Southwark Brewing Company

Southwark Brewing opened in autumn 2014 and has been quietly doing its own thing while flashier operations have come and gone around it. Their focus is traditional English cask ale — six handpumps pouring real ale in an area where nearly everyone else is on keg. The Bermondsey Best is an English bitter, the kind of straightforward, well-made pint that doesn't need a tasting note or a flavour wheel. The brewery sits near the former sites of Barclay Perkins and Courage's Horsleydown brewery, which makes the traditionalist stance feel less like nostalgia and more like a geographical argument.