Howling Hops

We’ve been passionate about good beer for many years. Initially drinking it, then selling it at the Southampton Arms, and eventually onto brewing it. At the Southampton Arms we realised how much demand there was for interesting beer. There was some good stuff out there back in 2008 but the majority was pretty boring. We knew if we could brew some great beer, selling it would be no problem. All we needed was some space and a brew kit.
After much looking for a suitable venue we eventually found a pub with a huge basement, perfect for a brewery. In 2011 we reopened the Cock Tavern on Mare street as Hackney’s first brewpub. Back then we had one simple brief to ‘make some interesting beer’ and that we did. We brewed over 100 different beers in the ‘brew cave’ over the course of 2 years, never brewing the same beer twice. We expanded a few times but still couldn’t really keep up with the demand. We really needed to expand again, somewhere with more than 5’10” of ceiling height. Someone approached us about a space over in Hackney Wick and that’s where we are today with a lovely steam-heated, 15bbl, 4-vessel kit.