The Craft Beer Co.

The Craft Beer Company is a small chain of craft beer pubs that opened in London, England in July 2011. It was founded by schoolmates and business partners Martin Hayes and Peter Slezak. With the popularity of craft beer growing in London (and the rest of the world for that matter) the duo looked to create a great place with an inviting atmosphere, the best products and the best service that you could find in a British pub. They decided to focus on beers that had been finely crafted by little known breweries from all over the UK as well as foreign brewers that had rarely been seen in London before. The original location opened in the Clerkenwell section of the city and was crowned 'Best Bar in the UK' by RateBeer before the year's end. Today the Craft Beer Company has seven locations scattered all over London.

My wife and I visited the original Clerkenwell location of the Craft Beer Company in April 2019. We were on a week-long trip to London. One day, after visiting the British Museum, we decided to find a cool pub to stop at before dinner. Unfortunately, London has a lot of 'fake' pubs that are owned by large macro breweries and corporations. We decided to look on Yelp and see if there was an authentic craft beer pub nearby. The Craft Beer Company was just a short walk from our location. As soon as we walked in, I turned to my wife and said, "I'm never leaving this place!" It was so cool! The pub had 21 craft beers on draught, another 16 on cask, and over 200 available in bottles! The place was so chill and they were cranking out classic rock tunes on their speakers. The bartender pointed out the Rush shirt I was wearing, and I had to tell him about my accidental meeting with Rush singer/bassist Geddy Lee at a tube station just days prior. The two of us had a lovely chat about progressive rock bands. For our first round, I ordered Magic Rock Brewing's "High Wire" (West Coast Pale Ale) and my wife had Lilley's Ciders' "Crazy Goat" (Cider/Perry Blend). Both were cask-conditioned and tasted so fresh. We made a big deal to the bartender how we were so excited to try so many cask ales in London. He was shocked when we told him that cask ales are rare in the United States. For our second round, I ordered Magic Rock's "Dark Arts" (English Stout) and my wife had Lilley's Ciders' "Fire Dancer" (Cloudy Red Cider). Every single beer or cider that we tried was exceptionally good! If I lived in London, I would be stopping in at this pub every week!

This place is packed! It won't be easy finding seats. It's even packed outside! I played it safe and ordered the pear cider. This might be because my ex loved pear cider and always searched for the best one.

We were hoping to meet locals here and after scanning and chatting for hours I decided to approach my target and it was a success! We chatted with the cute locals and drooled over their accent.

It was upsetting that this bar closed so early! We ended up chatting more outside and relocated deeper in soho for another location.

Apparently a lot of tourist go here because these cute locals met a lot of Americans at this bar.

A super addition to the neighbourhood; I especially appreciate that the Craft Beer Co. is bustling even when almost everything beyond the Cottage Chicken on Leather Lane is quiet.

A random assortment of my friends, from those that live in Whitechapel to those that live in Paris, have invited me here for a pint and given it's well easy for me to pop over from my flat I usually take them up on it.

To wade through the massive selection, speak to a barkeep and let him or her know your ideal flavour profile - this method's proved successful for me (and they'll usually let you sample before you commit to a pint.)

I'm going to have to disagree with Leighton S. on this being "perhaps the best beer bar in London". But The Craft Beer Co. does beer, and it does beer well. My mates and I went two days after the grand opening, and it seems to have already established a very loyal cadre of fans.

According to the sign - plaque, rather - posted outside of the establishment, there are 37 craft beers on tap and an additional 300 beers in bottles, readily available. I love craft beer, but the downside is that the selection borders on the realm of overwhelming.

The atmosphere is really quite nice. Upscale, but casual and unpretentious. Outside, there were dozens of patrons enjoying their beers on the sidewalk, and it was a great mélange of bankers from the City, students, and random locals. And everyone was incredibly friendly.

The beer selection is simply ridiculous. I was with a friend from Norway who said that some of the Norwegian beers available were difficult to find back home. There were plenty of breweries whose selections I thought I knew quite well, but apparently The Craft Beer Co proved me wrong on that.


The downside: as is to be expected from a place specializing in craft brews, particularly in that location, drinks can be pretty pricey. I've developed a soft spot for the Clerkenwell Lager, which runs at £5.50 per pint. I noticed choices on the beer list that were in the range of £14-£16 for a 500ml bottle.

I'm really excited to go back, but I think I'm going to wait until the whole grand opening buzz dies down. You should probably do the same.

There was no doubt in my mind that the Craft Beer Co was going to get a 5 star review. In fact I like it that much that I emailed them a few months back to see if they have any plans to open in Manchester (still waiting guys...) - adding to their 3 in London and 1 in Brighton that they already have.

In my perfect world there would be a pub like Craft Beer Co in every city.

The concept is fairly easy to get. Buy an old pub that's seen better days, restore it to it's former glory and stick a ridiculous amount of cask and keg beers on tap and hundreds of rare bottles in the fridges behind the bar. Oh yeah - and they sell the best ever pies on the bar to go with your beer (the chorizo one is a personal fave of mine!)

I like the fact that you can have a good old English ale one moment and on your next pint be transported to a land of hoppy goodness through America and back again by pint number 3. The range of Mikkeller is worth going for alone (I counted 7 on tap one night) and the guys behind the bars are really knowledgable and obviously love what they do.

Much more comfortable and welcoming than the Brewdog bars (although worth visiting for other reasons), here's hoping for a Craft Beer Manc very soon!

My brother, who's also a big fan of craft beer, took me to try this place as it's one of his favorite places to grab a pint. The selection was great (far better than most any other place I had been to in London) and the variety/quality was also top notch. It was really nice to see that they had several different bottles of difficult to find Belgian beers including Cantillon and Drei Fontinen. I didn't splurge on the 60 some Pound Framboos, but we did get a nice bottle of Cantillon. Overall though, the prices were reasonable and the atmosphere was upbeat. They have several locations, and I'd put this place on the must stop list for any craft beer enthusiast, or anyone missing the quality/selection found at many American "beer bars".

A beer lover's paradise! Food is simple but good. Staff is extremely friendly and helpful. A true gem.

My only complaint is that they don't serve coffee.

Here is what it is:

+ A decent bar;with over 30 ales, beers, bitters, stouts, and porters on tap; with about 50 whiskeys available (from the run-of-the-mill Glenfiddich 12/18year to the more interesting Lagavulin 16year, Ardbeag Uigeadail, and the higher end Japanese whiskeys)
+ Rocking some generously sized burgers by '40 Burger'; with lots of sauces, and great fries.
+ unpretentious
+ decently priced
+ a cocktail bar (which should be obvious).

Here is what it isn't:
- a cocktail bar
- very spacious (though there is a good downstairs)
- the best 'pub in London'.

But if you want to sample a large range of the best beers and microbreweries, from a place that changes the offerings regularly, its probably the only place to be.

(Conveniently also the best place to wait for a bloody table at Flat Iron on Denmark Street!)

Tuesday night was awesome. Wednesday morning (and afternoon) was less so. I'd been meaning to go to CBC for a while, but for some reason most of my friends think that Clerkenwell is "miles away" (bloody West Londoners).

The exterior of CBC is pretty unassuming (the hanging baskets may also make it seem like a bit of an old man pub, but it really isn't) and for a place so close to the city, the clientele is very mixed. Anyway, the place has 16 cask ales on tap (all from the UK I think), and a further 10-12 keg taps of beers from all over. Oh, and then there are the bottles. So. Many. Bottles. The staff are also very knowledgeable, and even during busy times they're great at recommendations.

The beer here isn't cheap - generally it's priced according to alcohol content, which is fair enough. For example, a half pint of To Øl's Final Frontier is £3.95, but it does clock in at 7.1 % (and is rather delicious), and it's one of the few places where the bar staff don't frown on you ordering half pints.

Highlights from our trip were: Red Willow Smokeless, a very nutty porter; the Southern Tier 2X Milk Stout (which, by the way, is an excellent choice if you want to 'get into' stouts - it's a bit sweeter than normal stouts which takes an edge off the bitterness); the aforementioned Final Frontier - an American style IPA which has a rather unique character; the other IPA which I can't remember, but was uberstrength.

The top dog of the evening, however, was the Southern Tier Choklat Stout (650 ml bottle). This was one of the smoothest, chocolatiest, most delicious stouts I have ever tasted in my life. Like...hot chocolate...and beer...in the same drinking vessel! And, despite clocking in at 11 %, you really can't taste the alcohol (and thus it is absolutely lethal). Be warned: this is very very very expensive (I can't remember exactly how much...), but SO WORTH IT.

I think next time I'mma eat before I go. Needless to say, the evening ended with a stroll down to Blackfriars doing an acapella version of the Game of Thrones theme tune.

Best bar in London? I don't think so. Personally I think its sister pub, the Cask Pub and Kitchen in Pimlico, is better. But with its incredible range of beer the Craft Beer Company is still worlds away from your average boozer in London.

Sixteen to twenty beers on tap. Around 200 bottled beers in chiller cabinets. Very few that you'll recognise. Plenty of leftfield stuff from around the world. Some strong, some expensive but also plenty of more affordable and 'session' ales too.

I think it falls short of the Cask Pub and Kitchen in that it doesn't serve food beyond snacks, the selection of Belgian beer is bafflingly small (even Belgo's range trounces it). There's not a huge amount of seating space down by the bar (there's more upstairs, but no bar there) and it gets busy: even with five bartenders there was a five minute wait for drinks. I doubt I've ever had to wait more than a minute to be served in the Cask Pub and Kitchen.

Still, there aren't many pubs with this kind of range of beers in London. If you like your beer and are based in the area, you should definitely check out the Craft Beer Company.