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
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"Very authoritative" - Tim Webb.
"One of the top beer writers in the UK" - Mark Dredge.
"A beer guru" - Popbitch.
Closed brewery Original site: Cock Tavern, 315 Mare Street E8 1EJ (Hackney) Second and last site: 214 Ponsford Street E9 6JU (Hackney) First sold beer: September 2015 (at original site) Ceased brewing: January 2019
After Howling Hops shifted production from its original home in the cellar of Hackney’s Cock Tavern to a much bigger facility at its Hackney Wick tank bar in June 2015, the pub’s assistant manager Ian Morton took over the old brewhouse, still housed in the pub but now run as a separate business. As Ian was first inspired to homebrew while living in Nørrebro, Copenhagen, he named the new project Maregade as a part-Danish translation of Mare Street (Hoppegade might have been even more appropriate).
Following early success, Ian suspended brewing at the Cock in November 2017 and resumed in March 2018 with a bigger kit in a Homerton railway arch, not far from the cluster of arch-based beer venues along Hackney’s Bohemia Place. But planning and licensing problems frustrated attempts to establish a regular taproom, and the brewery ceased trading early in 2019.
Meanwhile, the brewery at the Cock was returned to use by Howling Hops under the name Short Stack.
Closed brewery no longer in London Original site: Unit 21, 43 Carol Street NW1 0HT (Camden) First sold beer: June 2012 Ceased brewing in London: October 2013
The name Little Brew referenced both the size of the operation, a 1.5 hl kit installed in a Camden Town back street late in 2011, and the last name of founder Stu Small. He planned to supply mainly bottled beers on a very local scale, working in as sustainable a way as possible and delivering to some outlets on foot using a trolley. His logo nodded to local brewing history by featuring an elephant, the trademark of the Camden Brewery, which operated around the corner from 1859 to 1926. Some remains of this still stand today, including the bottle store and cooperage, now Elephant House.
Little Brew labels showing the elephant logo. Pic: Mr Drink ‘n’ Eat / Nate Nolan. Used by permission.
Little Brew faced challenges sustaining production, which was suspended the next year. Stu then relocated to York and revived brewing under the same name in June 2014, but had ceased trading by autumn 2016.
Includes some information for Ha’penny, Hops and Glory and Warrant Officer.
Closed brewery 223 Dyers Hall Railway Arches E11 4AF (Waltham Forest) First sold beer: March 2014 (at Warrant Officer) Ceased brewing: 17 December 2022
Closed brewery 8 Aldborough Hall Farm, Aldborough Hatch, Ilford IG2 7TD (Redbridge) First sold beer: October 2009 (as Ha’penny Brewing) Suspended brewing: by end 2014 Restarted brewing: May 2016 (as Solvay Society) Ceased brewing: May 2021
Warrant Officer (since renamed The Tavern on the Hill) Brewpub no longer brewing 318 Higham Hill Road E17 5RG (Waltham Forest) First sold beer: March 2014 (as Solvay Society) Ceased brewing: by end 2014
Hops and Glory (since renamed The Seveney) Brewpub no longer brewing 382 Essex Road N1 3PF (Islington) First sold beer: February 2014 (as Hops and Glory), January 2015 (as Solvay Society) Ceased brewing: November 2015
Solvay Society’s former farm brewhouse.
Solvay Society was one of London’s more unusual breweries, describing itself as “Belgian born, London brewed” and drawing on theoretical physics for some of its branding. Head brewer and founder Roman Hochuli, who grew up in Brussels, is a physicist who took time to complete his PhD before returning full-time to beer.
A keen homebrewer, Roman made his first steps towards commercial brewing in 2014 with a 500 l Braumeister homebrew kit in the cellar of the Warrant Officer pub in Walthamstow (since renamed the Tavern on the Hill), which had previously briefly been used by Wild Card as a distribution base.
This didn’t work out, and Roman and his business partner J P Hussey found a better home for the kit later that year under a Canonbury pub then known as the Hops and Glory, where the staff had already been experimenting with house-brewed beers at an even smaller scale. Solvay worked to perfect recipes here, with pub staff also brewing occasionally on Solvay’s kit, an unusual example of a beer producer cuckoo brewing in its own nest. All this activity ceased when the pub changed hands in November 2015: it’s since been renamed the Seveney and no longer brews.
On the lookout for a new site to relaunch Solvay at a more serious scale, Roman learned through the London Brewers Alliance about a suspended brewery known as Ha’penny, located in an unusually rural setting in an outbuilding on a farm at Aldborough Hatch in the Green Belt between Ilford and Romford. This had played a role in the early days of London’s brewing revival in 2009 when Gavin Happé and Chris Penny began work on a 10 hl kit originally built as a demonstration model by Malrex of Burton upon Trent. Gavin and Chris brewed part-time while holding down their day jobs as, respectively, a barrister and an accountant, an arrangement which ultimately proved too challenging, and by 2014 the equipment had been mothballed.
The building, likely originally built as a stable, had some claim to an earlier brewing history as it may once have housed a brewery attached to the Dick Turpin pub next door. This was so-named because another nearby house, Cuckoo Hall, is one of hundreds of places claiming to have sheltered the peripatetic highwayman. More recently the unit was used as a pottery.
Following delays in obtaining a license and essential work on the floor, the beer started flowing again in May 2016 under the Solvay Society name. The setting was idyllic: surrounded by fields, it was a working farm until the early 21st century and retained an old farmhouse, a pond, ancient willows, ducks, geese and a few white peacocks for good measure. But there were numerous practical problems, particularly in winter, and it was too inaccessible for a taproom.
The situation eased a little in March 2019 when Solvay opened an offsite taproom in Leytonstone, in an arch under the Gospel Oak to Barking Overground railway line. In 2021, the arch next door became vacant and the brewery took the opportunity to relocate the brewhouse here, with production resuming in May.
Following “struggles with the COVID hangover and rising costs”, the brewery sadly closed for good in December 2022.
Beers were Belgian-influenced but with a contemporary sensibility favouring lighter, drier flavours, discreet dry hopping and British-style session strength ABVs. Some barrel-aged and blended beers were produced. Packaging was in kegs, cans and 330 ml and 750 ml bottles.
Closed brewery 106 Fulham Palace Road W6 9PL (Hammersmith & Fulham) First sold beer: March 2013 Ceased brewing: by end 2013
Californian expat homebrewer Travis Mooney installed a 2 hl kit in a basement under Hammersmith’s Symposio restaurant (now Kenta) during 2012, and after a few pilot runs, began selling US-influenced beers in keg and bottle the following year, some of them through the restaurant. But the brewery struggled and by the end of the year, Travis had sold the kit. Despite a suggestion that the business would continue as a cuckoo brewer, this seems to have been the end of the story.
Also known at various times as Craft Academy and A Head in a Hat.
Brewpub no longer brewing 133 Dulwich Road SE24 0NG (Lambeth) florencehernehill.com First sold beer: September 2007 Ceased brewing: by end 2018
Also: Cock and Hen (now known as the Cock Tavern) Brewpub no longer brewing 360 North End Road SW6 1LY (Hammersmith & Fulham) First sold beer: April 2007 Ceased brewing: by end 2008
These two pubs played a role in the early stages of London’s current brewing renaissance, linking back to serial pub entrepreneur David Bruce, founder of the Firkin and Hedgehog and Hogshead brewpub chains, both of which had been active in London. In April 2007, he dipped his toe into the brewpub concept once again by installing a tiny brewery at the Cock and Hen pub in Fulham, then part of his Capital Pubs chain, co-founded with Clive Watson in 2000.
The experiment was repeated in September with a slightly bigger 8 hl brewery in what was formerly a big Irish pub called Ganleys opposite Brockwell Park at Herne Hill, now renamed the Florence. Cock and Hen brewer Tony Lennon at first covered both sites, though the Cock was later sold to Young’s and brewing discontinued.
Tony, who also played a key role in setting up the Euston Tap pub, moved on in November 2010. The Florence brewhouse remained unused until the following February, when Peter Haydon, a longstanding London brewer and beer writer who had been involved in setting up Meantime, moved in as brewer, initially on a profit share basis.
The sale of Capital to national brewer Greene King later that year prompted fears for the brewery’s future, which turned out to be unfounded when the new owner retained the pub’s identity, and its brewing activities, as part of its Metropolitan chain. In April 2012, Peter bought the kit and agreed to pay rent on the site, an unusual arrangement of one brewery operating from premises owned by another. As well as brewing Florence beers for the pub, he created his own brand, A Head in a Hat, focusing on historical recreations.
At the end of 2015, Peter decided to retire from brewing and sold the equipment back to Greene King. During 2016, it was rebranded as Craft Academy and was used intermittently, primarily as a training facility for its owners, with some beers sold in the pub, although Craft Academy beers sold more widely through the Greene King estate were from the main facility in Bury St Edmunds. By the end of 2018 it seems even these activities had ceased.
The brewhouse remained in place for some time, and before the lockdowns there was an aspiration to recruit a new brewer, restoring the Florence brand. But this never happened, and the kit was finally removed to create additional dining space when the pub was refurbished in April 2023.
David Bruce, meanwhile, continued his involvement with brewing, spending several years as owner of West Berkshire brewery: see the Firkin brewery page for a little more.
Earl of Essex, London N1, former home to Earls Brewery
Brewpub no longer brewing 25 Danbury Street N1 8LE (Islington) First sold beer: April 2013 Ceased brewing: December 2014
Beer-friendly independent chain Barworks reopened Islington’s Earl of Essex pub in July 2012 as part of its craft-focused Grace Land group, and added an 8 hl brewhouse the following year. Beers in cask and keg were sold in the pub with ambitions to supply other outlets too.
When the brewer left at the end of 2014, the kit fell dormant, and its revival was complicated by an infection problem in the pub cellar. Though this was subsequently solved, brewing remained suspended, with the owners eventually abandoning plans to revive it due to restricted space. The kit was subsequently removed and sold, and is currently at Holy Goat in Dundee. The pub continues to sell an excellent range of other people’s beer.
Grace Land revived its brewing activities on a much larger scale in August 2023 when it reopened the former London Fields brewery as Saint Monday.
Closed brewery 4 Leyton Studios, 15 Argall Avenue E10 7QE (Waltham Forest) First sold beer: November 2012 Ceased brewing: October 2013
A crowdfunded business that raised £15,000 online in 15 days, Brüpond produced keg and bottled beers aimed at “beer adventurers” from a 10 hl kit on a Leyton industrial estate. Brewer and founder David Brassfield was originally from Colorado and had previously been involved with small craft breweries in the US. The brewery struggled to maintain quality and despite a reformulation of the recipes in 2013 it didn’t see out the year, becoming the first but by no means the last of London’s failed crowdfunded brewing projects.
Brew Wharf, London SE1, one of the cradles of London’s brewing revival, since redeveloped.
Closed brewpub Brew Wharf Yard, Stoney Street SE1 9AD (Southwark) First sold beer: September 2005 Ceased brewing: May 2014
An upmarket brewpub under railway arches by Borough Market, Brew Wharf became one of the early pioneers of the current resurgence in London brewing. One of four bar-restaurants at food and drink visitor attraction Vinopolis, it was the creation of two successful London restaurateurs: Claudio Pulze, who was also behind the Cantina restaurant elsewhere in the complex, and Trevor Gulliver, of award-winning British eatery St John in Clerkenwell, a longtime supporter of beer with food. From the beginning, the venue boasted an 8 hl microbrewery, visible behind glass opposite the kitchen and intended to be considered an equal partner in gastronomic excellence.
In the early days, Brew Wharf produced a limited range of traditional British styles, but that all changed in Spring 2010 with the arrival of Phil Lowry, then manager of online beer shop beermerchants.com. He convinced the management that brewing brown bitters was not the best way to grab attention in a location a few seconds from pubs like the Rake and the Market Porter and just down the road from the newly-established Kernel brewery.
Phil brought in two fellow beer geeks and former home brewers: Steve Skinner, from Detroit, Michigan, who’d recently done a stint at Gadd’s in Ramsgate; and Angelo Scornera, born in Britain but brought up in Houston, Texas. A stream of unusual, experimental, boldly flavoured and internationally influenced beers followed, including numerous collaborations, all of them cask conditioned and sold almost exclusively on site.
More significant to the recent history of London brewing than the beers was Brew Wharf’s status as the birthplace of the London Brewers Alliance (LBA). In September 2010, Phil and Evin O’Riordain of the Kernel invited every brewery then operating in London to a dinner at Brew Wharf and were astonished to find 15 brewers turned up, including from big names like Fuller’s. All became founding members of the LBA, inspired by similar organisations in the US and elsewhere. This organisation has been enormously important in inspiring and supporting many of the breweries opened in the decade since, and increasing the overall quality and diversity of London beer. For a while, Brew Wharf was its unofficial base, hosting the first LBA festival in October 2011.
Phil and Steve attempted setting up a beer firm called Saints and Sinners with the intention of marketing some of the beers more widely, but Steve had returned to the US by 2011 and Phil found his time taken up elsewhere. Brewing continued for some years under Angelo and subsequent brewers, but the venue was sold early in 2014 and the new owners decided to let the brewhouse fall idle. It’s since been moved to the Breakwater brewery in Dover, Kent, also run by Phil.
The whole Vinopolis complex closed for redevelopment at the end of 2015 and since 2022 the arches have been part of Borough Yards, a cluster of upmarket shops, bars and restaurants.
Closed brewpub 1 Devonshire Square EC2M 4YP (City of London) First sold beer: March 2016 Ceased brewing: June 2019
Barbecue restaurant PittCue began as a sandwich stand under the Hammersmith Flyover, expanding to a small Soho restaurant and then to a much bigger site in pretty Devonshire Square in 2016. The new site included a new 8 hl brewhouse from AB UK overseen by head brewer Michaela Charles (formerly White), who had previously worked at Clarence & Fredericks/Volden and Head in a Hat, and occasionally cuckoo-brewed as Upstairs Brewing.
Beers under the AlphaBeta brand, named for the enzymes involved in mashing and the acids found in hops, were produced in cask and later keg mainly for in-house sales, with recipes designed to pair with the food menu. In 2018, Michaela worked with the British Museum on a fascinating project to recreate an ancient Egyptian beer.
Sadly the restaurant went into liquidation in 2019 and both it and the brewery closed. Michaela moved first to the Enefeld brewery and then Beerblefish. Jamie Berger, the original co-founder of PittCue who had subsequently sold it on, has bought back the brand although so far with little sign of the business re-emerging..
Closed brewery Original site: 29 Cheshire Gardens, Chessington KT9 2PR (Kingston upon Thames) Final site: Woodstock Avenue, Sutton SM3 9EF (Sutton) First sold beer: June 2012 Ceased brewing: early 2014
Founded by homebrewers Ben Owen and Alex Wilson with a 4 hl kit, this brewery launched a range of interesting bottled beers partly inspired by historic recipes in June 2012 but little over a year later brewing was suspended. An attempt to revive production at a home-based site in Sutton in 2013 proved equally short-lived.
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London’s Best Beer
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