The Old Coffee House

Brodie's, the Leyton brewpub whose single-hop pale ales helped start London's craft revival, stopped brewing in July 2016, and this Soho pub is one of two central London rooms the family put that beer into (Des de Moor).

Why go

The room has been a pub on this corner of Soho for a very long time and it wears the evidence. CAMRA has it "first licensed in 1772 as the Silver Street Coffee House and was rebuilt in 1894," when it grew by taking in the property next door (CAMRA). The ground-floor front is polished granite, the shopfront material of the 1890s. Inside, the fittings are inter-war: fielded panelled bar counters front and back, each with cupboards built in for servicing the beer engines, and a bar back from the same period. The wall between the two rooms came out around the turn of the 1970s, which is also when the Brodie family took the pub on. Watneys Red Barrel signage sits on the back bar and there are old brewery mirrors including Truman's, under an accumulation of prints, posters and brassware that Time Out counted as "vintage ads on mirrors, copper kettles and amateur taxidermy pieces" (Time Out). A coal-effect fire burns at the back and a second room upstairs opens when the ground floor fills.

Order this / avoid

• Order: whatever Brodie's cask is on, because the three beers CAMRA records here are session-strength and hoppy rather than heavy, and because the pub is one of a short list of places the brand reaches. Then the back room, the banquettes, and the fire. Lunch runs noon to 3pm on weekdays.
• Avoid: planning the visit around a big cask range. CAMRA's survey found "six handpumps but at date of this entry offering only one or two ales from Brodie's Brewery in East London," which is a long way from the nine handpumps and five keg taps Londonist counted (CAMRA, Londonist). Weigh the hygiene rating below before you order food. And skip the search for a brewery website: brodiesbeers.co.uk, which Londonist still links to, has been taken over and now serves gambling copy.

What locals & experts say

• Guy Parsons, Time Out, 25 March 2015, four stars out of five: "It has an unfussy proper-pubness to it, even if a more cynical eye might put the 'proper' in quotes." On the beer, the same review says "the craft beer on tap from Leyton microbrewery Brodie's completes the effect" and calls it excellent. ref
• Matt Brown, Londonist (2013, page last updated June 2018): "This pub is one of only three in London owned by the brewery, and its draught offerings are rarely found elsewhere." He counts "nine hand pumps and five keg taps" and lands on "One of Soho's more endearing pubs, and therefore often rather busy." ref
• Des de Moor, London brewery reference, updated 16 December 2025, on the beer that made this pub's name: "In the restless creativity of the brewery's heyday, the beers varied from the sublime to the ill-advised, but at their best they were exceptional." He credits Brodie's with "popularising light single hop pale ales in the capital" and dates the end precisely: brewing ceased July 2016, the business "wound up completely" by October 2016. ref
• The same reference carries the good news: Exale Brewery of Walthamstow bought the King William IV, reopened it in April 2025, and "from November 2025 has revived several classic Brodie's brands in cask and keg" with Tom Barlow, the former Brodie's head brewer who owns the recipes. Whether those casks reach Beak Street is not documented anywhere. ref
• Nothing evaluative has been published about this pub since 2018. Time Out, Londonist, the CAMRA branch record and the CAMRA London Pubs Group were all read on 30 July 2026. The newest first-hand assessment of the beer is a CAMRA survey dated 20 November 2019.

Good to know

• Where: 49 Beak Street, Soho W1F 9SF, a block north of Carnaby Street. Piccadilly Circus is 330m, buses 200m, Charing Cross 1.2km.
• Timing: Monday to Saturday 11am to 11pm, Sunday noon to 10.30pm. Food noon to 3pm Monday to Friday and noon to 5pm at weekends per CAMRA; Time Out's older listing says food stops at 3pm on Saturday too, so do not arrive at 4pm on a Saturday assuming a plate.
• Hygiene, stated plainly: FSA rating 2, Westminster, rating date 31 January 2025, FHRSID 413255. Component scores are 10 for hygiene, 15 for structural and 10 for confidence in management, and in this scheme a higher number is worse. The register also flagged a new rating as pending when it was read on 30 July 2026, so the standing may have changed since January 2025. Westminster's food safety team is at foodsafety@westminster.gov.uk. ref
• Booking: walk in. The upstairs function room can be hired, with a charge.
• Access: CAMRA's statement is "There is a step up from the pavement at the outside door and there are no toilets on the ground floor."
• In the room: real fire, Sky football on two small screens, occasional live music, pavement drinking, dogs and families welcome.
• Who owns it: operator Independent, freehold Heineken UK, leasehold held by an individual, per CAMRA's July 2026 record. The Brodie family have run the pub since the 1970s according to the same record, which does not date that statement.
• Sites: one premises. The brand's other addresses are separate businesses: the King William IV in Leyton, sold in 2017 and now Exale's, and the Cross Keys in Covent Garden.
• No website. The pub has no domain of its own, and brodiesbeers.co.uk is no longer the brewery's.

Craft signals (beer: a tie that has come loose)

Two signals, and they point in opposite directions. CAMRA's record has the pub down for two changing beers and no regular beers, with the caveat "Brodie's range but not always available," and names Bethnal Green, Piccadilly and Shoreditch Sunshine as the ones it typically sees. Open any of those three on CAMRA's own site and each carries two warnings: the beer is no longer brewed, and the brewery that produced it is marked closed since 16 December 2025 (ref). CAMRA's brewery page meanwhile describes a live operation "brewed using spare capacity at Rhymney Brewery" in South Wales. Des de Moor's account reconciles the two: the Leyton brewhouse closed in 2016, the brands have been cuckoo-brewed since at Wobbly, Rhymney and Battersea, and Tom Barlow now owns them. So the handpumps here are neither a rotating programme nor a deep cellar. They are the retail end of a brand with intermittent production, which is why this entry carries no evolution: value and why the verdict rests on the room.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: none. Jeff's saved-places export carries no note for this row. The master CSV's "Classic Soho boozer save" line was written by an earlier enrichment pass, not by him, so it is not quoted here as his words.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

could-visit — Go if you are in Soho already. The reason anyone ever sent you here was Brodie's, the Leyton brewpub that helped start London's craft revival and put its beer into the family's two central London pubs, and Brodie's stopped brewing in July 2016. Des de Moor's judgment on that beer at its best is 'exceptional', and the brands are alive again through Exale from November 2025, but nobody has published what is actually on these six handpumps since CAMRA surveyed the place in November 2019, and CAMRA's own record has the three beers it lists as no longer brewed. The room is the strong half: a pub licensed in 1772, rebuilt in 1894, with inter-war panelled counters that still have cupboards for servicing the beer engines, Watneys Red Barrel signage on the back bar and a coal-effect fire in the back. Time Out gave it four stars in 2015 and hedged the word proper. Westminster gave the kitchen a food hygiene rating of 2 in January 2025 with a re-rating pending, so eat lightly. Under the primacy rule that is a good room in front of an uncertain glass, which is a stop rather than a send.