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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.
Suspended 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
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 are still cuckoo brewed elsewhere under the supervision of brewer Roddy Monroe.
Brewing was suspended for the foreseeable future in early July 2022 due to refurbishment work on the church.
Bottled beers, when available, are sold locally by home delivery and through the brewery’s regular stall at the Primrose Hill Farmers Market.
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.
Suspended brewery, no visitors please Original site: 12 Platts Eyot, Hampton TW12 2HF (Richmond upon Thames) Second site: 6 Triumph Trading Estate, Tariff Road N17 0EB (Haringey) Last site: Friern Barnet N11 (Barnet) First sold beer: March 2017 Suspended: by early 2023
Taking his brand name from expressions such as ‘oddly delicious’, Brian Watson began cuckoo-brewing in 2015 at Clouded Minds in Oxfordshire, itself a former cuckoo at London’s Gipsy Hill. From 2017, he had his own brewery with a 10 hl kit on Platts Eyot, a privately-owned island in the Thames at Hampton which is still home to Tiny Vessel.
Though in many ways an idyllic place to work, the location posed numerous practical challenges. Its only fixed link to the mainland is a suspension footbridge, so deliveries and dispatches had to be accomplished either laboriously in stages using a handcart, or by boat – the brewhouse arrived by the latter mode.
A move in February 2019 to a unit in Tottenham adjacent to Watling Street (since closed) didn’t work out, with Oddly vacating the site by the end of the year. Brian subsequently found a new way of working, creating bespoke experimental beers for specific clients, events and bottle clubs, either on his own small kit or as a cuckoo elsewhere.
Beers, possibly cuckoo brewed, were briefly available on a small commercial scale again in 2022 but activity appeared to have ceased by early 2023 and an application to strike off the company is pending.
Brewery, no visitors please 505 Platts Eyot, Hampton TW12 2HF (Richmond upon Thames) tinyvessel.co.uk First sold beer: December 2016 Brewing suspended: by November 2021 Brewing resumed: March 2022
One of London’s most unusually located breweries as well as one of its smallest, Tiny Vessel is in a small workshop on Platts Eyot, a privately-owned island in the Thames at Hampton on the edge of the capital. The only link to the mainland is a suspension footbridge so anything substantial has to be moved by boat.
The project is the brainchild of Ivailo Penev, a Bulgarian-born brewer who had been cuckoo-brewing botanically-flavoured beers under the name Rose Brew since 2014, and business partner Neal Durrant.
Tiny Vessel received an early boost when its coriander-infused English IPA Summit Else (5.2%) won a competition organised by hop supplier Simply Hops in January 2017 and was poured at several European showcases.
Ivailo also runs a Brentford pub, the Northumberland Arms (11 Northumberland Road, Brentford TW8 8JB). The beer is regularly on sale in cask here and is also hand-bottled.
The Northumberland closed for several months for a major refurbishment in autumn 2021 and brewing was suspended due to the loss of the main outlet. Production resumed on a small scale in March 2022, and the pub reopened in October that year.
Suspended brewery, no visitors please Hither Green SE6 (Lewisham) wrongsideofthetracks.beer First sold beer: 8 August 2019 Brewing suspended: by end 2021
Daniel Jackson is a frustrated IT professional and homebrewer who began working commercially on a part-time basis using a small scale using a 1 hl kit in a garage on the edge of the Corbett Estate, Hither Green. There’s a long term ambition of going full-time and upscaling to a bigger brewery with taproom, but likely not for a few years.
Production faltered during the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 and by the end of 2021 had temporarily halted. Daniel hoped to restart at some point in 2022 with a new business partner though this has been delayed; meanwhile, he’s been cuckoo-brewing at Dogs Grandad.
Beers have been hand-bottled and in keg, sold through a handful of local outlets.
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