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 185 Nursery Road E9 6PB (Hackney) First sold beer: 30 January 2018 Ceased brewing: 4 November 2023
This intriguingly named outfit at one end of Hackney’s ‘beer row’ was the second brewery co-founded by US exile Byron Knight, who previously helped set up Beavertown. Byron was the original ‘deviant’ while another founding partner, Rupert Selby, was the ‘dandy’, but day-to-day running later passed to another co-founder, Ben Taub.
At first, beers were cuckoo brewed at Enfield, starting in 2017, with the current railway arch site, equipped with a new 16 hl brewhouse from Oban Ales, launching the following year.
Following the financial challenges of the Covid-19 lockdowns and their aftermath, the brewery closed its doors later in 2023.
Beers were in keg, and in can using a mobile line.
Closed brewery 16 Vector Park, Forest Road, Feltham TW13 7EJ (Hounslow) First sold beer: January 2016 Ceased brewing: August 2020
When former financial specialist Francis Smedley decided to turn his passion for homebrewing into a profession, he settled on Feltham as a location with plenty of local demand but no local brewery. Reunion was up and running by the end of 2015 in a local industrial park between Hanworth Park and the Leisure West complex, using a Moeschle 16 hl brewhouse heated by a gas-fired steam boiler.
Operations expanded into a neighbouring unit in March 2018 with increased fermentation capacity, which includes square fermenters as well as cylindroconical tanks. A pleasant taproom was added on an upstairs mezzanine. By now, production was focused on “modern session beers” in cask, keg and can, the last using a mobile line.
Brewhouse at Reunion Ales.
Sadly, Reunion became the first major brewing casualty of the Covid-19 lockdowns, ceaseing to trade in August 2020.
Brewpub 308 Westwood Lane, Sidcup DA15 9PT (Bexley, brewing offsite nearby) thebrokendrum.co.uk First sold beer: 4 October 2018
Former ICT professional Andy Wheeler opened a micropub in a former nail bar at Blackfen in April 2015, between Welling and Sidcup in the shadow of the A2 Rochester Way flyover.
In 2018, Andy began brewing commercially at home in Belvedere not far away on a small scale using a 2 hl kit, making cask beers almost exclusively for sale in the pub. It’s named after a celebrated drinking house in Ankh-Morpork, the fictional city created by the late fantasy author Terry Pratchett for his Discworld cycle of novels.
Brewpub 21 Great Tower Street EC3R 5AR (City of London) brewdog.com First sold beer: 12 May 2018
Brewdog Waterloo
Brewpub Unit G Waterloo Station, 1 The Sidings SE1 7BH (Lambeth) brewdog.com First sold beer: November 2022
When it opened, Tower Hill was London’s biggest BrewDog bar and the chain’s only brewpub in the capital. It occupies a whole block on the ground floor of the neo-Gothic Minster building, with the brewhouse at one end.
Beers are sold from keg in the pub and occasionally at other brewdog sites.
In August 2022 Tower Hill was beaten to the title of the UK’s biggest BrewDog bar by an even bigger venue in the Sidings, a new mall in the former international terminal below Platforms 20-24 at London Waterloo station.
A 5 hl brewhouse and four 10 hl fermenting vessels were online three months later, located alongside the main bar on the lower level. Ex-Gipsy Hill brewer A J Robieson is given a free hand to innovate with specials alongside a regular exclusive house pale ale.
The pale ale and at least one special are usually on sale, sold on keg and highlighted with a fermenting vessel icon in the lists displayed above the bars: note that both upstairs and downstairs bars often have slightly different beers on offer. Some beers also venture to other venues in the chain, in London and elsewhere.
Brewery, brewing currently suspended Original site: 22A Cudworth Street E1 5QU (Tower Hamlets) mechanicbrewery.co.uk First sold beer: 29 January 2019 Brewing suspended: November 2020
Originally located in a run of railway arches around Bethnal Green Overground station apparently otherwise dedicated to fixing black taxis, this is the London brewing project of Olga Zubrzycka, who began working at the ill-starred UBREW in 2017, giving brewing courses as well as making her own beer.
Olga opened her own place early in 2019, using a second-hand Oban Ales 8 hl brewhouse, a homebrew-sized pilot kit and basic taproom.
She made a wide range of beer, in cask as well as keg, including more traditional English and German styles, with some hand bottling and small-scale canning using a mobile line.
Olga Zubrzycka of Mechanic Brewing Co
A combination of Covid-related issues and spiralling rents forced Olga to give up the site early in 2021. During the summer she worked on a brewery farm project in Poland but intends to return to London and revive Mechanic at a new site, perhaps as a brewpub.
Closed brewery Original site: 221 Ponsford Street E9 6JU (Hackney) Second site: 1 Birkbeck Street E2 6JY (Tower Hamlets) boxcarbrewery.co.uk First sold beer: November 2017 (at original site) Ceased brewing: 23 Feburary 2023 (at second site)
Boxcar began on a modest scale when head brewer Sam Dickison, formerly of Moncada, Hammerton and Laine, teamed up with the founder of Vagabond Wines, Stephen Finch, to work on a 200 l kit in an arch with no public facilities in Homerton. It quickly established a reputation as one of London’s most exciting new breweries, combining a modern approach with a fondness for traditional styles like mild ale.
In August 2019 the brewery expanded significantly to a well-equipped railway arch at Bethnal Green, under the London Overground line from Liverpool Street, with a 20 hl SSV kit equipped for automatic mashing and even a reverse osmosis filter. A taproom was opened in the second arch.
Sadly, operations ceased in 2023 ‘due to an unworkable situation with our landlords, partly due to the pandemic and overhanging debt’. The company was placed into administration but Sam was able to retain ownership of the brands. He soon revived production as a cuckoo at partners including Fierce in Aberdeen and Drop Project, hoping eventually to open another physical site. But by June 2024 this activity had ceased and Sam is now working for another brewery outside London.
Brewery Original site: Unit 1, 95 Haymerle Road SE15 6SJ (Southwark) Second site: 19 Pages Walk SE1 4SB (Southwark) Current site: 83 Enid Street SE16 3RA (Southwark) biancaroad.com First sold beer: 21 May 2016 (at original site)
Engineer Reece Wood decided to start his own brewery after completing an epic cycling trip from San Francisco to Miami, where part of the enjoyment was discovering the local beers in each new town. The name is from the business’s original location in a big and partly derelict industrial space accessed from Bianca Road in Peckham, which was also used for events.
Reece Wood, Bianca Road founder
The brewery moved in July 2017 to a more practical space with a taproom near Bricklayers Arms, just off the main Bermondsey beer drag. When this was threatened with redevelopment, Reece snapped up the current pair of arches in between Brew by Numbers and the Kernel, completing the move in April 2019.
The same PBC 25 hl brewhouse has been used at all three sites, though fermentation capacity has been increased and the team expanded, now including head brewer Tash Vine (ex-Ignition). The taproom is in a space at the front of one of the arches, with the brewhouse behind.
Beers are in keg and can – they were long contract-canned but a new canning line was delivered in October 2019.
Brewery 44A Sydenham Road SE26 5QF (Lewisham) ignition.beer First sold beer: 30 May 2017
Not just a brewery, this is a social enterprise employing and training people with learning disabilities, founded by economist Nick O’Shea, who has also been heavily involved with human rights charity Liberty.
Beers were brewed at UBREW from 2016, but in 2017 Ignition gained its own 4 hl kit, which began its career at short-lived brewpub the Botanist on Kew Green and saw service at Brewhouse and Kitchen Islington before being donated to the project. It’s installed in the back room of a 1960s council community centre: the main room at the front serves part-time as an unusual taproom.
Nick O’Shea, founder of Ignition Brewery.
In March 2023, Nick announced he was planning to move on, and in November ownership was transferred to neurodiverse support charity Brighter Horizons
Kegged and hand-bottled beers are also delivered free to local addresses. They include an annual collaboration with local hop-growing collective Palace Pints.
Battersea Brewery Battersea Brewpub 12 Arches Lane, Battersea Power Station SW11 8AB (Wandsworth) batterseabrew.co.uk First sold beer: November 2018
Battersea Substation Bermondsey Brewery, taproom 8 Almond Road SE16 3LR (Southwark) batterseabrew.co.uk First sold beer: 23 June 2018 (as Partizan), August 2023 (as Battersea)
Battersea Brewery, London SW11
One of London’s smarter railway arch breweries, this original Battersea brewpub occupies two arches on the southern approach to Grosvenor railway bridge. Facing Battersea Power Station just back from the riverside, it’s part of a strip of businesses serving the redeveloped site, close to the river and with Battersea Park only a short step away on the other side of the line. It’s the brainchild of former Draft House and Young’s manager Steve Kelly, created in partnership with the Mosaic pub group.
The arch closer to the river holds an 8 hl brewhouse and fermentation tanks, overseen by ex-Brodie’s and Hopcraft Pixie Spring brewer Tom Barlow, while the other is a post-industrial bar.
Operations expanded in August 2023 when the company took on the Bermondsey railway arch and brewing kit formerly belonging to Spartan Brewery (and originally occupied by Partizan). The taproom reopened on 17 August and brewing restarted the following week.
Brewing continues on the Battersea site too.
Beers are in tank, keg and canned using a mobile line, mainly sold through the taproom. A small amount of cask has always been brewed but this may expand following the extension to Bermondsey. In the past beers brewed onsite have usually been sold mainly through the taproom with Battersea brands sold in other Mosaic pubs cuckoo-brewed elsewhere due to capacity constraints at the brewpub. This may also change.
Tom also owns the Brodie’s brands and occasionally brews them on the Battersea kit.
There have been two other Battersea Breweries in the recent past, the first active 1983-89 as a Conway brewpub, and the second 2001-07: the current business is entirely unrelated. A much earlier Battersea Park Brewery was founded as Mason & Son in 1873 and renamed in 1899. It had closed by 1919.
This pioneering new book explains what makes cask beer so special, and explores its past, present and future. Order now from CAMRA Books. Read more here.
London’s Best Beer
The fully updated 3rd edition of my essential award-winning guide to London’s vibrant beer scene is available now from CAMRA Books. Read more here.
