Ora Brewing, Tottenham Hale, N17

Spent far too long wandering around this industrial estate in the dark looking for the Brewheadz Brewery, eventually stumbling across an A-board pointing the way to the Ora Brewery Taproom, which lo and behold, turned out to be exactly what I was looking for in the first place, as Ora Brewery apparently recently took over this site from Brewheadz. It’s a small factory unit tucked away in a well-hidden (in the dark at least) corner of the industrial estate, with a shuttered entrance left open to the elements on a freezing cold evening. The concrete floored room has three long benches served by canteen-style benches and surrounded by innumerable pallets stacked high with all sorts of brewing essentials. A small servery has been constructed to the right with a very basic, rough counter, a set of keg taps on the bar back and the brewery logo painted on a whitewashed blockwork wall to one side. The brewing operation takes up much of the floor space in the centre and rear of the unit, whilst additional brewing kit was visible on an upper mezzanine-style level. Out in the front yard area, a pop-up food truck offered some hot food options and there were picnic benches and a game of quoits which would be all good and well were it a warm day and not a bitterly cold evening. Despite being in easy walking distance from Tottenham Hotspurs’ swish new stadium, there were very few customers here post-match, presumably because the prospect of navigating around a grim industrial estate to sit in a draughty brewery isn’t all that appealing a prospect on a Saturday night. The staff here were very friendly, with one barman talking me through the four craft keg options, three of which were from Ora whilst the fourth was from the Unbarred Brewery of Brighton. Annoyingly, none of the Ora beers sounded like my cup of tea, so I ended up trying the Unbarred Chocolate and Hazelnut Stout which was exactly as described – a viscous, luxuriant brew that was perhaps a bit too heavy-handed with the hazelnut for my liking. I think there are two main draws to this place – the first is the availability of some adventurous beers brewed on site and the second is the enthusiasm of the friendly and knowledgeable staff who made my time here more memorable. Aside from that, it falls into a lot of the traps that befall these brewery taprooms, with a cold factory unit and limited seating making it an uncomfortable experience.

Brewheadz is a small artisan craft brewery that started in December 2016 when four Italian friends living together in Tottenham decided to start brewing beer. They are located in a very small industrial unit on the Rosebery Industrial Park tucked away in a residential area south of Northumberland Park. First time round it takes some finding but the trick is to find the Trading Estate map and look for the location of Unit 16A It’s not really a Tap room as such, more a triumph of squeezing some bench seating and a four-tap beer dispensing unit into the small industrial unit along with the brewing equipment. It is only open on a Saturday between the hours of 12.00 and 20.00PM and from the pictures I’ve seen its better to visit in summer when they have outside bench seating underneath gazebos. One small negative is that the beer is served in plastic glasses, but at least this removes having to pay a deposit for the glass like in the other Tottenham Tap rooms. Their brews have been winning plaudits in recent months and I am partial to their Kitchen Porter but that was unfortunately not one of the beers that were on for my visit. But Stairway to Seven , their Black IPA collaboration with BrewDog was. It’s a 10-minute walk south from Northumberland Park station or a 12 to 15 minute walk north from the trading estate that houses Pressure Drop and Beavertown if you fancy doing a treble of Tottenham’s increasing craft breweries. This is what I did and it’s a pleasant walk along the Pymmes Brook to the Tottenham Marshes before having to find the right footbridge to cross the busy Watermead Way and the train tracks.

Official site of Brewheadz Taproom - www.brewheadz.com

Official site of Brewheadz Taproom - www.brewheadz.com