The Bermondsey Beer Mile: An Unofficial Introduction

For those of you who don't know: the Bermondsey Beer Mile is a loose amalgamation of brewery bars and bottle shops, located along a stretch of railway arch that's closer to two miles long nowadays. The one thing they have in common is that they're all open at roughly the same time on a Saturday afternoon, giving those of you who fancy some exercise the chance to indulge in a rather fine pub crawl. As long as you can find your way between all the bars, of course.

And this is the problem: because the Mile is something that's grown organically over a period of years, and there's no definitive central resource you can consult in order to find out where all the bars are. New ones keep opening, and old ones change location. Virtually all of the documentation of the Mile on the internet consists of one-off blog posts that quickly go out of date. I should know, as I wrote one of those myself back in 2014, and it's full of mistakes now.

(I'm Spank The Monkey, by the way: I've had an arts and entertainment review blog on the internet for over two decades. Most of the words you're going to see on here are mine, with additional contributions and photography by my pal The Belated Birthday Girl. If you're curious to see what the Mile looked like in olden days, here are some pictures The BBG took of it back in 2014.)

In the absence of any official site relating to the Mile, we've decided to start an unofficial one. We'll attempt to document all of the bars currently on the route, and how to get between them all: and whenever we hear about any changes we'll update the site as soon as we can. (You can help with this - feel free to drop us notes in the comments boxes if you find that anything's altered since we wrote about it. We've included links to the official sites of all the bars, which should hopefully have the most up-to-date information.)

Here's the route as it currently stands. (You could start at the other end and work in the opposite direction, but I'll explain why we're doing it this way round in the first post.) Links with distances in them will give you a map of how to get there: links with a bar name in bold will take you to a separate page with more details about it. Bars with an asterisk next to their name also brew beer on the same premises.

• Start at Maltby Street Market (not actually a bar, more of a pre-Mile breakfast location, though there are bars in the market too)
• Walk 170m to Southwark Brewing*, 46 Druid Street
• Walk 170m to The Barrel Project, 80 Druid Street
• Walk 50m to Hawkes Cider*, 92/96 Druid Street
• Walk 150m to Hiver/All Good Beer, 56 Stanworth Street
• Walk 150m to Anspach & Hobday*, 118 Druid Street
• Walk 220m to Moor Beer, 71 Enid Street
• Walk 15m to London Calling Sweden, 72 Enid Street
• Walk 1m to Cloudwater, 73 Enid Street
• Walk 23m to Brew By Numbers*, 75/79 Enid Street
• Walk 61m to Bianca Road*, 83-84 Enid Street
• Walk 300m to Old Jamaica Business Estate, 24 Old Jamaica Road (not actually a bar, but a useful halfway point for stopping to eat something)
• Walk 260m to The Kernel*, Arch 7, Dockley Road Industrial Estate
• Walk 1km to Affinity*, 7 Almond Road
• Walk 140m to Spartan*, 8 Almond Road
• Walk 130m to EeBria, 15 Almond Road
• Walk 210m to Partizan*, 34 Raymouth Road
• Walk 650m to Fourpure*, 22 Bermondsey Trading Estate

In memoriam section:

• The Bottle Shop, 128 Druid Street - closed down March 2019
  
• uBrew*, 29-30 Old Jamaica Business Estate, 24 Old Jamaica Road - closed down September 2019

News (06/08/2020)

Current status of all the bars, according to their socials. Includes brief news of two actual permanent closures, which will be documented in the In Memoriam section when we've got time.

• Southwark Brewing – open, limited numbers, no bookings, one in one out
• The Barrel Project – open, taking bookings, online shop available
• Hawkes Cider – open, taking bookings, guidelines on website, online shop available via BrewDog
• Hiver/All Good Beer – Hiver are now open and taking bookings for their taproom. All Good Beer, however, aren't coming back - it was only ever intended as a pop-up shop, it just happened to stay popped-up for four years. They're now permanently based in their bigger premises in Hackney, and of course their online shop is still going
• Anspach & Hobday – taproom closed for renovations, but should be back open on August 14th and taking bookings
• Moor Beer – open for table service and takeaway
• London Calling Sweden – still apparently open for takeaway only, online shop available
• Cloudwater – currently closed, online shop available with click and collect option
• Brew By Numbers – taproom open with bookings and reduced capacity, online shop available
• Bianca Road – open with well-documented restrictions, online shop available
• Secret Goldmine (Old Jamaica Business Estate) – re-opened July 4^th, deliveries to London area only
• The Kernel – open for takeaway only (“Until we are happy with our set up we won't be open for on-site drinking”), online shop available
• Affinity – moving out of Almond Road and setting up a brewpub. Site soon to be occupied by Three Hills Brewing
• Spartan – open for drinking in and taking out
• EeBria – open with restrictions, online shop available but for trade sales only
• Partizan – open Saturdays only with table service inside and out
• Fourpure – unclear if it's reopened yet, online shop available

Stay safe, behave yourselves, you know the drill by now. You don't want to end up like Aberdeen, do you?

[News Archive]

Comments

[Rebecca]

What a great guide! I vad heard though that some places vad starter being open Friday nights as well. Is this not the case?

[Richard]

New: Cloudwater taproom, 73 Enid Street, London, SE16 3RA

[SpankTM]

Rebecca - Yes, quite a few of the bars are open on multiple nights. Because all of them open on Saturday, and that's the traditional day when people do Beer Mile tours, we initially decided to just give the opening times for that day. We've now updated the pages to indicate which bars are open on other days of the week. Be sure to check with the bars themselves, though, as they do sometimes change their times without updating their websites (or without telling us, the self-obsessed rotters).

[SpankTM]

Richard - We're on it, thanks! See new Cloudwater post as of 28/12/2018.

[Sam]

This has been great! Thanks for this. Heading this weekend and wondering if you saw any sport/screens that might be showing the 6 nations in any of the places?

[SpankTM]

Sam - I think Hawkes would be your best bet: their upstairs room with big telly did a roaring trade during the World Cup last year, and it looks like they're planning to do the same with the rugby. https://www.facebook.com/events/1997523987213949/

The version of this comment I posted earlier today concluded with this sentence: "As far as I know, the only other bar on the Mile that's ever shown an interest in televised sport is London Calling Sweden, though I suspect that would only be useful here if Sweden suddenly became one of the Six Nations." Well, my apologies to the Swedes, because it looks like they're showing it too. https://londoncallingsweden.com/the-2019-six-nations/

[Clemmie Parrett]

Hi Bermondsey Beer Mile,

I handle the comms for Bone Daddies. I'm getting in touch to ask whether you can remove Bone Daddies Bermondsey from the Bermondsey Beer Mile? We are not a part of it, and it creates disappointment for those who read this and believe we are.

Thanks in advance,
Clemmie, Bone Daddies

[SpankTM]

Clemmie - hope you're happy with the compromise of keeping Bone Daddies in here, but making it clearer it's a restaurant rather than a brewery or bar. Don't forget to eat, readers!

[Jamie]

Good guide! I've been doing the Mile since it was just Kernel and Partizan but it changes so much these days even going several months between visits, so very useful to have a guide that is kept up-to-date.

For after-mile evening beers I could recommend The Other Room on Tower Bridge Road, and for food The Grange Pub although these are about a ten minute walk from the core of the Mile.

[Luke]

Bianca Road Brew Co have just moved to the mile as well. 83 Enid Street, putting them between Brew By Numbers and uBrew.

More info here... http://www.biancaroad.com and on their Instagram... https://www.instagram.com/biancaroadbrewco/

[Warren Joss]

Hi, is there many open on Monday 5th May around lunchtime? Cheers

[Warren Joss]

Monday 6th May, sorry

[SpankTM]

Luke - Thanks for letting us know. I've put a placeholder on this page for the new bar, and we'll pop round to review it at some point in the near future. Best of luck to them/you (delete as appropriate).

[SpankTM]

Warren - My guess would be that most of them will be closed - a lot of them don't open on Mondays anyway, and it wouldn't make much difference whether it was a Bank Holiday or not. Bear in mind a lot of these places are working breweries first, bars second, and they like to take holidays too! Still, each bar is a separate case and will have their own plans. Probably best to check their individual websites and associated social media feeds and see what their plans are.

[Warren]

Cheers thanks for your reply chum

[Kat]

Would there be a map of this somewhere?

[SpankTM]

Kat - Full maps of the Mile do exist out there - like this one https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=1qOln6LfuHW_qZWVVvWzA6-rYlHQ&ll=51.498415722518835%2C-0.07049506088253565&z=16 - but our thinking was that it's far too big and rapidly-changing nowadays for a single map to cover it sensibly. That's why we've chosen to plot a series of individual maps between one bar and the next - click on the distance figures above to pull those up.

[Cllr Humaira Ali]

I'm a local Councillor and whilst it's fantastic to have loads of businesses in the area, the creation of the 'beer mile' has given untold stress to local residents. There is increased noise, antisocial behaviour, danger for young children and a broad cumulative impact from some loud and leery revellers. We are working with businesses and the first order will be to rename it away from the beer mile. Whoever is visiting the area, please show the utmost consideration to residents and keep noise to a minimum. You wouldn't want to experience what my residents have to ensure. Residents with PTSD, sensory disorders are now under greater medical supervision.

To those that run this site. Nice idea and helpful but I'd respectfully ask you to rename away from the beer mile. Happy to work with you when this area is rebranded.

[Bermondsey Lido]

You forgot the small beer Brewing company in verney road.

I live near Enid St, just off Spa Road. I think the arches are nice and glad to see breweries there.

[Bethany Sinclair]

Super useful guide, I was wondering how many of the locations are wheelchair accessible?
Thanks :)

[Johnnybeerboy]

How long would you recommend allotting to do the mile? And what time would you recommend starting? I know these are subjective but let’s say at an average pace, what time start/how long to take do you think?

[Felipe]

HI. Thanks for the info. I couldn't find a map so I created one with all the sites that you have here, feel free to use it (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_r59dPFklcoM7enogO-g4bUzYaGdtRDE&usp=sharing).

[Dave M]

Hop Kingdom is another small bar with its own skate park at 16 Druid Street. Only 2 beers and very much geared towards the skaters, no onsite brewery but a nice little bar.

[Amy Nightingale]

Hi, does anyone know if the mile is starting to open up again with restrictions easing??