July 2025: Bus Spotters, River Crossers and Exercise Avoiders
A monthly newsletter about London beer and pubs written by Will Hawkes
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On the Buses
Stephen O’Connor, co-owner of the Green Goddess beer cafe and microbrewery in Blackheath, chuckles down the line as he discusses the significant intersection of beer and bus enthusiasm. “There should be a Venn Diagram of people who are into buses, people who are into beer, and people who turn up to events like the one we’re running this Saturday,” says Stephen, who runs the Green Goddess with wife Maryann. “Plenty of people right in the middle.”
The event in question - Shirk, Rust And Pray - takes in three of South-east London’s best modern beer venues (The Green Goddess, The Rusty Bucket in Eltham and The Shirker’s Rest in New Cross) and an open-top double decker bus (DMS2127, bus fans, seen here at another engagement), which will ferry happy punters between the venues for much of Saturday.
And Stephen will be the driver. How does it feel, I wonder, to be amongst so many high-spirited (drunk) people but not able to drink yourself? Is it frustrating? “It is and it isn’t,” he says. “I was so happy [during the first event last year]. Every picture of me from the day I have a big smile on my face.”
But isn’t it stressful driving a bus in London, anyway? “Well technically driving a bus is no harder than driving a car,” Stephen says, which may be true but I remain to be convinced. “The ones I drive are 30, 40, 50 years old, so they do tend to be a bit more challenging. But because you’re that bit higher, you can see what’s going on.”
As already noted, there’s a significant overlap between beer and travel appreciation, but buses and pubs have a complementary relationship in other ways too. It’s a rare London bus route that doesn’t have at least one stop named after a pub (The Green Goddess is right by the Royal Standard stop, while for the Shirkers’ you’ll need to get off at the Marquis of Granby), and they’re very handy for getting from pub to pub, too, even if you haven’t legally been able to drink on Transport for London’s network since 2008.
Maryann and Stephen actually met while working for TfL. That’s where he got his bus license (although he didn’t work as a driver). He drives buses as a side gig, for weddings and other events, which is how he’s able to secure the bus free-of-charge for Saturday’s event. Driving drinkers around for Shirk, Rest and Pray is more fun than the wedding work, he says.
“Everybody just enjoys themselves,” he says. “It’s an uncomplicated bit of fun. If you’re driving people to a wedding, then sometimes they’re happy and sometimes they’re not. You’ve got to be there at a certain time, sometimes it’s down a street that’s not practical for a double-decker.
“With this, I feel like I’m among friends. We have a timetable but that’s more to focus people’s minds … it’s hugely rewarding.”
The idea came from a bus trip laid on by Lost and Grounded to Bristol for London bar owners. Stu Gyles, owner of the Rusty Bucket, suggested they could do something similar in South-east London. “And I said, ‘Oh I can get hold of a bus. We can make that work.’” This year, there are three special beers available on Saturday: Shirk, a pale ale brewed by Three Acre Brewery, Rust, a hazy pale brewed by Villages Brewery and Pray, a witbier brewed by Green Goddess at Merakai Brewing.
The event was popular in 2024, and a reasonable weather forecast for Saturday will surely bring out the beer n’ bus crowd once again in their droves. Might they need a second bus next year? “It’s probably do-able, but we’d have to look at the extra cost. I’m sure we’ll eventually end up going there, but let's see how we get on this year, when we’re a bit more organised and a bit more pragmatic.”
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Craft Across The River
The London Craft Beer Festival returns this weekend, with two key differences. It’s taking place in mid-July rather than August, and the venue has changed from Tobacco Dock to Magazine in North Greenwich. “We sold out Tobacco Dock [for the] Saturday [sessions] two years running,” says Greg Wells, MD of organisers We Are Beer. “It was time to expand - and the new space is epic.”
And the date change? “Summer holidays are a tough time for industry heads to come down, especially buyers for our trade element,” he adds. “But also attendees with children - when it’s the summer holidays, you’ve got to juggle childcare.”
In terms of what attendees can expect, there are more breweries than ever before, including a return for Sierra Nevada. “I’m very excited about that,” says Greg. And, he didn’t add, there’s a reasonable quality crazy golf course just a few yards from the venue for afters, too.
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Paint It Black
One of We Are Beer’s flagship elements is its annual Top 50 beers list, which polls “industry experts, trade buyers and drinkers”. This year’s winner is a London beer: Anspach and Hobday’s London Black. The victory is a reflection not only of the beer’s undoubted quality, but also, surely, the current popularity of nitro stout. The list itself is pretty interesting, taking in everything from Landlord (No 2) to Jubel Peach (No 15).
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Que-back
The City of Quebec, which may or may not be the oldest gay venue in the country, has been refurbished and reopened by Greene King. An unspecified six-figure sum has been spent, according to Greene King, on a variety of upgrades, including the installation of a projector screen, effects lighting and a new DJ booth on the ground-floor stage.
The venue has been a cornerstone of the LGBTQIA+ community since its establishment in 1946, according to Greene King. It was originally frequented by RAF pilots following the venue’s opening after World War II.
“We are celebrating the pub’s relaunch in style with a wide range of exciting promotions and events throughout the summer, kicking off with cabaret hosted by Dolly Diamond and karaoke with Tania LeCoq on our opening day,” says general manager Darren Dunn.
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40 Golden Greats
I’ve spent most of this year researching a searchable pub tool for the Daily Telegraph, “The 500 Best Pubs in England”. 40 of them are in London; find out which ones here.
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Two Pubs, One City: Bird House Brewery, SE24; Gipsy Hill Brewery, SE27
As long-term subscribers to London Beer City will recall, I’m sure, I take my daughter to her gymnastics class one evening a week. Until recently, this class lasted a single hour, allowing just enough time for a leisurely pint at The Crown and Greyhound, a ravishing Victorian Dulwich boozer where you can always find a comfortable nook for a quiet pint and 30 minutes of high-quality doomscrolling.
Well, things have changed. My daughter’s passion for gymnastics means she now does two full hours a week. My horizons have correspondingly broadened. I’ve spread my wings, trying the fish-and-chips at much-hyped Ken’s Fish Bar in Herne Hill (batter good, fish decent but not spectacular, chips ok, service friendly), and pints at The Dulwich Woodhouse (unbelievably grumpy staff, expensive) and The Alleyn’s Head, a good-value option in West Dulwich with a slightly oppressive atmosphere.
Having got into the swing of this new reality, though, I soon found such piecemeal arrangements unsatisfactory. Ambition took over. It occurred to me that I could visit two of the local breweries and, blithely ignoring the considerable difference between taprooms and pubs, come up with some passable copy for this, the shallow end of my monthly newsletter.
Thus it was that, about 20 minutes after having dropped my daughter at her class one recent evening, I found myself ensconced in the bright and modern surroundings of the Bird House Brewery taproom. Set in a railway arch in Herne Hill occupied until relatively recently by Canopy Brewery, it feels like a cocktail bar as much as a beer place. There’s a pale-n-pine colour palette and a profusion of house plants, not to mention some sort of DJing arrangement down the far end of the bar.
I was naturally trepidatious, a mood intensified by the server’s complete disinterest in the most basic of human interactions - but the beer, a White IPA no less (£6), soon put my mind at rest. It was quite delicious, albeit with less of the citrussy spice that you might associate with the style (which is a blend of IPA and wheat beer; German-style wheat beer in this case, I’m guessing).
And then there were my fellow boozers. They were an amenable, if extremely bourgeois, bunch. A father was sitting with his very small and cute daughter. Two blokes sat in full sunshine, chatting about house prices. A couple came in and went to the bar: white IPA for him, white wine for her. Two young women arrived with two very fluffy dogs, and used the construction “Can I get” when ordering beer. A family took a table on the other side of the room, scoffing noodles from the next-door archway alongside a variety of drinks.
The vibe, meanwhile, came from piped-in music that may or may not have something to do with the DJing arrangement. There was gentle funk, there was gentle reggae, there may even have been gentle speed metal. It was all very pleasant. As modern beer experiences go, it was a good if rather detached one.
A week later, I headed the other way, southwards towards the Gipsy Hill taproom, having dropped off my mini-Simone Biles. Gipsy Hill has one immediate difference with the Bird House set-up, in that brewing obviously takes place here. Once upon a time Gipsy Hill shared this industrial estate with London Beer Factory, but the latter departed to Norfolk in 2022 and Gipsy Hill basically runs the place now, give or take a few units for a company called Liv’s Kitchen.
Everyone else was sitting outside in the sun - but that’s not for the pasty likes of me, so I took a seat at one of the long tables in the interior, having purchased a pint of Hepcat (£6.50). There’s a lot more going on at this taproom, decoratively-speaking, than at Birdhouse: barrels, a mini brewkit, some extremely jaunty art, a random pair of easy chairs. By contrast, there’s not a great deal of beer on the bar these days, but keg Hepcat is tasting good even if, I have to say, it’s a bit better on cask.
Everything was going smoothly. Too smoothly. At about 6.45pm, about halfway down my pint, 30 athletic and (mostly) young people started entering the taproom and dropping stuff off on tables at the far end. There followed about 10 minutes of milling around - loud running chat, hands on hips - before they headed off, presumably for a long and invigorating run (“We’re going to go now” “Alright”).
They seem nice enough, and presumably they all had a pint later (I was gone by then) but I do wonder about this modern trend of breweries promoting exercise. The problem with running (and related activities) is that eventually you realise that drinking beer eradicates all your ‘good work’. Then you have to decide to give up either running or beer - and, incredibly, some people pick the latter.
A chilling thought - so I washed it away with a pint of London Black, a beer brewed by a different South London brewery, before a gentle stroll back to pick up my daughter. She was red in the face after doing too much jumping and leaping and cartwheeling; I, by contrast, was cool as a cucumber. Beer 1, Exercise 0.
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London Beer City is written by journalist Will Hawkes. Feel free to contact me on londonbeercity@gmail.com. If you like what you’ve read, please share it with your friends; if you’ve been forwarded this email and enjoyed it, you can sign up here. Unsubscribe here. Help me keep the newsletter free here. Thanks for reading!