The Kernel Brewery

Kernel was the first London brewery to put beer back in oak tuns, in late 2014, and the list still runs an Export Stout London 1890 and an 1840 that has been sitting in cognac and red wine barrels since 2018.

Why go

Evin O'Riordan worked for Neal's Yard Dairy, and the job took him to New York, where he met brewers with the same habits as the small cheesemakers he already knew. He came back, went from homebrewer to professional, and sold his first beer on 1 December 2009 out of a shared arch on Druid Street. Selling to the public from the back of that arch on Saturdays is where the Bermondsey Beer Mile came from, and Des de Moor credits it with starting the capital's taproom scene as well (ref). The brewing sits at Arch 11 on Dockley Road on a 32hl plant turning out around 10,000hl a year, and that arch is closed to the public. What you can walk into is 132 Spa Road, which opened on 8 August 2024: twenty-five keg taps, two handpumps and about thirty bottles and cans (CAMRA, London Beer Guide). The pale ales are one recipe with the hop changed, so the list reads as a controlled experiment.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the Export Stout London 1890 at 7.2%, because a recreated nineteenth-century London stout is the thing here that exists almost nowhere else. The Ordinary Bitter at 4.2% off the handpump, which people forget Kernel makes. Then two of the single-hop pales side by side, Mosaic against Elani, same 5.2% recipe.
• Avoid: Monday and Tuesday, when it is shut, and Sunday after 8pm. Do not go hunting for the brewery arch on Dockley Road expecting a drink.

What locals & experts say

• Des de Moor, author of CAMRA's London beer guides, in his brewery reference (updated 21 October 2024): "Evin thus became the inadvertent founder not only of the Bermondsey 'beer mile' but also of the capital's taproom scene by selling to the public from the rear of the arch on Saturdays alongside several neighbouring businesses." The same page dates the foeders to late 2014 and calls it the first restoration of oak-tun ageing in London brewing. This is reference reporting rather than a review. ref
• Fred Waltman, London Beer Guide, in the guide's own line: "New purpose built tap room for the excellent Kernel Brewery in Bermondsey." His survey is where the hardware count comes from. A separate signed reader note on the page, from Steve, calls it "a step up from the already excellent Arch 7"; that is a visitor's words, not the guide's. ref
• CAMRA's South East London branch, who surveyed it on 17 January 2026, record the bar as "equipped with 2 handpumps and 25 keg taps plus bottled beers, many of which meet CAMRA definitions of 'bottle conditioned beer'". ref
• No chef or bartender vote found. places-db/london/data/chef-votes.jsonl was searched on 1 August 2026 and holds nothing for Kernel. The rung here rests on craft evidence rather than on a practitioner's word, and that is stated rather than hidden.

Good to know

• Where: 132 Spa Road SE16 3AE, ground floor of a new residential block, about halfway along the Bermondsey Beer Mile. Bermondsey tube, London Bridge rail.
• Timing: Wednesday to Friday 12pm to 10pm, Saturday 11am to 9pm, Sunday 12pm to 8pm, plus Bank Holiday Mondays 12pm to 8pm. Closed Monday and Tuesday otherwise.
• Booking: walk in for one to three. Four or more can book. Saturdays take only parties of 20 to 30, which is an unusual rule and worth knowing before you plan a group.
• Food: a kitchen residency with Yagi Izakaya doing gyoza, udon and karaage, extended for the whole of 2026. The kitchen opens at 5pm on Wednesdays.
• Hygiene: the taproom has no food-business registration of its own. The kitchen is registered to the residency: Yagi izakaya, 132 Spa Road, rating 5 at the inspection of 3 October 2024, with components 5, 0 and 5, 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)

must-visit — Evin O'Riordan was selling cheese for Neal's Yard Dairy, met brewers in New York who worked the way cheesemakers do, came home and sold his first beer on 1 December 2009 out of a railway arch on Druid Street. Selling to walk-ups from the back of that arch on Saturdays is how the Bermondsey Beer Mile started and, per Des de Moor, how London's taproom scene started too. The brewing is the reason to plan a day around it. In late 2014 Kernel became the first London brewery to bring back oak-tun ageing, and the list still carries an Export Stout London 1890 and an Export Stout 1840 sitting in cognac and red wine barrels since 2018, which are nineteenth-century London beers almost nobody else attempts. The pales are the same recipe with the hop swapped, so you can taste one variable at a time. Twenty-five keg taps, two handpumps and about thirty bottles, in a room that opened in August 2024 on the ground floor of a block of flats round the corner from the brewery. Go Wednesday to Sunday; the arch on Dockley Road is production and will not let you in.