Howling Hops Brewery and Tank Bar

Ten conditioning tanks of a thousand litres each stand behind the bar and the beer is poured straight out of them, so it has never been in a keg, a cask or a bottle.

Why go

The brewery started in 2012 in the cellar of the Cock Tavern in Hackney, which Pete Holt of the Southampton Arms had just reopened, on a 6.5hl kit that Camden Town had previously run at the Horseshoe in Hampstead. It took its name from Howlin' Wolf and brewed over a hundred different beers in its first two years under Tim O'Rourke. In June 2015 the brewing moved into a warehouse at Hackney Wick and became what Des de Moor records as the UK's first dedicated tank bar: a 25hl Bavarian Brewing Technologies plant filling ten 1,000 litre conditioning tanks that are the back bar (ref). The consequence is a narrow list and very fresh beer. There is a second bar opposite for wine, spirits and anything that is not theirs, and the kitchen is a residency rather than a fixed menu.

Order this / avoid

• Order: whatever is in the tanks, and preferably the lager, because unpasteurised lager poured direct is the format doing the thing it is for. Then eat: La Cumbia have the kitchen, run by chef Oscar Bernal, and it is Latin cooking with a European lean rather than a taproom burger.
• Avoid: coming for breadth. Ten taps, all Howling Hops. And do not walk in with eight people on a Saturday without booking, because the venue says plainly that the space fills up.

What locals & experts say

• Fred Waltman, London Beer Guide, in the guide's own verdict line: "Super cool brewery tap with dedicated 'tank bar'." His survey records ten keg taps at Unit 9A Queen's Yard, open from noon daily. Two signed reader notes sit below that on the same page and are visitors' words rather than his. ref
• Des de Moor, author of CAMRA's London beer guides, on what was built here: "a much bigger 25 hl kit from Bavarian Brewing Technologies is used to fill a battery of 10 1,000 l conditioning tanks lined up behind the bar from which beer is poured directly." Reference reporting rather than a review. ref
• The venue's own claim, which is a fact rather than a boast because the hardware backs it: "10 big tanks with 10 different beers behind a 10 meter long bar." ref
• CAMRA's brewery register, on how the list is built now: "The beer range, as well as the artwork, was revamped in 2024 based around different styles and then a series of each one with different hops or ingredients." That is the rotation stated as method rather than as marketing. ref
• No chef vote and no critic tasting note found. places-db/london/data/chef-votes.jsonl was searched on 1 August 2026 with nothing for Howling Hops, and no bylined tasting verdict on the beer was reached.

Good to know

• Where: Unit 9A Queen's Yard, White Post Lane, Hackney Wick E9 5EN, a short walk from Hackney Wick Overground and next door to Crate.
• Timing: noon to 11pm Sunday to Thursday, noon to 1.30am Friday and Saturday. Kitchen noon to 10pm daily.
• Booking: walk in. Parties over six should book, particularly at weekends.
• Still open: Queen's Yard is being redeveloped around it, so this was checked rather than assumed. An FSA inspection on 12 November 2025, a beer-guide record updated in January 2026 and the venue's own current hours all say trading, and no closure announcement was found.
• Hygiene: the FSA records rating 5, inspected 12 November 2025, with components 5, 0 and 0, where lower is better. ref
• Michelin: not recorded either way. Our cached Michelin data is stars only and a taproom sits outside the restaurant guide.

Jeff's take (his words)

Jeff has no note on this one. The saved-places export carries an empty Note for the row, so jeff_note stays empty and nothing here is attributed to him. The master spreadsheet's one-line description was an enrichment lead and has been replaced by the fetched facts.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

should-visit — Ten conditioning tanks of a thousand litres each, lined up behind a ten metre bar, with the brewery directly behind them and the beer poured out of the tank into the glass. No keg, no cask, no bottle, no pasteurisation. Howling Hops started in the cellar of the Cock Tavern in Hackney in 2012 on a 6.5hl kit that Camden Town had used in a Hampstead pub, named itself after Howlin' Wolf, and got through more than a hundred beers in two years before moving here in June 2015 on a 25hl Bavarian plant. What you are buying is freshness rather than range, and the trade-off is real: everything on those taps is theirs. La Cumbia have the kitchen, run by Oscar Bernal, doing Latin cooking until 10pm, which is a step up from taproom pizza. Open from midday daily and until 1.30am on Friday and Saturday. It holds at should-visit rather than higher because the format is the achievement and no critic we can reach has assessed the beer itself.