This summer marks the final chapter for German Kraft Brewery’s Elephant and Castle home, Mercato Metropolitano. Founded in 2017, it’s where the German Kraft story began.
The London brewery and taproom is hosting a season-long send-off featuring fresh pours, a full electronic music programme with open-air DJ gigs, and major World Cup screenings.
German Kraft Brewery began with a clear mission: to bring high-quality German pils and helles beer directly from tank to consumer.
The company was launched by three 21-year-old founders who spotted a gap in the capital’s crowded craft scene, and a lack of authentic, traditional German lager brewed and served with precision. Serving fresh beer on site is of huge importance to the team with 90% of the beer being served from the tanks surrounding the beer garden.
The vast Elephant and Castle site was the brand’s first home and has remained central to its identity. From day one, the focus was tight, with no obvious and ubiquitous pale ales, no distractions, just carefully brewed pils and helles lagers overseen by a single brewer to maintain strict quality control. The team adhere to the German purity law of 1516.
With only a one-year pop-up lease in place, the team took a leap of faith, setting up a 2,000-litre brewery and building the entire space themselves, from the bar fronts and coolhouses to the decking and the glasshaus, even planting the bamboo and palm trees by hand.
The gamble quickly paid off, and demand surged. Within a year, production capacity had increased by 50%, and by 2019 the brewery recorded a weekly record sale of 25,000 pints.
Several new sites have followed since, and German Kraft Brewery had risen to become one of London’s top five brewers. Now, as the original site prepares to close, this final summer offers guests the chance to experience the space at full energy one last time, the very place where it all began.
Co-founder Felix Bollen notes: “When we started German Kraft Brewery in London in 2017, our mission was simple: to showcase the complexity lagers can offer, and that there is more to German biergarten culture than tacky Oktoberfest celebrations.”
Despite the original brewery preparing to close its doors, the team will keep creating places for people to gather and enjoy one another’s company, in London, across the UK, and in Europe.
