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Closed brewery 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 Ceased brewing: 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 the company was dissolved in July 2024.
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.
Brewpub no longer brewing Original site: Five Miles, 39B Markfield Road N15 4QA (Haringey) Second site: 7 Almond Road SE16 3LR (Southwark) Final site: Grosvenor Arms, 17 Sidney Road SW9 0TP (Lambeth) affinitybrewco.com First sold beer: 10 December 2016 (at original site) Ceased brewing: by March 2024
Founded by Steve Grae, ex-Brew by Numbers, and Ben Duckworth, this socially conscious brewery began with Anspach & Hobday’s old 4 hl kit in two half-sized shipping containers in the yard of Five Miles, a bar and venue in a former industrial building in Tottenham. Rapidly running short of space, it relocated in October 2017 to one of two small adjacent Bermondsey arches previously occupied by Partizan. The brewery’s previous home in Tottenham was eventually taken over by Hale (see Exale).
The Bermondsey arch was open as a taproom selling stock brewed in Tottenham before a 10 hl kit, originally at Long Arm in Ealing, came online early in 2018, the year the brewery began running the remarkably successful Cask festival in March. Steve and head brewer Stirling Mitchell also used a home-made grist case and old school open fermenters formerly at Pressure Drop. The brewery’s distinctive visual style was created by artist Tida Bradshaw.
During summer 2020, the brewery moved to the cellar of the Grosvenor Arms pub in Brixton. This was once a large pub with a ballroom noted for punk gigs in the 1970s and 1980s, but was closed in 2014 with its interior ripped out in preparation for conversion into a convenience store and flats. A campaign to protect it as an Asset of Community Value only partly succeeded when the Planning Inspectorate overruled Lambeth council in restricting the designation to the ground floor only, allowing flats above. Now much reduced in space, the pub was reopened in March 2019 by the owners of another nearby beer-friendly pub, the Priory Arms in Stockwell.
When Affinity found itself struggling following the loss of its taproom business in the 2020 lockdowns, the management of the Grosvenor invited the brewery to relocate to the cellar of the pub, which effectively became a brewpub. The Bermondsey brewhouse was too tall for the cellar so was sold to Three Hills brewery, the new occupants of the arch. A new brewhouse, sourced from Ryedale, had the same capacity but made use of unusual square-shaped vessels in more cellar-friendly dimensions.
An additional bottle shop outlet opened in Crystal Palace (22 Church Road SE22 2ET) in summer 2020 but closed in summer 2023. Ben moved on in 2021 and is no longer based in London.
Sadly, the new arrangements didn’t restore the brewery to long-term viability. By March 2024 brewing had ceased and the company was in the process of being wound up. The pub continues as a noteworthy beer venue.
The unusual brewing kit at Affinity’s Grosvenor Arms site.
Beers were in cask, keg and 440 ml cans filled by hand and sealed using a self-built seamer. Cask beers were sold mainly in the Grosvenor and its sister pubs while keg and cans were distributed more widely.
The famous wisteria on the Brewer’s House at Fuller’s., London W7.
The 2010s saw an astonishing growth in the numbers of London breweries. When Young’s ceased brewing on its historic Ram Brewery site in Wandsworth in 2006, only nine commercial breweries were left in the capital, close to the lowest number ever recorded. By the end of 2020, the numbers were above 130. While the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020-21 and the subsequent lockdowns didn’t immediately halt the upward trend, its aftershocks, combined with the economic difficulties of the early 2020s, have seen the numbers declining again, though they remain much higher than they were at the start of the century.
Brewery numbers are of course a different matter from output. In the early 1970s, a much smaller number of much bigger breweries were producing over 10 million hl a year. Today, overall output is likely around 1.5 million hl. Many of the most recently opened breweries are very small, some of them home-based operations working in 100 l batches or less.
Below, you’ll find total end-of-year figures for commercial breweries operating in London from 1971 onwards
The table includes annual changes (+ for breweries revived or opened, – for those suspended or closed), numbers owned or part-owned by national (N) or multinational (M) groups, and numbers of brewpubs (BP) included in the total. In some years, brewpubs made up a high proportion of the numbers, particularly in the 1990s heyday of the Firkin chain. Click on a year to find the full list of breweries operational at the end of the year.
‘Commercial breweries operating in London’ means businesses with their own physical brewing kit, on a distinct and separate site within the official Greater London boundary, producing beer that is on sale to the public. Separate brewery sites under the same ownership are counted individually. Where two or more companies share a kit, this is counted as a single brewery. ‘Brewers without breweries’ like cuckoos and contractors, are not counted.
The locality names given after postcodes in each list refer to London boroughs, and don’t necessarily correspond to the locality in common use.
I’ve compiled these lists from a variety of sources, including
in recent years my own primary research into London brewers and breweries. Key secondary
sources are:
I’m also grateful to John Cryne at the London Brewers Alliance and John Paul Adams and the London CAMRA brewery liaison officers for sharing records and information.
17 openings and revivals, 12 closures and suspensions, net change +5.
By the end of 2019, there were 130 commercial breweries operating in London, including 28 brewpubs. 14 were parts of multinationals (M). These breweries were:
Brewery Original site: 6 Georgiou Business Park, Second Avenue N18 2PG (Enfield) Current site: 2A-4 Uplands Business Park, Blackhorse Lane E17 5QJ (Waltham Forest) beerblefish.co.uk First sold beer: October 2016 (at original site)
Homebrewer James Atherton first brewed commercially as Beerblefish at UBREW late in 2015, but quickly decided he needed his own commercial-sized equipment. A year later, James and his partner Bethany Burrow were producing beer in an industrial unit in the Lea Valley on a 1970s-vintage 8 hl brewhouse made from converted Grundy tanks and sourced from the defunct Cox & Holbrook brewery in Suffolk.
Struggling to balance brewing with their day jobs, they brought in another UBREW user, Australian-born Glenn Heinzel, as a full-time brewer and operations manager. Glenn also has his own brewing operation, Tankleys.
Outgrowing the original site, in 2021 Beerblefish leased a larger space in the rapidly-growing brewing cluster along Blackhorse Lane in Walthamstow, next door to Exale. This opened as a taproom in July, with the brewing equipment relocated and production restarted in September. In November, the brewery added a larger brewhouse formerly at BBNo, though this wasn’t commissioned until spring 2022. The head brewer is currently Michaela Charles, formerly at Enefeld, Alphabeta and Clarence and Fredericks (see Volden).
The business aims to be ethical and socially useful, for example helping retrain ex-Forces personnel. While the origin of the name Beerblefish will be obvious to anyone familiar with the babel fish in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Beers are mainly in cask and hand-bottled, with some keg, and all are vegan-friendly. Styles often nod towards historic recipes and several of use a mixed fermentation with Brettanomyces claussenii, a different wild yeast species to the more familiar B. bruxellensis which tends to produce a milder flavour profile.
Brewery, taproom Original site (as London Fields): 374 Helmsley Place E8 3SB (Hackney) Current site: 4 Warburton Road E8 3RR (Hackney) saintmondaybrewery.uk First sold beer: 26 August 2011 (as London Fields at original site) Brewing suspended: March 2015 Brewing restarted: September 2019 Brewing suspended again: 8 December 2021 Brewing restarted again (as Saint Monday): August 2023
Saint Monday is the brewing arm of beer-friendly London pub and bar group Grace Land, which bought the former London Fields brewery in Hackney, founded in 2011, from owners Carlsberg in May 2023, selling the first beers under the new brand through its outlets from early August and reopening the taproom on 12 August. The head brewer is Mark Walewski, formerly at Signature and Mikkeller among others.
Grace Land is an offshoot of the Barworks group, founded in 1997 by Andreas Akerlund, Marc Francis-Baum and Patrik Franzenand, with a single venue, Soho cocktail bar Two Floors, opening in 1998 (since closed). Many more venues followed, with a growing interest in speciality beer, and in 2009 the group supported the expansion of Camden Town Brewery from its brewpub roots, with the venues providing key early outlets for its beer. The company’s direct interest in Camden Town ceased when the brewery was sold to AB InBev in 2015, but several of the venues continued to stock the beers.
That same year, Andreas set up Grace Land as a separate group in partnership with Anselm Chatwin, with a particular focus on venues specialising in craft beer. This eventually became independent of the parent group. The company briefly experimented with brewing in 2013-2014, installing the Earls Brewery in the cellar of its Islington pub the Earl of Essex, but this was discontinued following the departure of the brewer and problems with infections and cellar space.
Following the lockdowns, the majority of Barworks venues, apart from a handful largely focused on spirits and cocktails, were sold to Urban Pubs and Bars, with a consequent reduction in the beer range. But Grace Land continued as before with a firm focus on beer, so its move into brewing is particularly appropriate.
The original London Fields premises in Helmsley Place are also now leased by Saint Monday, but are used as a warehouse rather than an events venue.
A wide range of beers is sold from tank and keg at the taproom and from keg at Grace Land’s six other outlets. Canning may follow in 2024.
London Fields Brewery
The first new London brewery to be opened following publication of the first edition of London’s Best Beer in 2011, London Fields, around the corner from the historic open space of the same name, heralded a brewing renaissance in East London in general and Hackney in particular. The original site was in railway arches in Helmsley Place, with a small 4 hl kit, expanded to a bigger arch at the present address a few doors away in April 2012, with a 16 hl kit from the former Ventnor brewery on the Isle of Wight.
There was much speculation about the brewery’s future at the end of 2014 following publicity around founder Jules Whiteway, a convicted drug dealer overdue in repaying his criminal profits to the taxpayer, who was arrested again in December for alleged VAT avoidance, though later acquitted. By March 2015 the brewing kit had been sold and many of the staff made redundant, but the taproom seemed as busy as ever, selling own-branded beers now contract-brewed outside London, mainly at Tom Wood Beers in Lincolnshire.
When Copenhagen-based Carlsberg became the latest multinational to buy into the London ‘craft’ scene in July 2017 by acquiring London Fields in a joint venture with Brooklyn Brewery of New York City, some beer commentators were unconvinced it could turn around the brand’s reputation. But around £2.1 million of investment, alongside expert advice and support from Brooklyn staff, suggested a more promising future.
London Fields Brewery graffiti art, with old logo still in place.
Brewing of the core brands initially returned to London with the help of Truman’s (now Big Penny), and following an eight-month closure, the taproom reopened in September 2019 when the new owner delivered on its promise of restoring brewing to the site. Though the core brands continued to be outsourced to Truman’s, a new 15 hl automated German-built Kaspar Schultz two-vessel kit began producing specials and short runs.
With a higher spec than most London breweries of this size, the facility boasted steam heating, its own grist mill, a dedicated souring tank and a small canning line. The generously-sized taproom was refurbished and decorated with a 12 m mural by local artist Luke McLean, also responsible for the packaging design, while the original arches in Helmsley Place remained as an events space.
Production of the core brands had moved out of London again by mid-2020 as Truman’s was forced to relocate to a new site with reduced capacity. The contract shifted to Cameron’s in Hartlepool, northeast England, while in-house brewing continued largely for sale on-site, including various low alcohol options. Then the parent company restructured in November with the formation of the Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company (CMBC).
On 8 December 2021, CMBC unexpectedly announced that it was closing the brewery and taproom with immediate effect and putting them up for sale, along with the brands, and beginning a consultation with staff, all of whom were now under threat of redundancy. Contract brewing at Camerons would continue until the sale was complete. This was the second example in London of a multinational brewer buying and then shedding a ‘craft’ brewery, following Molson Coors’ sale of Hop Stuff earlier in the year.
According to CMBC CEO Paul Davies, the company had concluded that growing the brand sufficiently would require resources better allocated elsewhere. Following the announcement, there was much speculation on social media that sales had been disappointing because the brand was still toxified by its chequered past. But while the history seems important to those on the beer scene who know about it, I doubt it made much difference to the wider drinking public, who seemed happy to flock to the taproom even in the last days of the old regime. More likely the sale was the result of Carlsberg’s priorities shifting in response to more dramatic changes, such as the impact of Covid-19 and the incorporation of Marston’s brewing operations, which must have seemed much more significant internally.
The facility remained mothballed until May 2023 when, in a promising development, it was bought and revived by Grace Land, as described above. The new owner decided to break decisively with the past by creating a new Saint Monday brand. It’s not clear if CMBC have retained any interest in the former London Fields brands but they appear to have dropped from circulation, with a beer previously brewed for renowned Indian restaurant Dishoom now produced at Mondo.
Breweries Nano brews and tap: 41 Nursery Road SW9 8BP (Lambeth) Production brewery: 283 Belinda Road SW9 7DT (Lambeth) londonbeerlab.com First sold beer: December 2013 (Nano brews), February 2015 (production brewery)
This interesting combination of a brewing school, production brewery and taproom is the brainchild of French-born Bruno Alajouanine and Irishman Karl Durand O’Connor, who met playing football when they both had jobs in the City. It opened in 2013 primarily as a teaching facility in an arch tucked away behind Brixton town centre on Nursery Road, with an assortment of small homebrew kits such as 20 l Braumeisters. The owners also brewed for sale from an on-site shop and a few local outlets, an arrangement that initially confused HMRC.
Early in 2015, London Beer Lab launched a partnership with Clarkshaws, whose 8 hl kit was moved to an arch on the other side of Brixton at Belinda Road, close to Loughborough Junction. The idea was to open a shared brewery complete with taproom and shop known as the Beer Hive, used by both partners and available to other brewers too. Sadly, this didn’t work out and in 2017, Clarkshaws sold its kit and downsized to its present location around the corner.
London Beer Lab continues to operate at both sites, using Belinda Road as a production facility currently closed to the public, with a new 24 hl brewhouse from Oban Ales which also hosts occasional cuckoos, and a 5 hl pilot kit added in 2021. The original site at Nursery Road continues to offer brewing tuition on an upstairs mezzanine, with various 20 l homebrew kits and a 2 hl pilot kit for specials and experiments. Downstairs is a taproom and bottle shop also selling brewing supplies.
In August 2019, the brewery partnered with restaurant the Tapas Room to launch a beer and tapas matching outlet, Taps and Tapas, in Tooting. This struggled during the 2020-21 Covid-19 lockdowns and closed in August 2021.
Draught beers are in keg and can, with occasional cask and bottles. Specials brewed at the Nursery Road site are usually identified as ‘nano’ on lists and packaging. Various cuckoo brews and commissioned beers are also produced.
Brewery Original site: Fox Hill SE19 2XE (Croydon) Current site: Rookery Barn, 40 Streatham Common South Road SW16 3BX (Lambeth) theinkspotbrewery.com First sold beer: 25 February 2012
Ex-Army officer Tom Talbot and restaurateur and art dealer Bradley Ridge began working together on a beer endorsed by charity Help for Heroes cuckoo-brewed at Tunnel in Nuneaton. They subsequently brewed on a pilot kit in Norwood too, selling at a small scale through Bradley’s Streatham restaurant Perfect Blend, while looking for a more expansive home.
A site in Beckenham fell through when they discovered a 1920s covenant blocked alcohol production, but their luck changed when the head gardener at the Rookery on Streatham Common approached them to brew with hops grown by a local collective and alerted them to a vacant building. It’s taken a lot of work since, including 350 m of new power line, but Inkspot now has one of the most idyllic sites of any London brewery, in a barn right next to one of the capital’s most beautiful public gardens.
A 12 hl brewhouse bought new from Willis European has been in action since December 2018, with waste hops used on site as fertiliser and botanicals from the herb garden or honey from the apiary occasionally added to the beers. There’s an ambition to become the second brewery in London with its own well (after Enfield), digging 115 m into the underlying chalk to tap the water source discovered in 1659 that fed the famous Streatham Wells spa until the early 20th century. The name, recalling Tom’s past career, references a military strategy for occupying a hostile region by establishing several separate safe areas that are then enlarged until they overlap.
Bradley Ridge (left) and Tom Talbot of Inkspot.
Beers are in keg and canned using a mobile line. A taproom is open on site at least monthly, and the brewery also owns a chain of specialist bottle shop-bars, Art & Craft (artandcraft.london).
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London’s Best Beer
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