Gavin Cleaver

When it comes to the Bermondsey Beer Mile, there are a few things people can agree on. One, it’s a collection of bars in the railway arches down from London Bridge station towards Millwall’s New Den stadium. Two, it showcases some of the best independently made beer available in London. Three, there are a lot of people there on a Saturday afternoon. Beyond that, definitions get hazy. There’s about 20 bars, it’s roughly two miles long and venues range from a craft beer taproom serving only pints to proper sit-down restaurants. The original reason for the beer mile’s existence was, of course, brewing beer, with brewers jamming a bar and a few taps between vessels to sell their wares direct to drinkers. In the early 2010s, brewers were drawn to the area in abundance because the Bermondsey arches were one of the few central spots in London where the rent on industrial units was cheap.  Times are changing, though. The average customer now looks very different: no longer somewhere reserved for in-the-know craft beer geeks, sinking a pint at each consecutive tap room has turned into a popular stag do activity, leading to complaints from disgruntled locals and damning newspaper headlines chronicling the bad behaviour of the many day drinkers. In 2025, only a small minority of stops on the mile still brew on-site, as ever-increasing demands on square footage has caused brewing equipment to be relocated, turning the beer mile into predominantly a bar space. And, following the most diff