A BRIEF HISTORY OF SOUTHWARK BREWING

 Southwark Brewing Company was founded in 2014 by Peter Jackson and lifelong friend Andy Nichol. Peter had worked in the brewing industry since leaving university in 1981. There was only one problem.... he hadn't brewed a pint of beer in all that time, spending his time in sales and marketing. Enter master brewer Sean Franklin, a friend of over 25 years, and former owner of the award winning Roosters Brewery in Harrogate and pioneer of Hoppy Pale Ales. Via a complete home brew kit in his garage, Peter learnt the art of brewing to complement his knowledge of the theory! LPA, Bermondsey Best and Harvard all have their routes to his garage. 

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Upscale this in September to the new 10 Barrel (2,880 pints) brewing equipment, and the first brews were completed. Add a homemade bar, a stillage and 2 hand-pulls, and you have a taproom!

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In 2015 we added our first 2 employees, Sarone Charles, our Admin Assistant and Danny Belcher, our Drayman. Danny is now a London institution - "Danny Driver" is well known in most of London's top pubs for his delivery service and banter.... don't get him involved in any football (Millwall) discussion!

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The rest of the crew have grown with us, Conor McGlinchey, our Head Brewer,  has joined a long tradition of developing from Assistant Brewer to his current role and now leading the team. He has been joined by Sam Cook in 2023, who has a keen interest in brewing and craft beer. But his CV intrigued us when we applied for the job as one of his previous roles was "Axe Throwing Coach" whilst he was in Australia!

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Finally comes Luis, from Brazil joined to help run an outdoor bar at Greenwich Market, and he did a great job and he enjoyed it, until the winter came and he demonstrated the art of "multilayering clothing" and surviving the very cold temperatures in a market.... But now he is enjoying warmth of the Taproom bar and has worked his way up to Events and Bars Manager of the Taproom.

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We have been assisted by many bar staff along the way, from many different backgrounds and nationalities but they all had one thing in common - a great service ethic, and that is one thing we would like to guarantee to customers. If it doesn't live up to your expectations, let us know. We value your feedback.

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So over 9 years, we have seen a lot of change and development. The brewery now has 6 fermenting vessels up from the 3 original ones, including a 20 Barrel FV commissioned in February 2020, in advance of a BIG sales drive (that wasn't well timed....). COVID restrictions over 2 years were difficult, but we survived, and we now look forward to supplying our many customers both in the pub trade in London, and in our taproom bar. 

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We are proud and honoured to supply beers to pubs that started selling our beers in 2014 and 2015 when we first start, and we thank them for their loyalty. We also supply some of the best cask pubs in London, so we must be doing something right! We also, welcome many new customers on a regular basis, so word of our quality cask ales continues to spread. If you want to join them, give us a call! 020 3302 4190....

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We have brewed over 150 different beers, and we have enjoyed every single one and there are a lot more to come.