Bird House Brewery - Herne Hill

2025-09-26

Address: Arch 1127, Bath Factory Estate, 41 Norwood Rd, London SE24 9AJ

We came for a beer festival, so they had heeeaps of stuff on. We have tried to review as if things were just normal here. (Arthur's been here a couple times before).

Pouring from: Not sure what's on usually. No ales though I don't think.

We drank: A lot

Under arch tap room with a spacious clean interior. Serves their own beers exclusively I think. Have wines and cocktails and stuff too of course - it is Herne Hill of course.

Outside of the tap room is a narrow corridor fortunately blocking most of the road noise (but not all). Good amount of seating all around. I have been here in summer and it's very popular, so even with all the seating, it can be hard to get spot. Normally sells pizzas which look good. They had a BBQ jobby here for the festival.

Not to whine too much... But bloody hell why can't pubs ever get music right. The festival had a band on which so very very fortunately were playing some light jazzy stuff (Watermelon Man was one of the tracks). We were so happy it was not regular one man with an acoustic guitar. But once the band started, for some strange reason, the venue not only not turn off the music playing, they actually turned it up. It was louder than the band. Honestly, what the fuck.

Once they finally turned the music for the band it was fine. But once they left, they put on the music just far too loud. It was down tempo dance/house thing with a strong world vibe to it (African drums and vocals) - nothing wrong with it but absolutely not needed at 8.15 on a Thursday.

Absolutely lost half a point (and probably could've been more) for music alone.

Toilet situation could be improved. They did have a lot, but there are only 2 "advertised" with any signage. No unrinals that we could find. After asking. Though, turns out there are heaps, just hidden away (and not with hand drying facilities). Very odd they don't even have a little sign up or anything. Not all toilets had soap and hand drying facilities - eww.

Overall rating given is very hard to give given we weren't here on anything like a normal night.

The place was pretty empty to begin with.

But obviously got much busier later into the night.

Ratings

Beer: good if you like Bird House beers

Atmosphere/Space: 3

Overall: 3.2