London Craft Beer Festival 2026: The Best Beers We Tried

23 beer tastings and three standout craft beers: Anspach & Hobday London Black, St Ives Brewery Slipway and Oakham Ales Citra. Beer, Together goes live from Southwark Park for our most chaotic episode yet — tasting nitro stout, New England IPA, session IPA, pale ale, lambic, sour beer, wheat beer and more while becoming steadily less capable of recording a podcast. We begin with London Black by Anspach & Hobday, the 4.4% nitro porter brewed in South London. Is it simply London’s answer to Guinness, or does its creamy mouthfeel, roast coffee, chocolate, red-fruit sweetness and softer bitterness make it a genuinely different stout? We compare London Black with Guinness, discuss why nitro changes the texture, and match it with oysters, barbecue meat, slow-cooked dishes and chocolate brownies. Next is Slipway from St Ives Brewery: a 5% New England IPA brewed with Simcoe and Idaho 7 hops. Expect apricot, passion fruit, peach, floral aromas, gentle spice and a soft oat-led mouthfeel. It became one of our favourite beers of the entire London Craft Beer Festival, prompting comparisons with Beavertown Neck Oil and a debate over whether Slipway is the fuller, fruitier and more satisfying session IPA. We also cover its alcohol-free version and pair it with fish tacos, grilled chicken, burgers, spicy street food, citrus salads and creamy cheese. Our third featured beer is Oakham Ales Citra, one of the UK’s best-known single-hop beers. We explore how Oakham helped introduce the Citra hop to British drinkers, why the beer’s grapefruit, lychee, gooseberry and mango flavours still stand out, and how its dry bitterness avoids becoming another thick “fruit juice” IPA. We also discuss its Champion Golden Beer of Britain wins and why Citra works with pizza, tomato and basil dishes, spicy Asian food, beef and venison. The festival promises around 800 beers from breweries across London, Britain and beyond, but our ambition quickly collides with heat, loud music and generous pours. This episode captures the real London Craft Beer Festival atmosphere in Southwark Park: packed brewery tents, traditional hand-pulled ales, neon-lit craft beer bars and two hosts attempting to keep useful tasting notes. Those are only the three favourites. Along the way we also taste Orbit Beers’ tzatziki sour and Peel Belgian wit, Five Points XPA, Radio City Shortwave table beer, Timmermans Kriek Black Pepper lambic, Signature Brew Roadie session IPA, Proper Job, Mad Squirrel Roadkill and several beers we can no longer reliably identify. There are cherry sweets, banana foam sweets, cucumber battery acid, rave music, questionable counting and an unsuccessful attempt to find Vault City’s Iron Brew sour. We compare modern craft beer stands with traditional cask ale breweries, explain lambic fermentation and coolships, discuss food pairings, and discover exactly what happens when two podcast hosts try to sample more than 20 beers in one afternoon. Which beer won the day: London Black, Slipway or Citra? Was the Timmermans cherry lambic genuinely vile, or was Elton simply defeated by cherries? Can a 2.8% table beer still have real body? And at what point did “responsible tasting” become “we are still ambulatory”? This is Beer, Together at the London Craft Beer Festival: honest beer reviews, British craft beer, brewery stories, beer tasting notes, food pairings and the slow collapse of two men who believed tiny glasses could not possibly be dangerous. Listen to the end for the original festival exit recording — preserved despite several attempts to justify deleting it. Follow Beer, Together and join us every Friday for more beer reviews, brewery history, tasting notes, food matching and Choose Your Fighter. London Craft Beer Festival 2026 London Craft Beer Festival podcast London Black Anspach and Hobday St Ives Brewery Slipway Oakham Citra beer review British craft beer podcast London beer festival Best UK craft beers Craft beer tasting Nitro stout versus Guinness