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Brewpub Original site: Ealing Park Tavern, 222 South Ealing Road W5 4RL (Ealing) Current site: 20 Worship Street EC2A 2DX (Islington) longarmpub.co.uk First sold beer: March 2015 (at original site)
The brewing arm of the ETM pub group, owned by brothers Ed and Tim Martin, began operations in 2015 with a 10 hl brewhouse from Oban Ales in a former hay store at the Ealing Park Tavern, a location that had seen brewing before but not since the 1850s. Original head brewer Vladimir Schmidt, although from the Czech Republic, was a fan of traditional English styles and the brewery initially focused on cask beers for the pub and others in the group, though some keg and hand-bottling later took place.
In July 2017, the company opened a second more central brewpub in Shoreditch, with a smaller but more sophisticated 5 hl kit and a tightly packed parade of fermentation vessels in a corner of the Montcalm Royal London House hotel.
The original Ealing site was decommissioned by the end of the year and the equipment sold to Affinity: it’s still used by Three Hills. ETM sold the pub lease back to the freeholder in February 2020: the site is currrently closed and awaiting redevelopment.
Cask has been discontinued; beers are sold from tank in the bar and from keg at other outlets in the group. The Long Arm lager is currently outsourced.
Brewpub Original site: The Bull, 13 North Hill N6 4AB (Haringey) Current site: The Bohemia, 762 High Road N12 9QH (Barnet) londonbrewing.com First sold beer: September 2011 (at the Bull)
Dan Fox, former manager of legendary beer pub the White Horse, took over Highgate pub the Bull in 2011, establishing the London Brewing Co with a 4 hl kit in the kitchen. As demand for the beer outside the pub increased, Dan began looking for a second site with more room for a brewery, finding the Bohemia in North Finchley, a big pub that had been an O’Neill’s, a furniture shop, a supermarket and a squat.
The Bohemia reopened in June 2014, though the new 10 hl kit in a convenient lower-level area at the back wasn’t commissioned until early in 2015. London Brewing operated at both sites until July 2016 when the Bull was sold to new owners, who have restarted brewing under the name Gorgeous in new accommodation in the garden.
Dan himself moved on in summer 2017 to take over the Arnos Arms, leaving the Bohemia in the hands of business partner Senan Sexton. Brewers have included Daniel Vane (co-founder of Exale) and US-born Rich White; current head brewer is Rich’s former assistant George Boustred.
Beers are in cask, keg and can, sold through the pub and elsewhere.
Former brewpub, no longer brewing in London The Bull, 13 North Hill N6 4BX gorgeousbrewery.com First sold beer: September 2011 (as London Brewing), August 2016 (as The Bull Brewing Co) Ceased brewing in London: Feburary 2022
Dan Fox, former manager of legendary beer pub the White Horse in Parsons Green, set up on his own in 2011 by reopening the Bull at Highgate as a brewpub with a 4 hl kit. Located in the pub kitchen, this initially produced cask beers mainly for sale in house under the name London Brewing Co. Dan opened a second brewpub, the Bohemia in North Finchley, in 2014, and in July 2016 sold the Bull, complete with brewery, concentrating London Brewing’s operations at the Bohemia.
The Bull’s new owners, Samantha and Rob Laub, were keen to continue with brewing and Reuben Moore, head brewer under the previous ownership, continued in his role. At first the brewing operation was simply known as the Bull Brewing Co, but in March 2017 it was rebranded as Gorgeous Brewery.
Capacity was increased with the objective of increasing sales outside the pub, and early in 2018 the brewery was relocated to a new purpose-built home in the garden, with an increased brew length of 8 hl, more and bigger fermenters and more space.
Early in 2022, the freehold of the pub was sold to Greene King and it was placed under new management, with the brewery forced to suspend operations. Its building has since been converted into additional drinking space.
Originally the kit was placed in storage with the intention of resuming brewing at a new site, with the brands cuckoo brewed in the meantime outside London at Church Farm Brewery, Budbrooke, near Warwick in Warwickshire. But in August 2023, Church Farm announced it had formally acquired Gorgeous and the brands would become a permanent part of its portfolio, ruling out the revival of brewing in London.
Beers in cask, keg and bottle all had names beginning with G and tended towards pale and contemporary in style, though with some more traditional lines.
Brewery no longer in London Brewery: 160 Hamilton Road SE27 9SF (now closed) Barrel vault: The Barrel Project, 80 Druid Street SE1 2HQ thelondonbeerfactory.com First sold beer: August 2014 Ceased brewing in London: August 2022
The London Beer Factory began as an ambitious undertaking just across the yard from Gipsy Hill brewery. It was the brainchild of brothers Sim and Ed Cotton – the latter spent several years in Australian vineyards before moving on to beer. The first head brewer was Archie Village, who went on to found his own brewery, Villages, in Deptford. The facility started with a substantial 32 hl kit, with an additional pilot kit enabling the development of several unusual beers.
Fermentation capacity was extended, and in spring 2016 the brewery became the first in the UK to package in ‘360’ cans with an entirely removable lid. The beer was canned in-house using a micro line supplied by Cask Brewing Systems of Canada.
In summer 2017, London Beer Factory added a barrel vault and bar, the Barrel Project, in Bermondsey, which was refurbished and relaunched in September 2018. During 2019, the brewery added a mobile coolship which was used in collaborations with several other brewers.
Mobile coolship at London Beer Factory.
In the early days an occasional taproom operated at the brewery site but this was closed to make way for expansion of production. In December 2020, an offsite bar opened at the brewery’s warehouse in West Norwood, but this was closed by October 2021.
Brewing in London ceased in 2022, with operations moving to an undisclosed address in Norfolk. The Barrel Project continues as a retail outlet but there are no brewing facilities there, only fermentation.
Beers are sold in can, keg and cask, with Barrel Project specials hand-bottled in 330ml bottles.
Brewery no longer in London
Original site: 1 Sutherland Road Path E17 6BX leftbankbrewery.co.uk First sold beer: September 2014 Ceased brewing in London: by end 2017
On its inception, Left Bank described itself as “probably London’s smallest commercial brewery, ” brewing on a licensed pilot kit working alongside bread and pickle maker the Fermentarium in Walthamstow’s Black Horse workshop. The brewery specialised in working with wild yeast and mixed fermentations.
By 2017, Left Bank was no longer using its original kit but brewing at Ubrew in Berrmondsey. In spring 2018 it relocated out of London, to the much more rural surroundings of Pumsaint in Carmarthenshire, Wales, near the Dolaucothi Roman gold mines and close to the Brecon Beacons National Park.
Also contains information for Late Knights and Shamblemoose
Brewery 21 Southey Street SE20 7JD southeybrewing.co.uk First sold beer: 5 May 2013 (as Late Knights/Shamblemoose)
Southey is a successor to the Late Knights brewery, founded by former licensee Steve Keegan, who helped devise Fuller’s early ‘craft’ pubs the Barrel and Horn in Bromley and the Union in Westbourne Park. He began cuckoo brewing at Truefitt in his hometown of Middlesbrough in 2012, then formed a partnership with Graham Lawrence, longstanding owner of Brockley wine bar and importer Mr Lawrence, to create a small London brewery and pub chain.
They installed an 11.5 hl kit in a Victorian building just off Penge High Street that had once served as a slaughterhouse and a candle factory but had latterly been Graham’s warehouse. At first, the facility was also home to a separate brewing company, Shamblemoose, founded by Matthew and Lera O’Sullivan as a cuckoo at Sunny Republic in Dorset late in 2012. Both brewers used the same brewhouse, with each maintaining separate fermenters.
A few weeks later, Late Knights opened its first pub, Beer Rebellion, in Gipsy Hill, subsequently adding several others including some outside London. In September 2013, Sam Barber became head brewer after approaching Steve for feedback on his homebrewed beers. The rapid expansion contributed to both financial and beer quality problems and in August 2016 the company folded. The arrangement with Shamblemoose had already ended in June 2015 when Lera and Matthew moved to Montana in Lera’s native USA.
Sam and Graham then set up a new business and following a few months of closure and £20,000 of improvements, restarted brewing as Southey in December 2016 on a 10 hl kit formerly belonging to Clarkshaws. Output and beer range were both reduced to concentrate on quality and consistency. A taproom opened in March 2018, and the brewery retains three other former Late Knights outlets: the London Beer Dispensary (389 Brockley Road SE4 2PH), the Dulwich Beer Dispensary (481 Lordship Lane SE22 8PB) and the Brighton Beer Dispensary.
Of the other LK bars, the original Beer Rebellion in Gipsy Hill subsequently moved to a next-door unit and is now Bullfinch brewery pub the Bull and Finch; Beer Rebellion Peckham retains its name but is owned by cuckoo brewer and indoor skatepark operator Hop King, founded by an ex-LK brewer; Hopsmiths in Crouch Hill is now Brave Sir Robin, sharing ownership with the Rose and Crown in Kentish Town; and the Ravensgate Arms in Ramsgate is now operated by a former LK manager in partnership with Gadd’s. Steve briefly ran a brewery called Holler in Brighton, but this has since closed.
The name Southey is from the brewery’s street address, in turn named after the Romantic poet Robert Southey, so the vowel in the first syllable is pronounced like the one in ‘tough’.
Beers are in cask, keg and can, mainly sold online and through the taproom and bars.
Laine’s Brew Lab Brewpub no longer brewing Peoples Park Tavern, 360 Victoria Park Road E9 7BT (Hackney) peoplesparktavern.pub First sold beer: February 2014 Ceased brewing: by January 2022
Laine: Acton Brewpub no longer brewing The Aeronaut, 264 High Street W3 9BH (Ealing) First sold beer: November 2013 Ceased brewing: December 2016
Laine: Thieves Brewery Brewpub no longer brewing Four Thieves, 51 Lavender Gardens SW11 1DJ (Wandsworth) First sold beer: January 2015 Ceased brewing: by January 2020
Peoples Park Tavern, London E9: Laine’s Beer Lab is in the side wing to the left.
Gavin George’s small Brighton-based pub chain InnBrighton first installed a brewery in October 2012 in its North Laine bar in the celebrated Brighton shopping area of the same name, thus the beer brand Laine which has since been extended to the whole pub group. Its first London brewpub was the Aeronaut in Acton, reopened in November 2013 following a major refurbishment with an 8 hl brewery clearly visible behind the bar. The original head brewer was Nic Donald, whose achievements included persuading brewing legend Derek Prentice to collaborate on a guest beer in July 2014.
Another 8 hl kit had by then appeared in the eastern wing of the Peoples Park Tavern, a very large pub on the edge of Victoria Park. Jim Wilson, formerly of Brentwood Brewery and Tap East, was the first head brewer, though he’s since moved on. Interestingly, this was the second brewery on the site: in 1986 the pub became the Flounder and Firkin, the sixth brewpub in David Bruce’s pioneering Firkin chain, brewing until 1999. Beers brewed here were sometimes been branded ‘People’s Pints’ though the brewery was later renamed the Brew Lab and concentrated on more experimental and ‘extreme’ beers.
In January 2015, Laine opened the Four Thieves, in a sprawling former music hall off Lavender Hill in Battersea which had briefly been an Antic pub. As well as an 8 hl brewery, the pub was equipped with a small gin distillery, with the botanicals including lavender grown on the roof in a nod to the area’s horticultural past. Brewing here was initially overseen from Acton.
In April 2016, Laine appointed Jack Hibberd, formerly of Truman’s, to oversee its brewing operations. By then, as well as brewing in the pubs, the company was contracting out some of its best-selling brands, including a tank lager, to Hepworth in Pulborough, West Sussex, one of the breweries that emerged from the closure of historic Sussex brewery King & Barnes in 2000. Hepworth moved to a much bigger purpose-built site with a 65 hl kit at Adversane near Billingshurst, West Sussex, in April 2017: that site is also now used as Laine’s ‘Brew Hub’ for its core beers, including the tank lager supplied to the pubs.
A major fire gutted Laine’s original London brewpub, the Aeronaut, in the early hours of the 1 January 2017, badly damaging the brewhouse. The pub was closed for rebuilding for most of that year, reopening in December but without a brewery.
Laine was sold in May 2018 to Vine Acquisitions Ltd, a company backed by private equity firm Patron, which also owned 1,300 leasehold pubs in the Punch Taverns estate not sold to Heineken when Punch was restructured in 2017. Laine continued as a separate unit under the existing management team led by Gavin. By the time of the takeover, the distillery at the Four Thieves was already mothballed, and the brewhouse eventually followed, with the kit removed early in 2020.
Brewing at the Peoples Park Tavern was suspended during the 2020-21 Covid-19 lockdowns but briefly revived in spring 2021 when the pub reopened.
An announcement on 15 December 2021 confirmed that both Laine and Punch had been sold to US-based Fortress Investment Group for an undisclosed sum, and subsequently the new owners began streamlining and integrating the two groups.
The brewhouse was finally removed from the Peoples Park Tavern early in 2022, with the space converted to customer use. The original intention was to resume brewing with the same kit in a standalone industrial unit nearby, but this was abandoned when the company expanded its brewing capacity outside the capital by buying former London brewery Redchurch in Harlow in October 2022. The kit has since been sold on.
The Ram Inn, Wandsworth, was rebranded by new owners Punch as a Laine pub in January 2023. The pub still houses the brewing kit installed by the previous leaseholders as the SlyBeast brewery which following the change of hands was used for cuckoo brewing by Coalition. This arrangement ended in January 2024 and Laine currently has no active brewpubs in London, and with no immediate plans to revive brewing activity, though brewing continues on a small scale at the North Laine in Brighton.
Beers were mainly in keg and cask and sold at the pub, and occasionally in other Laine pubs in London. Draught core brands, bottles and cans sold at Laine pubs are sourced from the hub brewery in Sussex, though some Brew Lab beers were formerly hand-bottled.
Closed brewery 477 Upper Richmond Road West SW14 7PU (Richmond upon Thames) ctznbrew.com First sold beer: 7 June 2015 (as Kew Brewery) Brewing ceased: December 2021
Ex-Weird Beard brewer Dave Scott struck out on own under the name Kew Brewery, originally jointly managed with his wife Rachel. A 10 hl kit from Oban Ales was installed in a garage at the back of a former shop unit in East Sheen, a little southeast of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, with fermenters and storage in the shop itself, and eventually a cold store on a separate site a short distance away. Beers went on sale for the first time at the Kew Village Market in 2015, and soon established a local reputation.
In December 2018, the Scotts sold the brewery to Jana Gray, formerly at the Amsterdam Brewery in Toronto, and her partner Jonathan, though Dave retained a minority shareholding, and the business continued the environmentally-friendly policies he established. During 2019 the front of the unit was sometimes open as a shop and occasional taproom, though this remained challenging due to lack of space.
During the 2020 lockdowns, the owners rethought the business and in May 2021 relaunched under a new brand, CTZN (or Citizen) Brew. The new approach placed still more emphasis on social and environmental concerns, with an ambition to include sustainable ingredients from Africa in the recipes.
An offsite taproom was opened in Twickenham (29 York Street TW1 3NR) and it was originally intended to shift brewing here. Sadly the business struggled to recover and ceased trading in December 2021. Originally the owners hoped to resume elsewhere, but by summer 2022 the company had been placed into liquidation.
Brewery Original site: 98 Druid Street SE1 2HQ (Southwark) Current site: 11 Dockley Road Industrial Estate (taproom at Arch 7) SE16 3SF (Southwark) thekernelbrewery.com First sold beer: 1 December 2009
Evin O’Riordan, originally from Waterford, Ireland, worked in the mid-2000s for specialist cheesemongers Neal’s Yard Dairy. His job took him to New York City, where he encountered brewers with a similar sense of artisanship and passion as the small-scale cheesemakers he already knew. Returning to London, he became a homebrewer and London Amateur Brewers member, then turned professional as the Kernel, originally with a 6.5 hl brewhouse in a Druid Street arch shared with a cheesemaker and a cheese and charcuterie importer.
Evin thus became the inadvertent founder not only of the Bermondsey ‘beer mile’ but also of the capital’s taproom scene by selling to the public from the rear of the arch on Saturdays alongside several neighbouring businesses. He also helped set up the London Brewers Alliance in May 2010 which in turn contributed to the growth of many other breweries.
Evin O’Riordan of The Kernel brewery, photographed at the old Druid Street brewery in 2011.
In March 2012, the Kernel relocated with several of its neighbours to a run of arches further east at Spa Terminus, with the original kit given to Partizan. The original arch is now occupied by baker and patissier Comptoir Gourmand.
The Kernel’s new home at Arch 11 Dockley Road was equipped with a 32 hl brewhouse, and additional fermenters and a bottling line have since been installed, and in late 2014 the Kernel became the first to restore the practice of ageing in oak tuns to London brewing by buying several Belgian-style foeders. Production is currently around 10,000 hl a year.
A London classic, Kernel Imperial Brown Stout London 1856
Following problems with overcrowding, the brewery closed its taproom in 2017 while retaining a takeaway shop, but in late 2019, in a much-welcomed move, it opened a new purpose-built taproom in Arch 7 a few doors away. Saturday morning bottle sales continued from Arch 11 for a while but in 2021 the bottle shop was relocated to the taproom: the brewery arch itself is no longer open to the public.
Beers are in keg and 330 ml, 500 ml and 750 ml bottles, often variants on several basic recipes, notably the various pale ales and saisons which frequently rotate through hop varieties and, in the case of saisons, additional fruit.
Cock Tavern Brewpub, brewing suspended 315 Mare Street E8 1EJ (Hackney) First sold beer: 24 July 2012 (as Howling Hops) Brewing suspended: by end 2019 (as Short Stack)
Howling Hops Tank bar Brewpub 9 Queens Yard E9 5EN (Tower Hamlets) howlinghops.co.uk First sold beer: June 2015
The Cock Tavern, a classic corner pub a few steps from the famous Empire music hall and Hackney’s ‘cultural quarter’, was reopened in 2012 by Pete Holt, owner of the Southampton Arms. The new venture included a 6.5 hl house brewery in the cellar, previously used by Camden Town at the Horseshoe pub in Hampstead. Named Howling Hops as a nod to blues musician Howlin’ Wolf, it brewed over 100 different beers in its first two years and was soon creating interest far beyond the pub under the supervision of brewer Tim O’Rourke.
Tanks at Howling Hops Tank Bar, London E9
In June 2015, brewing operations relocated to a new brewpub in an upcycled warehouse at Hackney Wick billed as the UK’s first ‘tank bar’. Here, a much bigger 25 hl kit from Bavarian Brewing Technologies is used to fill a battery of 10 1,000 l conditioning tanks lined up behind the bar from which beer is poured directly.
The kit at the Cock remained in place, rented by the pub’s former assistant manager Ian Morton as the Maregade brewery. This moved out in November 2017 and subsequently closed. Early in 2018, Howling Hops renewed the brewing license at the Cock with the intention of reinstating brewing for specials, some of them served using a cut-down version of the tank system, under the name Short Stack. But thanks to the limited space in the cellar and demand at the Tank Bar, activity was intemittent and had lapsed by 2019.
Howling Hops beers are sold from tank at Hackney Wick, and in keg, can and sometimes cask outside it, both at other outlets in the group and elsewhere.
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