brewpub 16 Bohemia Place E8 1DU (Hackney) hackneychurchbrew.co First sold beer: 16 June 2018
This handsome brewpub in two railway arches on Hackney’s ‘brewery row’ was co-founded by head brewer Ryan Robbins, originally from Missouri, who oversees a 20 hl automated brewhouse from German suppliers Braukon, complete with water purifier and grain mill.
The operation was originally known as St John at Hackney after the nearby church but changed its name to avoid confusion with the St John restaurant. Several of the people involved, though, are connected to the church, and the business to provide community benefits through apprenticeships and charitable work around issues like local homelessness.
Ryan Robbins of Hackney Church Brew Co.
Most beers are in keg and can and sold both on site and elsewhere.
Suspended brewery Original site: 58A Railway Arches, North Woolwich Road E16 2AA (Newham) Current site: The Factory Project, Factory Road E16 2HB (Newham, no visitors please) Taproom: 1A Brunel Street Works, 5 Silvertown Way, London E16 1EA huskbrewing.com First sold beer: January 2016 Brewing suspended: February 2023
Despite its original address and against London expectations, this small east London brewery and taproom began not under a railway but a road viaduct, close to the Royal Victoria Docks and Excel exhibition centre.
Founder Christiaan van der Vyver, originally from Pretoria in South Africa, is a former homebrewer and enthusiastic beer and food matcher who once worked for the Hawksmoor restaurant group, and has named the business after the husk, one of the reasons why barley has proved an ideal grain for brewing. He started with a 4 hl brewhouse from veteran microbrewery supplier Dave Porter.
The brewery planned to move and expand in 2023 with a larger 10 hl kit acquired from Three Sods when it closed. The intended site fell through and brewing had to be suspended in February, though the taproom remained open for a time.
Eventually the operation relocated to two new sites. A new taproom opened in July at a more accessible location in a new development close to Canning Town station. Brewing facilities were transferred to a repurposed industrial site in Silvertown with no public facilities. Production still hasn’t resumed, however, due to problems with the power supply, and may be delayed into 2024.
Cask, keg and bottle-conditioned beers
are mainly distributed locally and include several with unusual flavourings.
Closed brewery Richmond TW9 (Richmond upon Thames) jeffersonsbrewery.co.uk First sold beer: 8 July 2017 Ceased brewing: September 2022
One of London’s smaller commercial breweries, Jeffersons derived its name from homebrewing brothers Freddie and George Jefferies, who first sold their beer at the Barnes Fair in July 2017 after two years of planning and preparation. Double and triple brew days were soon common on the custom-built 3 hl kit thanks to rising demand. The site wasn’t suitable for visitors but the brothers originallly planned a local offiste taproom.
Following the challenges of the Covid-19 lockdowns and the subsequent energy crisis, brewing was suspended in September 2022 “until market conditions improve”. In January 2023, however, the company was formally dissolved so the beers are unlikely to reappear.
Beers were in keykeg or bottle conditioned in 330 ml bottles.
Brewery Original site: 11 Print Village, 58 Chadwick Road SE15 4PU (Southwark) Second site: 2A-2 Copeland Park, 133 Copeland Road SE15 3SN (Southwark) Current site (from September 2023): 48 Druid Street SE1 2EZ (Southwark) kanpai.london First sold beer: June 2017
The first sake brewery in the UK and one of only seven in Europe was founded by Tom and Lucy Wilson, who named it with the Japanese word for ‘cheers’. Originally Tom and Lucy worked at a very small scale at Peckham’s Print Village, but expanded in August 2018 to an old industrial building complete with taproom in the heart of Peckham’s ‘cultural quarter’ at Copeland Park.
During September 2023, the brewery and taproom relocated an arch on the Bermondsey ‘beer mile’ next to Southwark Brewing, while the previous location in Peckham was taken on by Eko Brewery.
Sake is technically a beer as it’s a fermented alcoholic drink derived from grains, though the process differs from Western brewing in that there’s no malting and mashing. The polished rice is steamed before undergoing a lengthy and complex fermentation using a mould called koji capable of converting starches into sugars as well as yeast to produce the alcohol.
Tom Wilson of Kanpai with fermenters,
Beers are in keg and bottle: all are high grade junmai sake made entirely from rice and water. Kainpai regularly collaborates with conventional brewers and other producers like Peckham meadery Gosnells.
Brewpub, brewing currently suspended 1 Lewis Cubitt Walk N1C 4DL (Camden) babelbeerhouse.com First sold beer: 5 May 2019 (as Little Creatures Regents Canal) Brewing suspended: August 2022 Brewing resumed: March 2023 Brewing suspended again: December 2023
This substantial brewpub in the Kings Cross redevelopment opened in May 2019 as the London outpost of Australia’s Little Creatures, founded in Fremantle in 2000 as a pioneering and influential craft brewery, although part of Japanese brewer Kirin’s Lion Group since 2012 and now allocated to its Lion Little World subsidiary.
Veteran Lion brewer Laura Smith, originally from New Zealand, was the inaugural head brewer, presiding over a neat 5 hl steam-heated Lehui brewhouse from China visible through glass in one corner. Brewing was suspended during the 2020-21 Covid-19 lockdowns and Laura returned to the southern hemisphere in 2021, though production resumed when the pub reopened in the spring of that year.
Brewing was suspended in August 2022, when Lion Little World sold all its UK breweries, including Fourpure 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. In October the bar was renamed Babel Beer House, with Little Creatures brands no longer stocked.
The brewhouse remained in place and the new owners resumed production in March 2023. At least one own-brewed ‘tank’ beer was usually available, fermented in and dispensed from the line of cylindro-conical vessels behind the bar under blanket carbon dioxide pressure. Other beers sold were usually sourced from sister breweries Fourpure and Magic Rock or third parties.
Laura Smith inaugural brewer at Little Creatures Regents Canal.
By December 2023 brewing had been suspended again, and in March 2024 management of the site was transferred to a new company, Perfect Hive. Brewing equipment and dispense tanks remain in place, with no current plans to revive production.
Closed brewery Pinner HA5 (Hillingdon) First sold beer: 23 February 2019 Ceased brewing: by March 2023
German-born former marketing specialist Larissa Graeber and her husband Grant, who came to the UK as an officer with the US Navy based in Northwood, originally planned a brewery in central London with a 16 hl kit bought secondhand from Darkwave brewery in Bristol. When this fell through, they decided to convert their garden “summerhouse” in London’s far-flung northwest into a 2.5 hl facility with five fermenters from Elite Stainless Fabrications. Beers in keg and bottle were sold locally.
The bigger kit was placed in storage with plans to use it once a suitable site has been found. Progress was slowed by the 2020-21 Covid-19 lockdowns but two possible brewpub/taproom sites were under consideration in late 2021.
Sadly none of these plans came to fruition and in March 2023 the company submitted a voluntary application to wind itself up.
Brewery, likely no longer brewing in London Hare Wines, 24 Rigg Approach E10 7QN (Waltham Forest) magicspellsbrewery.co.uk First sold beer: June 2017 Brewing ceased in London: by July 2021
This brewing offshoot of Leyton-based drinks wholesaler Hare Wines started when owner Jas Hare noticed both the quality and booming popularity of the London-brewed beers he was selling. Brewing began in 2015 on a small scale in Epping, focusing initially on own-label brews for restaurants and similar businesses, with the Magic Spells brand launched in 2017.
Initial commercial brews were at Red Fox in Coggeshall, but the brewer there, Glenn Ackerman, later joined the Magic Spells team, commissioning a small 5 hl kit in a space adjacent to the wholesale warehouse, also used for events. The kit was mainly used for trial brews, ‘brewer for the day’ events and a summer taproom, while more commercial runs were at Firebrand in Cornwall under Glenn’s supervision.
Following the 2020 lockdowns, Magic Spells gave up its events and brewing space in Leyton and relocated all brewing. I’ve been unable to confirm the current location but it’s likely to be outside London. The wholesale drinks warehouse remains open and now has a retail side too.
Nodding in their name to local heroes the Kinks, the Hillbillies are also a quartet, though currently still holding their day jobs and working on the brewery part-time. Homebrewers Martin Hodgson and Pete Syratt began the project by experimenting at UBREW but by late 2016 were registered commercially, working on a small scale at Pete’s home and selling very locally, including at the Alexandra Palace Farmers’ Market.
They moved up a notch in February 2017, taking an upstairs space at 24 Avenue Mews, a small street just behind the main Muswell Hill junction that’s also home to several other craft businesses. Here they worked on a big homebrew-style setup making 130 l batches. A taproom opened a few doors down in April 2018.
The taproom at Muswell Hillbilly’s pretty Muswell Hill mews
In October 2019, the brewery upgraded to a more professional capacity with the former Hale 5 hl kit (previously used by Affinity and Anspach & Hobday) on the ground floor of another unit in the mews.
In November 2023, it became the home of sour beer cuckoo brewer Tart.
In July 2024, it began operating a second, bar, the community-owned Hillbilly Social in Bounds Green.
Beers are mainly keg and bottle-conditioned, with some cask, and often use local ingredients: some of the hops is grown by the Hillbillies and their friends in gardens and allotments.
Brewery, no visitors please Bromley BR1 4HE (Bromley) mutineers.beer First sold beer: October 2018
Inspired by an “experience day” at London Fields, engineer Rob Vote began homebrewing with friends Gareth Bathers, Lee Hayes and Joe Miles. They later graduated to small-scale commercial brewing using a 1 hl three-tier kit at a private address.
Beers in cask and bottle are mainly at session strengths, sold through local outlets.
Brewery 3 Cromwell Industrial Estate, Staffa Road E10 7QZ (Waltham Forest) neckstamper.com First sold beer: January 2017
Another member of the Lea Bridge brewery cluster, Neckstamper boasts a 16 hl Dave Porter kit in a small industrial unit, with a taproom right next to the brewing floor. Founder and long-time homebrewer Adam Jefferies began as a mechanical engineer working in Formula 1 racing but switched to banking before embarking on professional brewing after a short course.
The curious name is from an obsolete London slang term for 18th century potboys who delivered beer from pubs to private estates; beer names make similar use of archaic drink-related slang.
Adam Jefferies of Neckstamper Brewing.
Beers are packaged in keg as well as in cans using a mobile line.
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