Location: 70-72 Verney Road
Saturday opening hours: 12:00-22:00
Other days: Sunday 12:00-17:30, Wednesday-Friday 16:00-22:00
Official site: https://theoriginalsmallbeer.com/
Last updated: 11/08/2022
You see what it says at the top of every page here? “An unofficial celebration of London's finest stretch of artisanal boozers.” This is a fan site: we don’t actually own the Bermondsey Beer Mile. Although sometimes it feels like we do, given how often breweries get in touch with us to ask if they can be listed in here.
This makes Small Beer an interesting one. Historically, people have always thought of Fourpure as being at the end (or the beginning, let’s not get into that again) of the Mile. Small Beer is a few hundred metres further along from there: the brewery’s been at Verney Road for a few years now, but in the summer of 2022 they opened up a taproom to the public. So, who gets to decide if it’s part of the Mile? Does the taproom get to self-identify as such? Is this the start of a slippery slope that could end with the Bermondsey Beer Mile stretching as far as Deptford by 2028?
We’re not getting into that argument, although it may come up in discussion in the comments. We’ll just tell you that it’s there, it’s very much in Bermondsey, and it’s an interesting addition if we do count it. Because Small Beer’s schtick is the brewing of smallish ABV beers: nothing on sale here is above 3%. And at the end of a day when you’ve visited more than a dozen breweries back to back, maybe easing your foot off the booze pedal a little is a nice way to finish off.
The beers are certainly pretty fine: on the day of our visit, there were a couple of IPAs, a splendid amber beer on cask, and a black lager that clocked in at a surprising 1%. The lack of alcohol isn’t an issue unless you decide that it’s going to be: there’s no lack of flavour there. It’s a decent sized space too, so there’s plenty of room for you to enjoy the beers. You could do a lot worse than end your crawl here.
Now go home, you're probably drunk ----->
<----- or go back 500m to Fourpure
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