Hackney Wick doesn't get talked about as much as Bermondsey when Londoners argue over the capital's best brewery neighbourhood, but the canalside pocket around Queen's Yard has quietly built one of the most characterful little beer quarters in the city. We run our own guided tastings here — the Hackney Wick Craft Beer Experience — alongside our flagship Bermondsey Beer Tasting Tour, so we know this stretch of towpath reasonably well: which taprooms are worth building an afternoon around, how it differs from Bermondsey's tighter arch-to-arch crawl, and what to expect if you turn up without a guide.
Where is the Hackney Wick brewery cluster?
The centre of gravity is Queen's Yard, a former industrial courtyard just off the Hertford Union Canal towpath in Hackney Wick, E9, with more bars and small producers spread across the water in Fish Island. It's a different shape of neighbourhood to Bermondsey: rather than a tight run of railway arches you can hop between in a couple of minutes, Hackney Wick is looser and more spread along the canal, mixing breweries with artists' studios, converted warehouses and the odd waterside café. It's an easy area to enjoy at a wander rather than a sprint.
The breweries and taprooms
Small London breweries open, move and occasionally close, so treat any list as a starting point rather than gospel — always check a venue's own website or Instagram before you make a special trip. That said, the two names most people mean when they say "Hackney Wick breweries" are:
- Crate Brewery — right on the canal at Queen's Yard, combining brewing with a pizzeria and a terrace that's one of the nicest spots to drink by the water in East London. It's also the meeting point for our own guided tasting.
- Howling Hops — known for serving beer straight from conditioning tanks rather than through casks or kegs, which gives it a genuinely different pour and a slightly nerdier crowd than most taprooms.
Beyond those two anchors, the wider Fish Island and Queen's Yard area has seen a rotating cast of smaller producers, bottle shops and bars come and go over the years as the neighbourhood has developed, so it's worth an afternoon of exploring rather than assuming the map is fixed. For a wider view of where Hackney Wick sits within East London's brewing scene, our roundup of London's best breweries, area by area covers Hackney and Hackney Wick alongside the rest of the city.
Hackney Wick vs the Bermondsey Beer Mile
We're obviously biased, having run tours on the Bermondsey Beer Mile since 2014, but here's a fair comparison. Bermondsey packs ten-plus independent breweries into a genuinely walkable stretch of railway arches, which is why our tour there can hit four taprooms in one afternoon with a beer included at every stop. Hackney Wick is smaller and more spread out, built around a canal rather than a single street, with a distinctly creative, studio-and-warehouse atmosphere that comes from sharing the neighbourhood with artists rather than other breweries. Both are genuine, working beer neighbourhoods rather than anything manufactured for tourists — they just have different personalities, and it's worth visiting both if you can.
If you enjoy this kind of canalside, spread-out brewery crawl, it's also worth reading our guide to the Blackhorse Beer Mile in Walthamstow, another East London cluster with a similar looser, more local feel than Bermondsey's tight arches.
Getting there
Hackney Wick station, on the London Overground, is the simplest way in and sits only a few minutes' walk from Queen's Yard. If you're coming from the Central, Jubilee or DLR lines, Stratford is also close by, with a pleasant walk across the canal and into Fish Island from there. Unlike Bermondsey, where everything sits within a few hundred metres of London Bridge, Hackney Wick rewards a bit more legwork — bring comfortable shoes and expect to walk along the towpath between stops.
Opening hours (read this before you travel)
As with most of London's independent brewery clusters, Hackney Wick's taprooms are generally most reliable at weekends, with reduced hours or closures earlier in the week. Don't assume a venue will be open on a quiet Tuesday afternoon — always check the brewery's own website or social media for current hours before you travel, particularly if Hackney Wick is the only reason for your trip out to E9. Saturday is by far the safest day to guarantee things are open, which is also why our own guided tasting here runs on selected Saturdays.
Food and other things nearby
Hackney Wick and Fish Island have grown into a genuine food-and-culture destination alongside the breweries, with independent cafés, street food and a strong studio-and-gallery scene dotted around the converted warehouses. The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and the canal towpath both sit right on the doorstep, making it easy to turn a brewery visit into a longer walk along the water. It's a different kind of "day out" pairing to Bermondsey, where Maltby Street Market sits conveniently mid-route — here, the canal itself, rather than a food market, is the main attraction between drinks. Plenty of visitors combine a Hackney Wick afternoon with a walk through the Olympic Park, so it's worth allowing more time than you would for a purely brewery-focused trip.
Our guided option: the Hackney Wick Craft Beer Experience
If you'd rather have someone else handle the route and the introductions, our Hackney Wick Craft Beer Experience is a two-hour guided tasting led by a working brewer, taking in three venues and five beers plus a shareable cheese platter (a vegan alternative is available if you let us know when booking), for £41.25 per person on selected Saturdays from 12:30pm to 2:30pm. It meets outside Crate Brewery's car park at The White Building, Unit 7 Queens Yard, London E9 5EN — nearest station Hackney Wick — and covers around a mile of flat, step-free walking, so it's wheelchair accessible throughout. Because your guide actually brews for a living, you get a proper behind-the-scenes take on the ingredients and process, not just tasting notes.
Bringing a group, or gifting the experience
We run private tastings for groups of 6 up to 60+ across all three of our tours — the Bermondsey Beer Tasting Tour, the Cheese, Meat & Beer Tour, and the Hackney Wick Craft Beer Experience — see our private and group tours page for details. Gift vouchers are bought directly on our gift vouchers page, delivered instantly by email and never expiring, which makes a reliable last-minute gift for anyone who'd enjoy a proper look behind the taps.
Tips for visiting Hackney Wick's breweries
- Go on a Saturday if you want every venue open and at its liveliest — weekday visits can mean closed doors.
- Book ahead for Howling Hops' tank bar if you're set on trying tank-conditioned beer, as it can get busy at peak times.
- Bring cash or a card for outdoor stalls — some smaller producers and pop-ups around Fish Island don't always take every payment method.
- Pace yourself along the towpath — the walking distances are longer than Bermondsey's tight arches, so factor that into how many stops you plan.
- Check hours before you travel — small breweries change their days and times more often than you'd expect.