Some way from the Bermondsey Beer Mile perhaps, but the Goodness Brewing Company has a dedicated following. Based in Wood Green (N22), the brewery is on a small parade of business units surrounded by flats with more going up around them. This has however bought both positive and negative consequences. Firstly, the flats provide a source of regular drinkers but, on the negative side, their future has been uncertain for some time. James, from their logistics team, explained, “This site is earmarked for more housing but they haven’t confirmed the date. This means we are on a rolling lease that keeps getting extended. We were due to close in the New Year so that we couldn’t take any bookings, which means we have lost income. Last thing we heard, it could now be April.” The uncertainty has impacted in other ways. “We had to build up our beer stock so that we could supply our customers, thinking that we wouldn’t be brewing in January. We have been trying to find a bar and had a couple come close but they have fallen through”, said James.
If they can’t brew on the current site and can’t find suitable alternative premises, they may consider contract brewing, at least for a while. James thought that finding somewhere suitable could take up to a year. Whatever happens, it’s apparent that Goodness wants to keep going. The brewery was set up in 2018 by three friends: Joe Louis Sheasgreen, Mike Stirling and Damien Legg. They quickly realised that they needed more help and drafted in Zack Ahmed and Oliver Newbery. In 2019, they moved into their Wood Green premises to establish their brewery and taproom.
Despite Covid, the brewery has done well and in 2023 they brought in Josh Billington as head brewer. Josh was originally a chef but moved to London in 2017 and started a new career in brewing at Old Street Brewery. He became head brewer there before moving to Goodness. Old Street, based in Hackney Wick, closed in 2024.
Unlike at many small breweries, the tap room at Goodness contributes only a small proportion of their sales. They do most of the beer deliveries themselves and James admitted to having picked up a number of parking tickets, particularly when he has had to leave the vehicle for a while to haul kegs upstairs and along corridors. “A lot of our customers are not traditional pubs. We pride ourselves in our customer service and won’t just dump beer on a step.” James fully understands what this means, having run pubs before joining the brewery.
Goodness use the Eebria and Tap’in agencies and will supply anywhere within the M25. In addition, James does fortnightly delivery runs to Reading and Cambridge, areas that Tap’in, doesn’t cover. The beers are on Metropolitan Pub Company and Greene King’s approved beer list and their canned lager, Sunshine, has been listed by Sainsburys. “It was a lot of work and effort to fulfil the order but it was worth it”, said James.
The cask beer on sale when the London Tasting Panel visited was Wood Green Hopping City. This is a limited edition beer made with hops grown by locals from hop seeds supplied by Goodness. James is a real ale fan and he would like the tap room to have a cask beer on permanently but it is currently available only during the winter months. As he explained, “We can’t sell enough in the summer.” However, James reckons that their keg, Sunset, is probably the closest to a cask beer that they have and it is on sale all the time. It is a lightly carbonated, well balanced premium bitter, which the brewery describes as a Red IPA.
You can find the tasting notes of the beers sampled by the Tasting Panel on CAMRA’s regional website: www.london.camra.org.uk. If you want to visit the tap room while you still can, you can be sure of a warm welcome. The address is 5a Clarendon Yard, Coburg Road, Wood Green. For further information, go to https://thegoodnessbrew.co/pages/taproom.
Christine Cryne