The Craft Beer Co

Far and away one of the best craft beer bars in London. We stopped at two of their locations during our recent trip and were equally impressed with both. Not only do they have a great selection of local and international craft beer on tap (not talking just real ale… woof), but they also have a nice bottle selection including Cantillon and Drei Fonteinen. Everything was reasonably priced and the service was great. They sell bottles to go with about a 30% discount. This particular location has a nice covered, outdoor standing area with wine barrels for tables and heat lamps. I’d highly recommend this place to anyone look for good craft beer in London.

A wide beer selection of a lot of neat english microbrews (which I didn’t know was a thing). There’s a decent amount of seating with the downstairs area as well. The bartenders are knowledgable and can point you in the right direction.

I don’t know how many beers they exactly have on tap but this is an amazing place with the longest tap I have seen in London yet. If you like craft beers, this is the place to go when in the area!

Reasonably priced, fantastic beer selection, although availability can be spotty.
There’s nothing like walking into a British Pub and seeing a 20 metre long bar filled with keg ales: IPAs, Ciders, Stouts/​Porters/​Lagers, etc. The selection looks quite impressive! It was slightly disappointing when we got the bartender’s attention that the first two beers I chose off of the menu were no longer available. (sigh)
The Porter they had on tap was glorious: silky, deep and reasonably priced. The apple cider I had to follow it half an hour later was light, crisp, and without the saccharine flavour that ciders often have.
This establishment is located in a high traffic area, represents good value, and is clearly an after-​work place for many, though you do not see too many «businessmen» types on their smartphones, etc. It’s rather a nice pub to chat up your mate after a busy day, and leave the worries of the office behind. As an added bonus, the bartenders have good knowledge of the different beers they’ve got on tap.
Would definitely return!

Woop woop, eventually a pub with lots of exciting brews! Many local ones and probably others too. Nice staff and fun to sit there and drink while people watching!
Great for beer nerds and lovers of beer in general

I came here for a friend’s birthday, earlier this year.
I am not a huge drinker and would probably never have tried this place out on my own, but I am so glad that I tagged along on this birthday adventure.
The Craft Beer Co has an intimidating number of taps along the bar. I mean that in a good way. Even your pickiest friend (cough. me.) will find something tasty to sip. They have your standard brews and then a huge selection of beers of all varieties from all over the world.
I was there on a very crowded night and the staff was super patient/​helpful/​willing to let me try a bunch of stuff and ask a bunch of questions until I found something I really enjoyed.
It was pretty costly, but I guess that’s normal for fancy schmancy beer. We sat in the crowded downstairs section and enjoyed our drinks. If I return, I will try out the interesting looking bar snacks, advertised on blackboards around the bar.

The main attraction here is the long row of beers and the staff who are willing to guide you through them. Maybe I have been particularly lucky with my barmen, but I always get shown a few really good ones i’ve not heard of. There is place outside for some people watching if you can stand the main road and the food is not bad at all, if not really a reason to come.
On a Saturday there is a good mix of people here and some friendly happy tourists. In the week, mainly workers. Service is always quick. Either way, I’ve never failed to have a good time here.

Large selection of taps & the staff is knowledgable to help the newcomer who doesn’t know the brands match one (or more!) to their taste.
Lively, packed with fun/​friendly people willing to chat with foreigners like us… On our 2^nd visit, we closed the place.

This place is amazing. It has an incredible selection of taps that change quite quickly. The staff is knowledgeable and friendly. There is plenty of seating downstairs, and even though they’re often busy, the staff does a good job keeping the tables clean.
My only complaints, and they are trivial, is that the beer taps change too quickly. I’m often left missing some new great beer I just discovered here the previous week. Also, the outside drinking area is confined. If you don’t get here early, you’ll likely be squeezing between people either inside or out.
I guess that’s the price of success. It won’t keep me away, as this has become a regular hangout.

Went for just a pint of Ale.
The bar is alright, but as I researched the Craft Beer Co. before, I did expect a bit more. I did expect a more quirky bar with some attention to detail inside. The bar was «nice» but nothing special about it.
The downstairs room is not very inviting due to the lighting and colours.
We stayed upstairs and shared a table as it was busy.
Probably not visiting again.

I’ve been to both this Craft Beer Co. and the one in Islington. Was beyond impressed by the selection of beer, as well as the utterly fantastic burgers and chips. The staff was friendly and helpful in suggesting the hoppiest beer they had. The prices are a little high for the beers, but I guess with the import costs that’s unavoidable.
I will say that this location was very busy after work on a weeknight, but that’s to be expected, given the location.

I only tried one of the Indian pale ales and only stayed for a little bit, but a few things struck me so I thought I’d write a review:
1) getting served at this bar is really difficult! They seem to have a trillion bar staff but even so I had to wait over five minutes to get pint.
2) Downstairs STINKS, or at least it did when I visited. I can’t even describe the smell, it was a mix of sweat/​beer/​BO.
3) The bar itself is a work of art, with all the taps and polished wood.
4) I would very much like to try one of their group tastings to get more out of the experience.

Fab selection of beers and knowledgeable staff. It’s also a great meeting place in terms of location. It really joins so many neighbourhoods together!
I went in without an idea of what beer I’d like and after a few moments of speaking to the bar staff, I tried a few beers and found the perfect one for the night. I’ve been to the other locations too and also, a good experience. I think this chain is a much welcomed one.
The bar isn’t massive upstairs but there’s more space downstairs and barrels outside to stand against. Overall, a great place to pop in for a catchup with friends.

3.5 Stars — Great craft beer pub. Easily my favourite in London. Definitely the largest selection with approximately 40 taps…
The Tap menu changed daily and they even had a «Tap Takeover» during the week I was there. Staff were very knowledgeable about the beer and able to make good recommendations. I liked the detailed daily beer menus. They have an «OK» bottle selection.
The bar itself is a good size. A giant room downstairs, an enclosed section on the sidewalk and decent size bar area on the main floor.
The food menu is primarily burgers and they were good — above average for a beer pub in my opinion.
There were a few negatives…
— I stopped by 4 times in a week (between 8−10pm) and they were out of many selections each time, but didn’t add new kegs. One evening, at least 50% of what I ordered wasn’t available. Why not tap new kegs?
— Awkward bar set up. The taps sit on the main bar as opposed to being behind it. It’s awkward talking to the bartenders, paying for your beer and getting your beers served to you.
I look forward to visiting again. This would easily be a 4 star review if there were not so many empty taps mid– evening.
BK

I am from the USA so we have an extensive selection of craft beer bars so maybe I am just spoiled, but I was not that impressed with The Craft Beer Co. First off I asked to see the bottle list and every single bottle I wanted was out of stock. That is kind of a pet peeve of mine when a bar can’t find a way to keep their list up to date. I ended up having an IPA from Kernel which was good considering I am used to all the great California IPAs. The bartender was nice and was patient when everything I wanted was out of stock. We asked if they served food and he said yes downstairs. So we went downstairs and it was completely empty of people. There were no customers (other than using the bathroom) and no employees. We basically sat in an empty room for 15 minutes drinking our beers and decided enough was enough and left.

Amazing selection of craft brews, including mead, barley wine & cider. The selection is ever changing, so there’s no chance of getting bored (not that you could even if they always kept the same selection on tap as there must be 30+, not including all the bottled options).
Their food selection, although limited, is also a little adventurous and good quality. We tried an Elvis burger (bacon, banana, peanut butter), which everyone should have at least once.
The venue itself lacks character & upstairs space although they have a good sized downstairs area. The only down side was that the air conditioner wasn’t working properly and it was baking. Despite this, I’m still giving it 5 stars as it’s great to see someone providing options for those who want to enjoy excellent quality brews.

Thanks to Grant for recommending the craft beer co for my leaving do. Neither of us had been before, and I needed a good venue to keep people happy :) As for myself, I’m not a beer drinker (or much of a drinker in general), but they have 45 beers on top, and everything looked so good — I wished that I actually drank beer at this point!
I would’ve loved to be upstairs with more sunshine and light around, but they had a large space downstairs to accommodate everyone. If you’re feeling like its a bit stuffy downstairs, just ask them to turn on the AC, cuz it was sweltering when I first went down.
Anyway, we started the party around 4pm, and guests kept coming and going through the day — and a small group of us ended up sticking around till 1:30am playing Kings. It was nice that we didn’t get kicked out or anything during that time, though, I figured that this was a good location where if we got bored (which we didn’t), we could move on somewhere else.
Ahhh, the food was the other reason why I thought this place would’ve been good — ppl could get a meal out of it instead of just nibbles. I had the heat burger, which was dipped in hot sauce, and topped with a generous slab of stilton (yum!), the thing that pulled the whole burger down was the fact that the beef was cooked medium well, so it was dry and not juicy at all. The bun was slightly stale. We also had a quick chat w/​the manager about that and he said if we really really really wanted they patty cooked less, then they could do it but they were trying to follow gov’t regulations (though to be fair, this is the first burger place I’ve come to which state their their burgers are cooked medium well).
I had the parmasan truffle chips, which were really good. I don’t think anyone really fancied the bacon dust chips. It really was just «dust» and Grant is right, it didn’t add anything. Even bacon salt would’ve been better on this.
Overall, I had a great time, the servers were nice. Hopefully Forty Burgers will start cooking their patties just a little bit on the medium /​medium rare side, otherwise, I’d recommend just to come here for drinks and small nibbles, and to have a full meal elsewhere.

I suggested this place for Becky H.‘s leaving drinks because I’d heard good things about it. They also have 45 beers on tap and a bunch of bottles. So everyone should find something here. Plus burgers. And burgers that none of us had tried. So that’s always incentive.
So the beer selection is immense. And varying in price. There are pints of beer that are delicious and cost about your average London beer price, there are half pints of guest ales that are more expensive and also quite tasty, then there are bottles of beer that are full on alcoholic and cost as much as a bottle of wine (to be fair, they do run 660mL to 750mL so they’re practically as big as a bottle of wine as well). And they were all really tasty. They even have hipster Belgian sour beer if that’s your thing (hipsters).
Unfortunately, the burgers are what bring the rating down a star. Andrew and I split the Heat (a burger double dipped in buffalo sauce with blue cheese) and the Elvis (a burger with peanut butter, banana and bacon). The burgers were nice, and the toppings really were tasty. Unfortunately, they have to cook their burgers medium well. Apparently it’s guidelines for a pub made by the government to prevent E. coli poisoning (which explains to me now why almost every pub I’ve been to has overcooked burgers). How a pub has to do it this way and EVERY OTHER burger place in town can get away with medium rare burgers is beyond me. So unfortunately the burgers were dry. I also got chips with bacon dust and it didn’t really add anything, definitely go with the parmesan and truffle. They do provide a selection of sauces, which is nice though.
The venue itself consists of two floors. Because we were a big party we were downstairs (not that I was surprised), but the upstairs area is quite nice with the view of the bar and some outdoor areas. Once they turned the AC on downstairs, we were happy campers though.
So yeah I’d be back here in a heartbeat. For the beer. The burgers weren’t bad enough that I wouldn’t order it again if we were here and needed something to eat, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to come here for a burger either.

Are you kidding me? This outstanding mecca of craft beer, largely from the UK, is directly across the street from our London office. How have I missed this before? Perhaps because I’d always drink with colleagues at more traditional British pubs, often serving the same old stuff. The Craft Beer Co is anything but traditional. It’s bright and clean inside, with a gleaming row of taps and cask pumps. With so many local craft beer selections, many of them in the high-​octane American style, the instinct is to want to try everything. To avoid getting too smashed and still enjoy what you’re drinking, opt for half pint servings!
The food here is also quite outstanding, with an emphasis on the fresh and flavorful.
Craft Beer Co is highly, HIGHLY recommended if you love your beer!

This place is indeed spankin’ new and I’ll gladly write the first review!
Hubby and I were walking around Covent Garden this past weekend after a failed attempt to visit a nearby exhibition. It was hot, it was muggy, it was crowded. We needed beer, basically.
We knew Craft Beer Co had opened a pub nearby recently and we finally found it. We waltzed up to the counter and asked the bartender for something that was ‘light, refreshing, but very flavourful’. He pointed us to one of the IPAs, and it was such a spot-​on recommendation.
What was even better was when we found this massive lounge downstairs, air-​conditioned and with great seats and tables. Such a relief and with a tasty IPA to boot!
Because both the location and the company are relatively new, there is a nice clean feeling when you go inside. The drawback is that it lacks a bit of charm and character that other long-​established pubs have. But if you’re looking for a place around Holborn/​Covent Garden to have a few drinks and laughs, this will do the trick!