Kmflett's Blog

Brewdog Dalston, N16

Drinking in North-East London Brewdog bars. A Memoir

Brewdog has been sold to US Company Tilray and just 11 directly owned bars remain in the UK, with a few other franchises such as Belfast and Hull.

Back in the day (that is pre-COVID) Brewdog had ideas of expanding its pub estate in north-east London. That is Hackney and Islington. Haringey and Tottenham appeared a step too far even though the area had played a significant part in the post-2010 craft beer boom in London.

While I rarely ventured into a Brewdog pub in recent times for hopefully obvious reasons before 2020 things looked a bit different.

Brewdog had worked out rightly that north-east London had a considerable number of craft beer drinkers who would obviously be interested in its beers. That led to the opening (and eventual closing) of three pubs.

Perhaps the most well known was Brewdog Dalston (closed 2022). There is already a lot of nightlife in the area (a good thing but clearly those with kids and those who need to be up early have different perspectives) and Hackney Council were not keen. It was claimed that the bar would cause too much ‘excitement’. Licensing battles followed which Brewdog won and the two story bar (ground and basement) duly opened. I certainly frequented it a few times. The beer range was ok and it wasn’t usually that busy. I recall the bar staff addressing me as ‘sir’ a title which I do not have. Comrade would have been ok. Latterly it became the first vegan Brewdog. Anyway there are outlets for good beer in the area (one more or less opposite in fact) and eventually it closed.

Then there was briefly the pub on Homerton High St(closed 2017). Quite a small location but surely given the area a great location for a Brewdog. For comparison Zack Polanski’s local the Spreadeagle is a few minutes’ walk away. Again it didn’t really work. The beer range was limited and there are much better pubs in the vicinity. Opening hours and days started to be reduced and then it shut.

Finally there was the Brewdog on Essex Rd in Islington near Islington Green(closed 2019). Arguably the location was not great. Upper St which runs parallel is really the place for hospitality. Again there were licensing wrangles. To be honest I’m not sure exactly what the licensing conditions ended up being but then I only stopped for an occasional beer on my way from central London to Tottenham (476 bus). Again it was not a big space. I think you were meant to have food with beer and it didn’t open late. It shut and re-opened several times before Brewdog eventually gave up.

The above is a reminder that while it might be thought that Brewdog was on the beer and pubs zeitgeist before 2020 even then its grasp of the market was limited. Lots of time and money spent on legal battles led to ultimately nothing except losses. I wouldn’t entirely be surprised to find that Brewdog still have the head leases on all three locations but that’s for Tilray to ponder now.