Fuller's Brewery

Fuller’s Griffin Brewery stands beside the A4 in Old Chiswick, west London. The brewery’s name comes from the griffin crest of Meux & Reid, a City of London brewery that closed in the early 19th century. In 1816 the site acquired the Griffin Brewery title and planted the oldest wisteria in Britain. The family firm Fuller, Smith & Turner began in 1845 when John Bird Fuller joined Henry Smith and head brewer John Turner. For 160 years the brewery brewed cask ales in open fermenters until Reg Drury arrived in 1959 and proved closed conical vessels could do the job. In 2019 the Japanese group Asahi bought the brewery but promised to keep making beer on the same spot. Fuller’s beers have won prizes in more than eighty countries. London Pride and ESB regularly top CAMRA awards, while London Porter claimed world and Europe titles at the World Beer Awards. Chiswick Bitter is a light 3.5% session ale with strong hop notes. Fuller’s 1845 won Champion Bottle Conditioned Beer in 1998, and Prince Charles added hops to a copper of 1845 during a 1995 visit. Vintage Ale has been released every Christmas since 1997, its recipe altered for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee in 2002. Strong ales such as Past Masters XX and Double Stout follow 19th-century brewing logs and use historic barley varieties. Visitors walk past the 1816 wisteria to the copper-topped brewhouse where beers are still made. The shop sells bottles of London Pride and seasonal specials like Brewer’s Reserve No. 1, aged in whisky casks for 500 days. Outside, the brewery backs onto the Thames Path, offering a riverside stroll past Chiswick’s 17th-century houses. Inside the tasting room, glasses of ESB and Frontier lager sit beside cider from Cornish Orchards, bought by Fuller’s in 2013. The brewery’s archive holds copper logs signed by Prince Charles and the original 1891 brewing record for Past Masters XX.