Greg Wells, co-founder of the Top 50 UK Beers Awards, We Are Beer, and the London Craft Beer Festival, predicts three beer trends for 2026/27.
Greg Wells
New London beer
Manchester, Bristol, Yorkshire — many places have laid claim to be the epicentre of modern beer culture in the UK. But, for 2026, London is enjoying a real renaissance.
Five London-based breweries make the top 10 list this year, including high climbers from 2025: Pretty Decent, Pillars, and Saint Monday, alongside more established names Five Points and Anspach & Hobday (whose London Black nitro porter was number 1 in 2025). Moving on from the boom or bust story of acquisitions and administrations we’ve seen over the last few years, London is enjoying some brilliant beers from emerging breweries, confident in their own skin and making some of the best beer in the world right now.
Flavour Flav
There is no doubt there’s a big trend right now, one we expect to grow further over the next few years, and that’s fruit-flavoured beer. People want delicious, they want fun and unusual, and they want accessibility — especially Gen Z. British beer has always been innovative, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with flavour, without negotiating on beer quality, so it’s exciting to see more of this on our 2026 list, with 10% of the top 50 being fruit flavoured beer in some capacity.
Cask revival
The love and reverence for a good ol’ British boozer grows only stronger, especially as they’re coming under threat. Drinkers love a good pub, and a well poured pint of cask beer is unbeatable. It’s no huge surprise that two of the top 3 beers this year are cask, and Timothy Taylor and a number of other cask producers are firmly on the top 50 list.
