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
"A joy to read" - Roger Protz
"Very authoritative" - Tim Webb.
"One of the top beer writers in the UK" - Mark Dredge.
"A beer guru" - Popbitch.
Brewery, brewing at London site currently suspended 25 Summerstown SW17 0BQ (Wandsworth) bythehorns.co.uk First sold beer: October 2011
Alex Bull and Chris Mills, then only three years out of university, started brewing on an industrial estate between Earlsfield and Wimbledon in September 2011, using a bespoke 9 hl kit from Oban Ales. Their site was opposite Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium, the last of its kind in London.
A new 18 hl brewhouse, also from Oban, was installed in 2015, and the space began expanding into adjacent units, eventually occupying a whole row. A canning line was added in 2018.
Even this wasn’t enough, and in March 2021 the main production facility was transferred to Salfords, near Redhill, Surrey, just outside London (11 The IO Centre, Salbrook Road Industrial Estate, Salfords, Redhill RH1 5GJ), with a 30 hl semi-automated kit. A pilot brewery remained at the old place alongside an expanded taproom.
Meanwhile the greyhound stadium closed in 2017 and was soon demolished, replaced by a new development including a stadium for League One football team AFC Wimbledon alongside housing and shops. The Cherry Red Records Stadium, as it was named, opened in November 2020. By the Horns began brewing an exclusive beer for the stadium, Crazy Gang Pale Ale.
The relationship deepened in December 2021 when the brewery took over the Phoenix pub, on the stadium site but open to the public except during matches, as the new official taproom. The old taproom across the road has closed and the brewery is in the process of vacating the units.
A glimpse inside By the Horns in 2019, with the old brewhouse.
George and Dragon Brewpub, no longer brewing 151 Cleveland Street W1T 6QN (Westminster) First sold beer: December 2016 Ceased brewing: November 2017
Still and Star Closed brewpub 1 Little Somerset Street E1 8AH (City of London) First sold beer: December 2014 Ceased brewing: June 2015
W1 (Burlington Arms) Brewpub, no longer brewing 21 Old Burlington Street W1S 2JL (Westminster) First sold beer: December 2014 Ceased brewing: by 2016
During 2014, a company called BrewIT began marketing a device called the Truebrew, an automated 100 l ‘technobrewery’ with pre-programmed recipes, intended as hassle-free way to create an instant brewpub. Broadly the same size as a dishwasher, the machine could supposedly be used by anyone with no brewing knowledge or skills required, and enabled pubs to make cask beer in batches of two firkins more cheaply than they could buy it in. Unlike the DIY brewpub kits of an earlier generation, it used a full mash system, starting like a ‘proper’ brewery from dry grains and hops rather than extracts. Those of us who follow London brewing considered with trepidation the prospect of a new rash of tiny brewpubs to keep track of. It turns out we needn’t have worried.
The prototype Truebrew was installed on a test basis at the Still and Star pub near Aldgate in 2014, which briefly became the only commercial brewery in the City of London (a distinction currently held by BrewDog Outpost Tower Hill). Landlord Michael Cox began with the default recipes but soon began adapting them to his own specifications and buying in raw materials from third parties. But quality proved variable and brewing became increasingly intermittent. These were the only Truebrew beers I managed to taste, with Michael in 2015, and to be frank they weren’t good. Within a year the kit had been removed and though there was talk of an upgraded replacement, the pub now had other problems as its site was earmarked for redevelopment. Despite opposition, the pub closed early in 2018 and is currently the subject of a planning application for demolition.
The same month as the Still and Star, beers from a second Truebrew system began appearing at the Burlington Arms, a smart free house tucked away near West End Central police station . Licensee Taran Cheema used it to make beers under the W1 brand on what must have been a very occasional basis, as I never met anyone who tried them, and only other people’s beers (generally very good ones too) were on sale whenever I called. Activity had petered out by the time the pub was sold to new owners in 2017 and current staff have no knowledge that it once brewed its own beer.
Meanwhile, the Still and Star kit resurfaced at the George and Dragon in Fitzrovia in 2016. Production here was also erratic, and was officially suspended just under a year later, with the promise of an upgrade and relaunch. This still hadn’t happened when the pub closed for a major refurbishment in June 2018 and didn’t reopen for another 15 months. BrewIT, the company behind the kit, was wound up in June 2019, so we can conclude the experiment failed. It seems these devices were unable to substitute for the skills of an experienced brewer after all.
Includes information for Bull and Finch and So What Brewing Co.
Bullfinch Brewery, London SE24
Brewery Original site: 118 Druid Street SE1 2HH (Southwark) Current site: 886 Rosendale Road SE24 9EH (Lambeth) thebullfinchbrewery.co.uk First sold beer: 1 February 2014
Brewpub Bull and Finch, 126 Gipsy Hill SE19 1PL (Southwark) First sold beer: April 2022
Bullfinch mural at the like-named brewery.
Ryan McLean, originally from Ballymena, discovered international craft beer while travelling extensively for work as a live sound engineer. He began brewing commercially as a cuckoo at Anspach & Hobday in Bermondsey in February 2014, but this arrangement was soon outgrown thanks to the quality of the beers.
Cuckoo brewing ceased in April 2015, and in December, following a lengthy search for premises, Ryan and his wife and business partner Carly resumed business in two smallish railway arches just a few steps from Brockwell Park and a short walk from Canopy. One of the arches just about packs in an 8 hl brewhouse that began its life as a pilot kit at Charles Wells in Bedford, alongside numerous fermenters, some of them added after a 2016 crowdfunding round. The other houses a taproom.
Since May 2019 there’s been a second outlet, the Bull and Finch opposite Gipsy Hill station, previously one of Late Knights’ Beer Rebellion bars (see Southey). A 1.5 hl nanobrewery was installed here early in 2022 under the supervision of lead brewer and bar manager Jon Griffiths, with trial brewing starting in February 2022 and beers expected on sale in April.
From 2021, longer runs of Bullfinch beers have been cuckoo-brewed outside London, though some brewing continues at the Herne Hill site.
Jon Griffiths in the Bull and Finch nanobrewery.
Bullfinch core beers, usually named with astronomical references, are in keg, cask and minicask, though bottling may be restored. Beers from the nanobrewery will be either in traditional styles branded Bull and Finch, including revivals of old Bullfinch recipes in cask and keg, or small batch wild and mixed fermentation specialities under Jon’s own So What brand. Each batch of these will be divided between several small fermenters and treated with different yeasts and mixed cultures.
Beer firm, former brewpub
Original site: William IV, 816A High Road E10 6AE First sold beer: November 2000 (as Sweet William), 20 August 2008 (as Brodie’s) Ceased brewing: July 2016
The story of this major early contributor to the revival of London brewing in the early 21st century begins at the Brodie family’s Leyton pub the King William IV in November 2000. An 8 hl kit designed by Pitfield’s and Dark Star founder Rob Jones started producing beer under the name Sweet William in a former stable building at the back. Although the Brodies owned the kit, the brewery was operated by a separate business, which failed in 2005. The brewhouse was mothballed, only to be restored and relaunched under the family name in August 2008 by siblings James and Lizzie Brodie, originally as a point of interest to attract more customers to this very large pub.
The initiative turned out to be one of the earliest shoots of a vigorous crop of London craft brewers, and Brodie’s became the true maverick of the new community, creating many hundreds of unusual and innovative beers in cask, keg and bottle in a vast range of styles, sometimes with over 50 different beers on sale at the William’s annual Bunny Basher easter beer festivals. The beers found their way into the family’s two central London pubs, the Old Coffee House in Soho and the Crosse Keys in Covent Garden, as well as other pubs and bars in the UK and abroad, and the brewery collaborated with such luminaries as Mikkeler and Three Floyds. By 2015 there were plans to expand to a new production brewery on a separate site and even talk of opening a bar in Cardiff.
In the restless creativity of the brewery’s heyday, the beers varied from the sublime to the ill-advised, but at their best they were exceptional. Brodie’s was instrumental in popularising light single hop pale ales in the capital, became an early adopter of New Zealand hops, experimented with sour Flemish reds, helped revive the brewing of big porters, including some using smoked malt, and gamely priced 10%+ Imperial stouts at the Bunny Basher events at the same level as session ales.
Unfortunately Brodie’s faced a difficult year in 2016, due to technical problems at the brewery as well as personal and financial issues. The brewhouse was closed, initially for refurbishment, with brewing transferred outside London, but by October 2016 the brewing business had been wound up completely. The William was sold in 2017 and reopened in January 2018 under new ownership.
Since then, Brodie’s beers in cask and keg have been on sale intermittently in the central London pubs, cuckoo-brewed at various locations including Wobbly in Hereford; Rhymney in Blaenavon, Torfaen, Wales; and most recently at Battersea, where former Brodie’s head brewer Tom Barlow now works. Tom currently owns the brand and recipes, and although production has dwindled due to time and capacity constraints, he’s keen to revive them should the opportunity arise. Let’s hope it does, as London deserves to continue enjoying these “fabulous beers”.
Brewery 28 Chiltonian Industrial Estate SE12 0TX (Lewisham) brockleybrewery.co.uk First sold beer: November 2019
Suspended brewery (remains open as bar) 31 Harcourt Road SE4 2AJ (Lewisham) First sold beer: 22 March 2013 Brewing suspended: September 2024
Brockley was founded at the initiative of Andy Rowland and five neighbours in 2013 in response to a demand for quality local beer. They installed an 8 hl kit from ABUK in a small industrial building in a back street close to Brockley station, previously home to a builder’s workshop, and soon established a following in a neighbourhood with a strong sense of community. Initially, the brewery was open to the public only for takeaway sales, but this evolved into a regular taproom.
In November 2019, the brewery launched a second, larger facility on an industrial estate between Hither Green and Lee, using a 30 hl brewhouse formerly at Fourpure (and originally at Purity in Warwickshire). Following a succession of open days, a regular taproom opened here in 2021.
Andy Rowland at Brockley Brewery, Hither Green.
The brewery’s original home initally remained active, used for specials and additional capacity as well as a taproom. There have been several head brewers including Craig Vernon, formerly at Camden Town. In August 2023, Gianluca d’Andrea, formerly at Southwark, was appointed head brewer.
Andy retired in March 2024 and the company was taken over by four of the existing staff, including Gianluca. They aim to maximise community ties and secure the future of the business through a ‘Support your local brewery’ campaign, inviting local investment and using the brewery’s spaces for community activities.
Brewing at the original site was suspended in September 2024 with some of the equipment removed and production now concentrated in Hither Green, though the bar remains open. A pilot kit for specials may be installed in future.
Beers tend towards the more traditional, with cask still a major part of the business, though with significant amounts of keg and bottled beers, bag-in-box and occasional canning on a mobile line.
Since 2020, Brockley has produced beers for the owners of the Old Truman Brewery site in Brick Lane, originally under the Brick Lane brand, more recently as Truman.
Brewery 547 Brixton Station Road SW9 8PF (Lambeth) brixtonbrewery.com First sold beer: October 2013
Closed brewery 1 Dylan Road SE24 0HL (Lambeth) First sold beer: June 2018 Ceased brewing: September 2024
Conceived as early as 2011 by homebrewing neighbours Jez Galaun and Mike Ross, Brixton eventually opened two years with a 10 hl brewhouse from Oban Ales in a railway arch a little east of Brixton station at 547 Station Road. Soon establishing a keen local following, the operation later expanded into the next arch east, 548.
The new Brixton brewery is duly branded in August 2018.
Many in the industry were surprised when this small outfit became the fourth new London brewery to attract funding from a multinational group Heineken bought a 49% stake in November 2017. The strong brand and association with an iconic neighbourhood were doubtless part of the attraction.
Though the founders retained control, the Dutch brewer’s resources enabled a major expansion to a much larger industrial unit in Herne Hill, under a kilometre from the brewery’s birthplace. Operations began here in June 2018 on a 50 hl automated brewhouse from UK supplier Gravity Systems and a new canning line installed on a hi-tech floor, with a potential capacity of 30,000 hl a year.
The Brixton arches were retained: 547 houses the brewhouse, which is still in regular use, while 548 has been converted into a regular taproom.
Heineken acquired full ownership in Feburary 2021, though the existing management remained in place.
In August 2024, Brixton announced that it was in the process of closing its main Herne Hill production site and shifting its core brands to the big Beavertown site in Ponders End, also now owned by Heineken. This was due to capacity restrictions in Herne Hill, where the lease was soon due for renewal. The Brixton arches were retained and remain in use for small runs and specials as well as providing a taproom, and the company is looking for a warehouse nearby to service local deliveries.
Beers are in keg and can, with some bottling and occasional cask, named with local references.
An unrelated earlier Brixton Brewery operated as a Conway brewpub in the 1980s.
Brewery moved outside London Original site: 209 Blenheim Grove SE15 4QL (Southwark) Final site in London: 13 Deptford Industrial Estate, Blackhorse Road SE8 5HY (Lewisham) brickbrewery.co.uk First sold beer: November 2013 (at original site) Brewing ceased in London: November 2023
Former head brewer Pete Vick (left) and founder Ian Stewart of Brick.
Like countless others on the contemporary brewing scene, the epiphany for York-born Ian Stewart was a bottle from the Kernel. He began developing his own beers in a Peckham shed, and, working alongside his wife Sally, opened commercially in an arch under Peckham Rye station while still holding down his marketing job.
Starting with a Chinese-built 9 hl brewhouse, Brick extended fermentation capacity several times and expanded into a neighbouring arch in 2015, with the brewery becoming a full-time concern, but still struggled with space. By the end of 2017, production had moved to a much bigger site in two units on a Deptford industrial estate beside the route of the old Grand Surrey Canal.
Head brewer Pete Vick moved on in 2020 and was replaced by Tom Dixon, formerly at Stewart Brewing in Edinburgh. He and his team worked on a 32 hl brewhouse from Willis European, also Chinese-built, with plenty of fermenters, a souring tank, barrel ageing facilities, keg filler and canning line. The Deptford site was only occasionally open to the public for special events; the regular taproom remained in the original Peckham arch.
In the face of rising rents and energy costs, the cost-of-living crisis and other challenges, the company went into administration on 2 June 2023. Its brands and assets were subsequently bought out by private equity company the BREAL group, which a few weeks previously had acquired the equally troubled (and rather older established) Black Sheep brewery in Masham, North Yorkshire. BREAL subsequently acquired another London brewery, BBNo.
Initially Brick announced that production would continue as normal under the leadership of Ian and Sally, but brewing ceased by November and the equipment was removed to Black Sheep, with the Deptford site subsequently vacated. Both Brick and BBNo brands were then produced under an ex-Brick brewer at BBNo, but news reports on 12 February 2024 confirmed that BBNo was also slated to close ‘within three weeks’, with both brands moved to a new brewhouse created for them in Masham. In future some brewing may also take place at Purity in Alcester, Warwickshire, which BREAL bought in January 2024.
In late Febuary 2024, BREAL renamed itself the Keystone Brewing Group.
The Peckham taproom remains open for the time being.
Beers were in keg and can, with some cask mainly for local outlets.
Hoxton: 397 Geffrye Street E2 8HZ (Hackney) First sold beer: December 2018
Islington: Torrens Street EC1V 1NG (Islington) First sold beer: October 2014 Brewing suspended: September 2022, unlikely to resume until at least 2025
Entrepreneur Kris Gumbrell’s Convivial pub chain ventured into brewing from 2011 with the Botanist on Kew Green (3 Kew Green, Richmond TW9 3AA, first sold beer September 2011) and later the Lamb in Chiswick (9 Barley Mow Passage W4 4PH, first sold beer September 2012). By December 2013, Convivial had been sold to Mitchells & Butlers and brewing ceased at both sites, but inspired by the experience, Kris went on to conceive an entire chain of brewpubs, Brewhouse and Kitchen, in partnership with former M&B executive Simon Bunn.
The first Brewhouse and Kitchen opened around the corner from Angel station in October 2014, with South African-born Pete Hughes, later the head brewer for the whole group, in charge of the former Botanist 4 hl brewhouse. The facilities here were later upgraded to a new 5 hl copper kit, with the original donated to Ignition brewery.
A second branch, with the 8 hl kit from the Lamb, opened in a former tramshed just off Highbury Corner the following year. After some years, a third London branch opened next door to Hoxton station in July 2018, in a former cocktail bar occupying three arches of the London Overground viaduct, one containing a new 4 hl copper brewhouse which wasn’t active until a few months later.
There are also now around 20 branches in other parts of the UK. All branches brew beer for cask, keg and minicask, mainly sold on their own sites under names with local themes, though there’s some sharing of supplies between sites. The Highbury branch additionally dispenses beer direct from conditioning tanks. The exact recipes vary from site to site, within a common template.
The original Islington branch closed ‘temporarily’ in September 2022 for ‘refurbishment’ — in fact a radical rebuilding of the whole site to create a new development known as Angel Square, with provision for a new brewpub in the completed buildings. No opening date has yet been announced but building work is due for completion in 2025.
Closed brewery Original site: 66 Southwark Bridge Road SE1 0AS (Southwark, since closed) Second site, later pilot brewery: 79 Enid Street SE16 3RA (Southwark, since closed) Barrel Store: 1 Bellenden Business Park SE15 4RF (Southwark, since closed) Production brewery: South Warehouse, Greenwich Beach, Morden Wharf Road SE10 0PA (Greenwich) bbno.co First sold beer (at original site): 12 December 2012 Brewing ceased: Early March 2024
Brew by Numbers, or BBNo as it was later branded, was started on a very small scale by Tom Hutchings and Dave Seymour. They met each other while rock climbing in southeast Asia and became close friends with both the Kernel and Partizan in the early days of those breweries. Homebrewing began in the basement of a house a friend was renovating near Bankside, using a 50 l kit. The duo kept track of their experiments with a numbering system, the origin of the name and the later beer designations. Following positive feedback, in summer 2012, they upgraded the equipment and were selling bottled beer by the end of the year.
BBNo became the third Bermondsey brewery in May 2013 when it moved into an arch at 79 Enid Street, around the corner from the original Kernel site, with an 18 hl kit hand-built from recycled stainless steel vessels. The expansion was partly thanks to investment from BrewDog, which later sold its shares back at cost price.
The brewery then expanded several times, leasing a second arch a few doors northwest, with a new bottling line, cold store, barrel vault and taproom in action by summer 2015. Various improvements including the addition of a canning line increased production to around 5,000 hl a year in 2019, by which time Dave had stepped back from day-to-day involvement, leaving Tom to lead the project.
Numbers-on-Thames: BBNo’s Morden Wharf site at Greenwich Beach SE10.
A second arch-based site in Peckham opened in January 2019. Known as the Barrel Store, this was primarily a barrel-ageing facility and satellite taproom, though it was equipped later in the year with a small brewhouse used intermittently to make small runs for ageing. The site was closed in autumn 2021.
Following a crowdfunding campaign, BBNo undertook a major expansion in 2021 to a much bigger site beside the river Thames, a former glucose refinery dating from late Victorian times in the redevelopment area of Morden Wharf on the west side of the Greenwich peninsula. This was open to the public from September when it hosted a riverside beer festival, and beer from the 50 hl brewhouse was flowing by November.
BBNo’s Morden Wharf brewhouse, London SE10.
BBNo retained its presence in Bermondsey but vacated Arch 75 in January 2022, continuing with a taproom at Arch 79. This was equipped with a 1.5 hl pilot brewery previously belonging to Josh Mellor (see Mellor’s), and was used to brew specials for the taproom.
Due to licensing problems, brewing at the Bermondsey arch ceased and the kit was removed in March 2023. The arch continued for a short time as a taproom but closed completely in early May 2023, with the brewery announcing it was concentrating activities in Greenwich ‘due to the combined COVID-19 debt burden and the recent cost of living crisis’, while undergoing financial restructuring and seeking new investors.
BBNo entered administration as a going concern in June, originally in the expectation that it would be bought out by a group of friendly investors. But on 24 August private equity company the BREAL group confirmed it had acquired the company, adding a third brewery to its portfolio after its well-publicised acquistion of Black Sheep in Masham, North Yorkshire, and Brick in London. BREAL closed the latter late in 2023, relocating its kit to Masham.
Initially the BBNo taproom remained open and no staff were laid off. But on 5 November the taproom closed at short notice ‘for the winter season’. Following much speculation, a news report on 12 February 2024 confirmed that though brewing continued for a short time under an ex-Brick brewer to build up a stock of both BBNo and Brick beers, the kit was to be moved ‘in three weeks time’ to Masham where a new brewhouse is being created for both brands, with the Greenwich site subsequently vacated. In future some brewing may also take place at Purity in Alcester, Warwickshire, which BREAL bought in January 2024.
In late February 2024, BREAL renamed itself the Keystone Brewing Group.
Beers were almost entirely in keg and can and follow a numbering system: originally there was a two digit number indicating a broad style and another designating a specific recipe, though today only the first number is used. They were in a wide range of styles with varying recipes: by April 2021, BBNo had produced around 400 different beers. It’s unclear which recipes Breal will retain.
Brewpub, no longer brewing 63 Lambs Conduit Street WC1N 3NB First sold beer: August 2014 Ceased brewing: October 2015
Bloomsbury began as a small brewery in the cellar of the Perseverance pub, an ex-Charrington free house at the above address, installed by then-owner Pete Millington. It brewed only occasionally with beers intermittently available in the pub, and despite plans to ramp up production, operations ceased when the business was closed and sold in October 2015. The pub subsequently enjoyed mixed fortunes, reopening and closing again, until it was bought and reopened by Market Taverns, owners of the famous Market Porter in Borough Market and several other London pubs, in July 2018, though brewing hasn’t been restored. A Bloomsbury brand has subsequently appeared on unrelated beers commissioned for the Bloomsbury Leisure/Pivovar group of pubs and bars.
This pioneering new book explains what makes cask beer so special, and explores its past, present and future. Order now from CAMRA Books. Read more here.
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.
