Gipsy Hill Brewing Co. Taproom

Gipsy Hill Brewing Co. began brewing in July 2014, founded by Sam McMeekin and Charlie Shaw, who had met behind the bar at Borough Market's craft-beer institution The Rake. It grew into one of the larger independent breweries in South London, became employee-owned in 2021, and in 2024 was acquired by Sunrise Alliance Beverages; the West Norwood site has continued to brew and to run its taproom throughout. The taproom sits in Unit 5 of the Hamilton Road industrial estate, a short walk from both West Norwood and Gipsy Hill stations, directly across the yard from the brewhouse that supplies it.

The room itself is a straightforward one-room brewery tap: a long bar with up to a dozen keg lines, two handpumps for real ale and cider, three large fridges of cans for drinking in or taking away, and rows of wooden barrels where beer ages in view of drinkers. There is bench seating inside and an outdoor yard, with rotating local street-food traders and free Yard Sale Pizza delivery every day the taproom is open.

For non-drinkers the draw is that the alcohol-free option is brewed on the premises rather than bought in. HepcAF, launched in January 2023, is a 0.5% ABV alcohol-free IPA developed from the base recipe of Hepcat — Gipsy Hill's flagship IPA — with adjustments to the fermentable sugars and yeast, then dry-hopped with the same Citra, Mosaic, Ekuanot and Mouteka blend. The result pours a hazy amber with a tropical, citrus-forward nose and real hop bitterness, and it is a fixture in the taproom's fridges. Beyond HepcAF the bar keeps a rotating selection of low- and no-alcohol beers from Gipsy Hill and guest breweries, so a non-drinker can work through several genuine options in a session rather than defaulting to a soft drink.