Brew By Numbers [CLOSED]

Location: 79 Enid Street

Opening hours: moved out May 2023

Other days: n/a

Official site: https://bbno.co/

Last updated: 25/07/2023

Brew By Numbers: they used to be on Enid Street once, then twice, then once again, and now not at all. They’ve been a fundamental part of the Bermondsey Beer Mile since the early days, which makes it hard to believe that they’re not any more.

It used to be the case that looking down Enid Street from outside Cloudwater, you could easily see the hanging BBNo sign that marked their Tasting Room at number 75. It was a nicely constructed room with plenty of space, but it wasn’t the brewery – that was a couple of doors further down, at number 79. In the olden days, Saturday afternoon drinks were held at the taproom in the brewery itself, which was notorious for always being packed: inevitably, no matter the weather, you had to drink outside on the street, balancing your glass precariously on the wooden pallets stacked on the pavement.

For a while, you could do both: the tasting room at 75 and the taproom at 79 were both open, running eight or so taps apiece, mostly BBNo with the occasional guest beer. In either location, you still had to cope with the usual problem with BBNo’s beers: their insistence on giving each of them a serial number rather than a name means that you can never remember what you’ve actually drunk of theirs from one session to the next. To be fair, it’s a lot easier now than back in the day, when every beer had a four-digit number you needed to remember: nowadays, it’s just a two-digit number indicating the style, plus a more descriptive name. Either way, it was always advisable to take a notebook with you just to be on the safe side.

Then around the time of the pandemic, the brewery moved down to Greenwich. Arch 75 was closed, and arch 79 was refurbished to become the new tasting room. It had six taps of their own beer, plus lots of cans to take out (including several guests). There was a lot of space in 79, some of it taken up with what looks like small batch brewing equipment, plus several comfy sofas and a telly running old video games. The one thing it seemed to be missing on the day of our last visit in the summer of 2022 was the large number of customers that used to be present in BBNo’s heyday.

“We’re sure they’ll find their way back soon,” we said at the time, but it looks like they didn’t. BBNo has now shut up shop in Bermondsey altogether, and has moved their whole operation over to Greenwich, coinciding with the brewery going into administration. It’s not quite the Beer Mile’s equivalent of the ravens leaving the Tower of London – that’d be if The Kernel went – but it’s still a massive loss.

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Comments

[Sistem Informasi]

What was the atmosphere like at the Saturday afternoon drinks at the brewery taproom?

[Evelina]

Isn’t the place closed now with only Greenwich taproom left?

[Michael]

The Bermodsey location is closed

[James Poole]

Brewery now only exists as a name bought by a private equity group and used to flog beer brewed up North. Doubt it's any good. BBNo's profile exceeded their beer quality even in their heyday imo. Used to love both iterations of the taproom and both Riverside Fests were outstanding. Former barman now works at Craft Beer Junction down Enid Street by the way.