Hop Burns & Black, East Dulwich, and The Beer Shop, Nunhead



A mile apart, these two idiosyncratic venues are definitely worth checking out if you are in south-east London. Hop Burns & Black is a shop as well as a bar. It stocks some 300 bottled beers, as well as hot sauces and vintage vinyl. But it is also a shop with a limited amount of indoor and outdoor seating, so that people can kick back with a drink while they consider their purchases. Naturally, HB&B has a substantial core range of London beers, from such outfits as Big Smoke, Howling Hops, London Beer Lab and Gipsy Hill, whose Beatnik pale ale is, for a 3.8% beer, a remarkably tasty and well-rounded creation. Elsewhere, its stock ranges far and wide but remains classy throughout. Selections from Manchester’s excellent Cloudwater and Danes Mikkeller jumped out.

The Beer Shop. Photograph: Lisa Jane Photography

Definitely more bar than shop, the Beer Shop is a tiny, friendly micropub – all utilitarian and rough-hewn wooden fixtures adorned with colourful cushions – that serves keg and bottled beers and gravity-dispenses cask ales from, almost exclusively, UK brewers. Expat northerners looking for their fix of Wylam, Blackjack, Mad Hatter or Squawk beers will find such breweries well represented here, alongside the cream of the UK craft crop, from Sussex’s Burning Sky to Bristol’s Wiper & True. Having ventured this far off the Tube map, if you want to extend your crawl, have a look at the Flying Pig (58-60 East Dulwich Road, 020-7732 7575), just up the road from Hop Burns & Black, and, in Nunhead, the community-run Ivy House, a Grade II-listed craft beer haven (40 Stuart Road, 020-7277 8233) with a variety of live music and activities from yoga to knitting and chess.

• Hop Burns & Black, beers from £2.50, 38 East Dulwich Road, 020-7450 0284; hopburnsblack.co.uk. The Beer Shop, pint from £3.50, 40 Nunhead Green, 020-7732 5555, thebeershoplondon.co.uk

Draft House, Bermondsey and Battersea



Photograph: Paul Winch-Furness

This small London chain has two venues in south-west London (74-76 Battersea Bridge Road and 94 Northcote Road, between Clapham and Wandsworth commons), and a huge venue by Tower Bridge, which provides a lifeline for picky tourists. The choice across four cask, 14 keg taps and an extensive bottled menu, runs the gamut from a daily, £2.90-a-pint, real ale (on this visit, Little Beer Corporation’s Little Tenderness), to obscure and expensive sharing bottles, such as a 2012 bottle of barrel-aged Rodenbach Vintage – yours for £24.95. The Draft Houses tend to be loud, lively spaces, which will not suit everyone, but the young staff are usually knowledgeable and enthusiastic. They know their hops. Note: Drhop Kick, the commemorative Six Nations beer the Draft House has created with Fourpure, is a stridently bitter beer full of gooseberry and ripe honeydew melon flavours and worth a try during the tournament.

• Pint from £2.90, 206-208 Tower Bridge Road, 020-7378 9995, drafthouse.co.uk

The Rake, Borough Market, London Bridge

Perched on the edge of foodie utopia Borough Market, The Rake was one of London’s craft beer pioneers and in its 10th year, this small, spartan bar – its walls covered in graffiti added by visiting brewers – remains a vital hop hub. By modern standards, seven keg and three cask lines do not constitute an enormous choice, but whether it is Lefebvre’s Barbãr Bok winter ale or beers from the Rake’s spin-off brewpub, Tap East, you will always find something good and unusual on the bar. Its fridges, likewise, contain a wealth of first-rate beers, as diverse as sharing rarities from Colorado’s Left Hand Brewing and cans from Cornwall’s Harbour. The Rake hosts a meet-the-brewer with Hebden Bridge brewer Vocation on 25 February and its annual Welsh beer festival is on 3-6 March.

• Pint from £3.80, 14a Winchester Walk, Borough Market, 020-7407 0557, utobeer.co.uk/the-rake

Simon the Tanner, Bermondsey



Over in Bethnal Green, the Tanner’s sister bar, Mother Kelly’s, has become a site of pilgrimage for the capital’s craft connoisseurs. The choice in this neat, modest corner boozer (14 draught lines and around 20 bottles) is much smaller, but there is a distinctive focus on local London breweries. One tap is dedicated to kernel beers and, on this visit, Bermondsey’s Brew By Numbers, Peckham’s Brick, Woolwich’s Hop Stuff and Walworth’s Orbit were among the other draught choices. Somewhat tucked away from any main drag, the Tanner is known as a relatively chilled bolthole. You may find yourself staying longer than you anticipated.

• Pint from £3.20. 231 Long Lane, 020-7357 8740; simonthetanner.co.uk

Bermondsey Beer Mile and Ubrew



Brew by Numbers, Bermondsey. Photograph: Gavin Freeborn

The past two years has seen an explosion in the number of breweries that also operate as ad hoc taps. In railway arches and on industrial estates across the UK, it is now common to find craft beer fans congregating to drink from temporary bars squeezed between the finishing tanks and the bottling line. Arguably, this all started with the Bermondsey Beer Mile, where up to six breweries and several beer retailers open each weekend around Druid Street. The route gets very busy (so busy that the Kernel brewery has stopped opening) but, if you want to drink immaculately fresh or limited edition experimental beers in great numbers and often at bargain prices, the Bermondsey Beer Mile is the place to do it. The main locations are cask-focused Southwark Brewing (46 Druid Street, 020-3302 4190, Fri 4-8pm, Sat 11am-7pm); Brew By Numbers (79 Enid Street, 020-7237 9794, Fri 6pm-10pm, Sat, 11am-7pm); Fourpure (22 Bermondsey Trading Estate, Rotherhithe New Road, 020-3744 2141 Sat 11am-5pm); Anspach & Hobday, (118 Druid Street, 020-8617 9510, Fri 5-9.30pm, Sat 11am-5.30pm, Sun midday-5pm); Partizan (8 Almond Road, 020-8127 5053, Sat 11am-5pm).

Beers brewed onsite at Ubrew, Bermondsey, London

Also part of the Bermondsey Mile, Ubrew is unusual in this group for a number of reasons. It is open all week (except Mondays) and, hidden away on a business park off Old Jamaica Road, it operates both as a bar and an open-access brewery, where the public can pay to use its brewing equipment. Hardcore beer geeks will love all this, not least the choice of 10 high-quality keg beers at the bar and Ubrew’s selection of experimental bottled ales, such as Billionaire Stout and Donald Chump, which are brewed onsite. Ubrew also hosts irregular launches for new beers and magazines, as well as homebrewing and meet-the-brewer evenings.

• Schooners from £3, Arches 29-30, 24 Old Jamaica Road, 020-3172 6089, ubrew.cc

Dean Swift, South Bank



In this quaint corner pub round the corner from Tower Bridge, there is a central reservation where you can rest your pint, into which various breweries’ beer mats have been set in Perspex and inlaid. That decorative flourish illustrates how seriously the Dean Swift takes its ale. The pub’s four cask and nine keg taps and its modest fridges are packed with stellar brews from both London breweries (Kernel, Beavertown, Fourpure, etc), and British craft flag-wavers, such as Welsh wonders Tiny Rebel and West Yorkshire’s Summer Wine. There are some rare international gems on offer too, including, on this visit, bottles from revered US gypsy brewer, Stillwater Artisanal. Whoever does the buying at the Dean Swift is clearly a stickler for quality.

• Pint from £4, 10 Gainsford Street, Butler’s Wharf, 020-7357 0748, thedeanswift.com

Beer Rebellion, Peckham



Based in a converted Victorian slaughterhouse in Penge, Late Knights brewery only launched in 2013 but it has rapidly established itself as one of south London’s most dynamic craft beer evangelists. It owns four bars in south-east London, including this Peckham cracker, and sites in Brockley, Sydenham and Gipsy Hill. As dark and aesthetically grungy as any East Berlin dive bar, Beer Rebellion serves 10 keg and six cask ales with, naturally, an emphasis on its own Late Knights ales. I opted for Partizan’s intriguing lemon and thyme grisette, but the wider choice takes in most of the key London breweries, including Anspach & Hobday, Beavertown and Peckham neighbour Brick, whose railway arch brewery opens as a weekend tap (Arch 209, Blenheim Grove, Thurs 5-9pm, Fri 5-10pm, Sat 12-10pm).

• Beer Rebellion, pint from £3.50, 129 Queens Road, 020-8670 9034, lateknightsbrewery.co.uk

Crown & Anchor, Brixton



A south-of-the-river sister to Stoke Newington’s influential craft beer pub the Jolly Butchers, the C&A boasts a similarly impressive beer range, with 13 keg and seven cask lines supplemented by a long, bound bottled menu. In both cases, you will encounter discerning choices from near and far. UK craft pacesetters such as Wild Beer, Moor, Beavertown and Brew By Numbers rub shoulders with swanky international beers such as Omnipollo’s Mazarin oatmeal pale ale or Green Flash’s legendary West Coast imperial IPA. Interestingly, in a sector where prices are skyrocketing, there are some bargains to be had at the C&A. Pricing strong cask beers such as Red Willow’s 5.9% Shameless and Wiper & True’s 6.9% White Cloud IPA at £4 and £4.50 respectively shows admirable restraint. That may help explain why, on this early Thursday evening visit, this large, spruce, neo-Victorian beer house was already packed.

• Pint from £3.80, 246 Brixton Road, 020-7737 0060, crownandanchorbrixton.co.uk

Craft Beer Co, Brixton & Clapham



If you have visited one of London’s Craft Beer Co bars, you will know what to expect: plain modern decor, rafts of fantastic beer, irregular tap-takeover and launch events. The quality of the house beers in its small Brixton branch is impeccable; think Siren’s Soundwave and Five Points Railway Porter, while, on this visit, the guest beers (for instance, Cigar City’s Cracker wit or Birranova’s Italian take on a strong English ale, Abboccato), included several imports that would have any craft geek drooling. Basically, across its 24 taps and an extensive bottled menu, you can get a good snapshot of all that is currently great in beer globally. Incidentally, Brixton Craft Beer Co is close to Brixton Brewery, which opens as a tap on Saturday afternoons (Arch 547, Brixton Station Road, 020-3609 8880, 12-4pm).

• Craft Beer Co, pint from £3.95, 11-13 Brixton Station Road, 020-7274 8383 and 128 Clapham Manor Street, 020-7498 9633, thecraftbeerco.com

Stormbird, Camberwell



Nothing quite sets a beer geek’s pulse racing like the sight of hand-drawn pump clips at the bar. Only rare imports and much sought-after, limited-edition beers can afford to forgo the usual point-of-sale paraphernalia and you will find many such beers at Stormbird. For instance, on this visit, Mikkeller’s Nuclear Hop Assault, Magic Rock and Toccalmatto’s Custard Pie and To ØL’s Nelson Survin. The choice here is vast: 22 taps and over 100 bottles and cans. Stormbird serves no fewer than five gluten-free beers, has a whole fridge section given over to Moor’s new conditioned cans and, if you have cash to splash, you can share 750ml bottles from US breweries such as Jack’s Abbey and Moylan’s. The bar itself is a simple space – wooden floor, big, stripped communal tables – but with such exceptional beer on offer, Stormbird has charisma to spare.

• Pint from £4.25 Camberwell Church Street, 020-7708 4460, thestormbirdpub.co.uk

• London Beer Week, February 22-28, drinkup.london/beerweek. For this article, travel between Manchester and London was provided by Virgin Trains. The typical journey time is 2hrs 9mins and single fares start from £20



