We get asked some version of this most weeks: "if we only get one day for craft beer in London, how should we spend it?" After running tours here since 2014, we've a pretty settled answer. This is the itinerary we'd actually follow ourselves on a Saturday: a free morning walk, two guided tours that share a meeting point, and an order that builds rather than burns out. It works as a solo treat, a couple's day out, or a group booking for a birthday, stag, hen or work social.
The itinerary at a glance
- 9:30am–11:30am — Free self-guided heritage walk through Southwark's brewing history
- 12:00pm–2:30pm — Cheese, Meat & Beer Tour (food and beer, at a gentle pace)
- 3:00pm onwards — Bermondsey Beer Tasting Tour (a later start slot)
- Early evening — A slower nightcap to close the day
Each is booked on its own, and any one of them stands up as an afternoon in its own right. Stacked in this order, though, they make a proper day out — and because the walk, the pairing tour and the tasting tour all start within a few doors of each other on Druid Street, you never have to plan a journey between them.
9:30am — Start with the history, before the drinking starts
We always recommend beginning with our heritage walk, a relaxed two-hour self-guided walk (free, no beer) through the streets where London actually brewed for centuries. You'll pass Borough Market, the site of the old Anchor Brewery, the Victorian Hop Exchange and The George Inn — a Grade I-listed coaching inn — before finishing at Southwark Brewing Co on Druid Street, which is also exactly where the afternoon tour begins. It's a genuinely interesting couple of hours in its own right, and it means that by the time the beer starts, you already understand why this particular corner of South East London became a brewing heartland in the first place. For the longer version of that story, our short history of London beer covers the porter era through to the 1814 Beer Flood and the modern craft revival.
12pm — Cheese, meat and beer to line the stomach
At noon, the walk hands straight over to our Cheese, Meat & Beer Tour — £65pp, two and a half hours, starting with a welcome drink at Southwark Brewery. It's the right thing to do first because it comes with food: British cheese and charcuterie matched to the beers across three taprooms, with your guide explaining why each pairing works. Groups are capped at around 13, so it stays conversational, and you finish having eaten properly rather than three pints deep on an empty stomach.
A lunch stop at Maltby Street Market
Maltby Street Market sits roughly mid-route on the Mile, and it's the smartest food stop of the day — a row of independent stalls and kitchens under the railway arches, doing everything from freshly shucked oysters to proper wood-fired pizza. It sits a short walk from both meeting points, so it's the obvious place to fill any gap between the two tours — and worth arriving with an appetite. We've written a full local's guide to Maltby Street Market if you want to know which stalls to prioritise and when the queues are shortest.
3pm — Onto the Bermondsey Beer Mile
With lunch handled, pick a mid-afternoon start slot for our Bermondsey Beer Tasting Tour — £49pp, 2–3.5 hours, and the most educational part of the day. Accredited Beer Sommelier and Certified Cicerone® Paul Davies hosts a tutored tasting at four of the mile's best railway-arch taprooms, covering the sensory evaluation techniques beer judges use and the history behind each style. Start times run right through to 6:30pm, so there's room to shuffle this later if lunch overruns. If you're weighing up whether a guided day beats doing it solo, our guide to London's best breweries, area by area is a useful comparison.
Early evening — how to close out the day
By early evening you'll have covered history, seven taprooms between the two tours and a proper feed, which is plenty for most people — but if you've got energy left, Bermondsey and London Bridge give you good options nearby. A quieter pint at one of the area's historic London pubs makes a fitting bookend to a day that started with heritage, or if you'd rather browse rather than drink, several craft beer bottle shops near London Bridge are open into the evening if you want to take a few bottles home. Either way, we'd suggest treating this stretch as optional and led by how the group is feeling rather than something to force.
What the day costs
The heritage walk is free, the Cheese, Meat & Beer Tour is £65pp and the Bermondsey Beer Tasting Tour is £49pp — so the full day comes to £114 per person, with food and all your tastings included. Each is ticketed separately, so you can drop either one and still have a very good day. If you'd rather keep it to one tour and a shorter afternoon, the tasting tour alone at £49 is the piece most people would keep.
Who this day suits (and who it doesn't)
This itinerary works well for couples marking an occasion, small friend groups, and private bookings — we host groups of 6 to 60+, so it scales from a pair to a full work social or stag/hen weekend without much changing about the structure. It's less suited to anyone wanting a quiet, low-key visit; a walk plus two guided tours is a full day, not a gentle stroll. If that's more what you're after, the free heritage walk on its own, or a single tour, are both perfectly good half-day alternatives — see our note on picking the right brewery tour for how to weigh that up.
It's also a genuinely good fit for visitors squeezing London into a single day, since the whole thing runs on foot within a compact stretch of Bermondsey rather than requiring tube hops across the city. Everything — the walk, the Mile, the market and the tasting venue — sits within about a mile of Southwark Brewing Co on Druid St, so you're never more than a short stroll from the next stop.
When to do it
The full day works year-round, but a few things shift with the season. Weekends in summer are the busiest, when the taproom yards and Maltby Street Market are at their best but book up fastest — reserve well ahead if you want a particular Saturday. Weekdays are quieter and easier to arrange at short notice, and a handful of venues on the Mile keep slightly shorter hours on Sundays. Note that the Cheese, Meat & Beer Tour runs on Saturdays only, which in practice fixes the day for this itinerary. Winter is a perfectly good time too — the arches themselves are indoors, and a late-afternoon tasting slot feels especially well-timed once it's dark by 5pm.
Good to know before you go
- Book ahead: weekend dates and any group booking sell out, especially in summer.
- Wear comfortable shoes: you're on your feet for most of the day, walking between venues.
- Book the Saturday: the Cheese, Meat & Beer Tour only runs on Saturdays, so that sets the date for the whole plan.
- Pace the beer: two tours across an afternoon is manageable if you drink in thirds and halves rather than racing.
- Bring ID: it's an over-18s day and you may be asked to prove your age.
Book the day, or gift it
If this sounds like your kind of day out, book the two tours for the same Saturday, or start with whichever single piece fits your schedule. It also makes a genuinely memorable present — our gift vouchers are delivered instantly by email and never expire, so the lucky recipient can pick their own date and build the day exactly as they like it. For larger groups, see private & group tours for how we handle bigger bookings.