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40ft Taproom, Higham Hill, E17
E17
E17 5RB
Reviews (Current Rating Average: 5½ of 10) see review guidelines
Just a quick pint, then I'm off left this review about 40ft Taproom
This one looks more like a plain two-storey block rather than the typical industrial-estate units occupied by most other taprooms along the Blackhorse Beer Mile. However, the bar occupies the area under the first-floor offices along the frontage, with a full-height ceiling above the main seating area and brewing vessels. A good number of outdoor tables and also be found outside in the former car park to one side. With most of the 20 keg taps on the back wall in use, there was a wide selection in different styles, although I opted for one of the core beers: Dalston Sunrise (£3.00, half).
On 9th September 2026
- rating: 6
[User has posted 9226 recommendations about 9226 pubs]
Steve of N21 left this review about 40ft Taproom
Decided to pay this northern end of the Blackhorse Mile a revisit as since my last time here both this unit and the one across the road have changed brewers. This one was the site for the Hackney Brewery until they had a run in with the local council who were demanding the paying up of unpaid rents and decided to close the operation in April last year.
The 40ft Brewery took over the premises in August last year to make it their second tap room and have come a long way since their humble beginnings in a shipping container brewery in a Dalston car park some ten years ago.
The inside space looks like it’s been remodelled a bit since the Hackney Brewery time but it’s still a large open plan space with the brewing kit at one end and long bench seating in the rest and is quite soulless and needs a few in to give it any kind of atmosphere. The outside space, also with a large collection of bench seating, seemed smaller than I remember but that could be because the outer walls had a collection of food concession trucks and huts and storage for barrels along them and one section was being used for what looked like a private birthday party.
No cask here but a tap wall with mostly their own brews and then a couple of collabs from what I could see. I went for something called Dalston Sunset, a 6% New England Hazy IPA and it was a decent version of the style. Its OK as tap rooms go but just like the former brewery incarnation, I didn’t get any great vibe from drinking here and I much preferred what ELB are doing with the former Wild Card Space opposite.
On 12th August 2026
- rating: 5
[User has posted 2375 recommendations about 2216 pubs]
David Walton left this review about 40ft Taproom
Visited 23/04/26
No cask. Keg offering of mostly their own and comprising the Disco Pils lager, the Dalston Sunrise hazy pale, the Main Squeeze hazy IPA, the Rewind West Coast IPA, the Jam raspberry sour, the Liquid Gold cream ale, the Lockwood pale ale, the Deep nitro stout, the Swift Irish coffee stout as a collab with the Swift chain of bars (ok there are three of them, is that enough to be a chain) and then speciality away beers, the Nirvana AF pils, the raspberry hibiscus and the apple cater both from Gosnells, the Crafty Apple cider, the Birdbarker cider and the Dusty's alcoholic ginger beer.
Another large industrial brewing premises. No seating out the front, indeed the frontage looks like a two story 70's small office block. The bar counter is on the right-hand side of the large interior, concrete flooring with the bar counter against the rear wall. A few rows of trestle style tables and benches in front of the bar counter and a good few more rows of the same to the left-hand side of the bar counter, to the side of a mass of brewing equipment. There is a yard like outside seating area with the same tables and benches, and this is where most punters based themselves on my visit. There are a few small TV's in the bar area switched off on my visit and a very large projector screen on the rear wall. A very poppy soundtrack was playing on my visit. A taco-based food wagon was perched in the outside seating space.
On 26th April 2026
- rating: 5
[User has posted 1975 recommendations about 1937 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Pub SignMan left this review about High Hill
This is a large outpost for the Hackney Brewery, located at the top end of this industrial estate. It's slightly different to most of these taprooms, inasmuch as the bar is in its own separate room, which looks like the old, front of house office for whatever company previously occupied this building. Meanwhile, the old warehouse out the back is the main brewing space, with a strip set aside for some tables and chairs that customers can make use of. It's a very high ceilinged room with the usual scuffed concrete floor, whitewashed walls and a row of gleaming brewing vessels. There appear to be some patio heater type lamps on the wall opposite these seats, for use during colder months maybe. The taproom is a pretty empty space with the bar along the end wall of a practically empty, rectangular room. A hard bench runs down one side and there's a drinking ledge with high stools along the other, under windows that look into the brewery space. Modern art prints and a 'dog wall of fame' decorate the wall space whilst a TV screen was showing a slideshow of fancy nature photos. The beers are all helpfully listed on boards above the bar with the taps along the bar back. Most seating is out in the garden - formerly a loading bay/car park - in the form of canteen style benches, and there's a table football game out here too. Relaxing background tunes were just about audible when sat inside, but most of the noise was coming from those playing on the football table.
Thirteen Hackney beers were listed on tap, plus one guest option and one cider. I tried the Hackney Kapow at £6.20 a pint, which I quite enjoyed, having never quite found a beer I love from this brewery in the past.
I liked the unique layout of this place, which still feels very much like a builder's merchants or whatever it used to be, but now filled with beer. I can usually take or leave stuff from this brewery, but this was probably my best experience of them to date and I'd be fine with the idea of a return to sample more of their range.
Date of visit - 4th May 2024
On 28th August 2024
- rating: 6
[User has posted 3387 recommendations about 3387 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Blue Scrumpy left this review about High Hill
After the nearby Renegade Urban Winery, we finished our tour of the Blackhorse Mile brewery bars with High Hill, the home of Hackney Brewery.
Indoor seating is in the bar area itself and also in an area within the brewery itself. Service is once again from the bar, where the full list of Hackney and guest beers can be found. All are craft beers, with the selection being Hackney High Hill, Lager, Millions of Peaches, Kapow, Boogie Van, Bump, Mysterious Spectre, Millions of Pink Lemonade, Release The Night & Superbolt, Hackney/Left Hand Spy v Spy, Hackney/Wild East Sitting On The Top Deck, Kernel Simcoe Strata, Brew York Fairytale of Brew York, Mammoth Wax Pale Ale, Turning Point Reverend Green, Donzoko Lil Foam & The Real Al Co. Crafty Rhubarb Cider.
Not a bad place, but I preferred some of the other breweries on the estate.
On 24th January 2023
- rating: 5
[User has posted 3596 recommendations about 3594 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Steve of N21 left this review about High Hill
The marketing person’s who are currently trying to convince everyone that the current six brewery taprooms in industrial estates off the Blackhorse Lane constitutes a “Beer Mile” are clearly men as it is about 0.4 of a mile between the Truman’s Social Club and the Hackney Brewery High Hill to give it its full name, and this one will either be the first or last one depending if you are going North or South.
A fairly recent edition initially opening earlier this year when we were first allowed to sit outside after lockdown, Although its official opening is not till the weekend of the 1st and 2nd of October, I had been targeting a visit here for a while. Unfortunately the experience left me all a bit flat.
There is a large outside courtyard space with bench seating that looks like it could seat a couple of hundred , mostly out in the open but a few tables under shelters around the edges. Then there is further bench seating for about a 100 internally and although there is a large screen at the far end, presumably for sport, it’s all a bit sterile and lacking in any character. And none more so than the bar room itself, which is off to the right of the internal space, which we duly marched into and stared in confusion at a white tiled tap wall with 20 identical green taps and no identification of what was on them. Then at this point we are told that the beer list is on the tables and its table service only after ordering through a mobile phone app. Now personally, having to order beers through a mobile phone app sucks a fair amount of the enjoyment out of drinking experience and should only be the last resort when were not allowed to stand next to another human being. Fortunately the barman recognised our pain and as it was not too busy came out and took a verbal order off us after we had perused the beer list.
And in that respect when we start talking about the beer list then it gets better. Twenty craft beers on the list with 8 from Hackney and offerings from other breweries such as Burning Sky, Verdant, Orbit and Wylem included in the other 12.
Couldn’t fault the beer, although sadly this looks like another small brewery that has abandoned the cask product, but just didn’t get any great vibe from drinking them here.
On 17th September 2021
- rating: 5
[User has posted 2375 recommendations about 2216 pubs]