Promoting an international beer culture that recognises and celebrates beers of quality, distinctiveness and local character, brewed with care and passion.
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Brewery 8 Stirling Way, Beddington Farm Road, Croydon CR0 4XN (Sutton) signallager.com First sold beer: January 2016
The roots of Signal go back to the day when South African-born chemical engineer Murray Roos’s children claimed the garden shed, previously home to his homebrewing setup, as a play space, and his wife told him this was his signal to find commercial premises. He teamed up with a fellow parent at his children’s school, Charlie Luckin, who had a background in wine and hospitality, and the pair set up on a Beddington industrial estate a few steps from Therapia Lane tram stop, just in Sutton but with a Croydon postcode.
The original 12 hl brewhouse, still in use, was supplied by PBC, while the brewery has since added several extra fermenters and a canning line. The original intention was to specialise in craft lagers but, interestingly, these were soon supplemented by ale styles and, from 2018, cask:.
A taproom at the brewery, open monthly, could make a good combined visit with Anspach & Hobday, who moved in across the yard in 2020. There’s been a Signal bar at the O2 (Peninsula Square SE10 0DX) since July 2017, originally in the Garden on the ground floor. Following the lifting of the 2021 lockdowns, this has moved to a bigger space on the first floor, known as Cloud Nine.
Signal Brewery, Beddington CR0
Beers are in keg, cask and can, with some contract bottling at SEB, and all at session strength.
Brewery, no visitors please Wood Lane W12 (Hammersmith & Fulham) concreteislandbrewery.co.uk First sold beer: September 2017 (as Small Beer)
Located near the Westway, this is one of London’s very smallest commercial breweries. It’s run by Steve Smith, an award-winning London Amateur Brewers member who works on a home-based 25 l kit.
It was originally known as Small Beer but the name was changed to avoid confusion with low alcohol specialist Small Beer in Bermondsey.
Beer is mainly hand-bottled and bottle-conditioned and can be custom-labelled as gifts or for special occasions. It’s available by mail order from the brewery or through local outlets.
Brewery 70 Verney Road SE16 3DH (Southwark) theoriginalsmallbeer.com First sold beer: November 2017
In the 17th century, small beer was the lowest-strength product of a brewery, consumed daily by people of all ages in preference to water. It was usually made by sparging (rinsing) the mash a final time after the worts for the stronger beers had been extracted.
James Grundy and Felix James have given the idea a contemporary twist in response to the growing interest in lower-alcohol drinks by opening a brewery producing low alcohol and reduced alcohol beers at strengths of 1-2.7% ABV. The beers are properly mashed and fermented with no artificial alcohol extraction and no old school multiple sparging, just careful control of recipes and processes.
Felix, a homebrewer previously at AB InBev and Fuller’s, though in packaging rather than brewing, met James when they both worked at pioneering new London craft distillery Sipsmith. They occupied the site, a former laundry in an industrial area of South Bermondsey, from summer 2017, installing a sizeable 50 hl steam-heated brewhouse designed to their needs and built by Gravity Systems.
Its configuration includes a mash tun, two coppers which can be used both for the hop boil and as hot liquor tanks, an underback and whirlpool. It’s not only optimised for the brewing style but for minimum environmental impact, with a ‘dry floor’ and chillers that use glycol as well as water to help reduce water consumption, and a target of using 100% renewable energy (currently 74%).
Small Beer, complete with appropriately compact mobile bar.
Previously the onsite taprooom was open only for special events but has kept regular hours since autumn 2022.
Beers are in keg and distinctive stubby 350 ml bottles, filled off site.
Another, unrelated and much smaller Small Beer Brewing Company in Wood Lane has since been renamed Concrete Island.
Beer firm, former and planned future brewery spartanbrewery.com First sold beer: 23 June 2018 Brewing suspended: 17 June 2023
Software engineer Colin Brooks and financial risk analyst Mike Willetts homebrewed together for over five years before making their first commercial beers under the Spartan brand as cuckoos at now-closed shared Bermondsey brewery UBREW in November 2016.
Late in 2017, they moved into one of the arches at the Bermondsey Blue vacated by Partizan, initially selling stock brewd at UBREW in an improvised taproom while installing a new 16 hl kit from Johnson Brewing Design, complete with an auger to transport the grist into the mash tun. The taproom has then overhauled though opened only on Saturdays as Colin and Mike kept their full time day jobs throughout.
Having struggled through the lockdowns, in 2023 they decided they could no longer commit to the taproom and sold both the lease and the kit to Battersea Brewing, which has since reopened the arch as a second brewing and retail site. They plan to continue cuckoo brewing and may consider a revived site at a later date.
Beers were in cask and keg, with some can conditioning offsite at Bottled in Cumbria. Styles leant towards the traditional with a contemporary twist, using nearly all UK ingredients, with branding using ancient Greek references, reflecting one of Mike’s personal interests.
Inside Spartan Brewery: the mash tun (second vessel from left) is fed by an auger.
Brewery, no visitors please St Mary’s Church, Elsworthy Road NW3 3DJ (Camden) stmarysbrewery.co.uk First sold beer: November 2017 Brewing suspended: July 2022 Brewing resumed: October 2024
Stephen Reynolds, church warden at St Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill, started this brewery as a way of raising money for the church’s youth work. The first beer, cuckoo brewed at UBREW, was launched at an event in October 2016 when the Bishop of Edmonton blessed the beer and drank the first pint. A nano-sized kit was installed in the church crypt a year later, but larger runs were cuckoo brewed elsewhere under the supervision of brewer Roddy Monroe.
Brewing was suspended in early July 2022 due to refurbishment work on the church. This was finally completed in 2024, with production resuming in October and an official relaunch in November.
Bottled beers are sold locally by home delivery and through stalls at local farmers’ markets: check the website for availability.
Brewery, no visitors please New Malden KT3 5RU (Kingston upon Thames) anomalybrewing.co.uk First sold beer: October 2018
Graphic designer Adam Sutton began
homebrewing in 2017 and became a part-time professional a little over a year
later, working on a small 1.5 hl direct-fired kit in a converted garage at his
New Malden home. Following the success of his beers locally, he’s planning to
go full-time and may expand operations.
So far Adam’s beers have departed from the well-worn hoppy pale ale norm of most new startups, drawing inspiration instead from Belgian, French and older British styles. Most beer is bottled, with keg recently added.
Brewery Original site: 3 Jubilee Estate, Horsham RH13 5UE (West Sussex , outside London) Current site: 4 Tileyard Studios, Tileyard Road N7 9AH (Islington) (Taproom at Campfire, Tileyard Studios) twotribes.co.uk First sold beer: 2000 (as W J King in Horsham), 4 April 2018 (as Two Tribes at London site)
Interestingly, this unashamedly modern brewery and taproom in the Tileyard, a complex of studios inhabited by hundreds of creative and high-tech businesses north of Kings Cross, is one of several tracing its roots to the breakup of historic Sussex family brewer King & Barnes, founded in Horsham around 1800 (18 Bishopric, Horsham RH12 1QN, West Sussex).
After Dorset-based competitor Hall & Woodhouse (Badger) bought and closed K&B in 2000, former director Bill King set up a micro, W J King, nearby. This was sold on in 2010, first becoming King Beers, rebranding again to Two Tribes in 2015 and relocating to London in 2018.
Finnish-born head brewer Chris Tuominen, formerly at Beavertown and Camden Town, oversaw the installation of a completely new 10 hl steam-heated brewhouse made in Hungary by Zip Technologies, complete with a canning line: the old kit went to Good Things in Eridge.
The taproom was originally at the front of the brewhouse unit but the space was converted to production use during the lockdowns, housing additional tanks to triple capacity. Its replacement was a much larger and more unusual space across the yard, opened in April 2021 under the name Campfire. This combines a container bar, sheltered and outdoor seating, a firepit for barbecue cooking and live music and DJs, many of them based onsite.
Chris moved on in November 2021 and now works at Indie Alehouse in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Suspended brewery, no visitors please New Barnet EN5 (Barnet) urban-alchemy-brewing.co.uk First sold beer: December 2019 Brewing suspended: March 2023
Four friends who had been homebrewing together for 10 years – Simon Morley, Matt Javes, Neill Boscoe and David Boldrin – drew on their mix of brewing, engineering, chemistry and IT skills to launch a commercial brewery at the very end of 2019.
They produced 5 hl batches on a home-based kit they designed themselves, with a custom-fabricated brewhouse and German-built Speidel fermentation and conditioning vessels, controlled by a bespoke Raspberry Pi computer system. Brewing waste was used as fertiliser on local allotments.
A mobile bar visited local markets and the brewery organised charity fundraising events where the beer was sold. The brewery added an offsite taproom in central Barnet in July 2022, though this had to close in March 2023.
Brewing was suspended in 2023 due to building work. The team has been working with a partner to establish a new craft beer outlet in Barnet, due to open during 2024, with an aspiration to resume brewing eventually.
Beers in cask, keg and bottle were naturally conditioned and vegan, combining both traditional and contemporary craft influences.
Brewery 21 Resolution Way SE8 4NT (Lewisham) villagesbrewery.com First sold beer: 9 December 2016
Currently the only actual brewery in a cluster of beer-friendly venues around Deptford station, Villages occupies two arches, with space extending into a lean-to at the back, under the same historic railway as in Bermondsey but a little further east.
Its rustic-sounding name in fact refers to the founders, Heriot-Watt-trained brothers Archie and Louis Village. Archie once worked at London Beer Factory and Fourpure, Louis at Gipsy Hill, and the latter brewery helped get the brothers started by selling them its old 25 hl Malrex kit. This has since been replaced by a smaller but higher spec bespoke 15 hl kit.
Archie and Louis moved on in July 2022 in the interests of “a change of pace, lifestyle, and some new experiences”. They sold the business as a going concern to new directors Simon Baldwin and Malcolm Elliot, who are also involved in two breweries outside London: Backyard in Walsall and Grasshopper in Nottingham. Activities have so far continued as normal.
The taproom is in the arch adjacent to the brewhouse.
Closed brewery Original site: Hillfield Lane, Aldenham WD25 (Hertfordshire, outside London) Second site: Unit 2A, 6 Greycaine Rd, Watford WD24 7GP (Hertfordshire, outside London) Final site: 8 Triumph Trading Estate, Tariff Road N17 0EB (Haringey) watlingstreetbeer.com First sold beer: January 2015 (at original site) Ceased brewing: by June 2020
As London’s brewing scene continued to boom into the late 2010s, one Tottenham industrial building witnessed a particularly rapid shuffling of brewery projects. The unit at Triumph Trading Estate, close to Bohem, One Mile End and Redemption, was already partly occupied by a drinks packaging business, Brew and Bottle, which in 2018 invited Oddly brewery to occupy spare space, with the host company also cuckoo brewing under the name Trial and Error.
In September 2019, they were joined by a second brewery, Watling Street, founded almost five years before by Rudi Keyser as the Radlett Beer Co and previously at locations just outside London in Aldenham and Watford, taking its current name from the Roman road that runs through these areas. The intention was to form a partnership called Tottenham Brewing but this didn’t work out. By December 2019, Oddly had left and Brew and Bottle reclaimed its spare space.
Watling Street meanwhile moved its 16 hl kit, originally supplied by Pallet Brew in Bolton, to a neighbouring unit, planning to add a taproom. But progress was interrupted by the 2020-21 Covid-19 lockdowns and by summer 2020 the brewery had ceased trading. Its host, Brew and Bottle, itself went into administration in February 2021.
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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.
