5 Best Craft Breweries in London

Pizza and beer. Need we say more? In a waterfront warehouse space in Hackney Wick, CRATE are busy brewing seven craft beers, with their small but creative range including a grapefruit infused IPA, a refreshing lager and a classic stout, and firing up a stone baked pizza oven. Order your hand rolled pizza and sample your way through the range, all of which heavily feature local ingredients wherever possible. Their warehouse was once a print factory, but with the addition of their brew tanks and some lost and found materials like railway sleepers, the space has turned into a Hackney institution. As well as their core house brews, you can also try guest beers from across the globe and bop away, beer in hand, to their weekend dj sets. And if you really want to go the extra mile, they offer brewery tours (if you book ahead) so you can get the lowdown on their unique recipes and brewing techniques. 

Ask any beer aficionado where to find exceptional craft beers in the capital, and they’ll more than likely point you in the direction of BBNo. Seamlessly bringing together traditional and progressive techniques, marrying Antipodean and Belgian brewing styles and conjuring up everything from Belgian blondes through to one of the best IPAs in London Town, they produce beers of incredible quality which always deliver on flavour. The duo behind the beer are friends Tom and Dave, who decided to explore this melting pot of techniques and brewing heritage to create forward thinking, creative tipples. We wish we had thought of that. You can visit their brewery and taproom, which is tucked away Bermondsey’s brewing mile on Saturdays, and try to figure out exactly what the numbers on each bottle mean. The only clue we can give you is that the first represents the style of beer, and the second the recipe; the rest is a mystery. 

With fourteen years experience in the game under their belt, the folks at the Meantime Brewing Company have been brewing beer since way before the rest of us decided it was cool and jumped aboard the craft beer ship. The story began when Alistair, the man at the helm, decided to start brewing in his flat which eventually spiralled into a large brewing house and numerous awards, including medals at the World Beer Cup. Having been the creators of the first craft IPAs, their range has expanded significantly and you can now sip your way through a few of no less than fifty different craft beers from around the world. They now have a restaurant too, The Old Brewery, on site so you can check out where all the experimental magic happens, grab a bite to eat and indulge in their London Pale, Chocolate Porter, Raspberry Wheat Beer and London Stout.