Boutique breweries a new indicator of an area’s gentrification

Shrewd residential property investors are always looking for indicators which could give them early signs of an area becoming fashionable.

New transport links (such as the Night Tube or Cycle superhighways) or a proliferation of coffee shop openings are traditionally good pointers but there is a new one in London that bears thinking about – micro-breweries.

A recent survey showed that the location of 50 of these small, hipster-friendly producers of craft beers matched several property hotspots very well.

Brixton, for example, has three microbreweries – Brixton Brewery, London Beer Lab and Clarkshaws – and here the average asking price has gone up 73% in the past five years to £593,000. Another example is Walworth near Kennington with its Orbit Beers, where the average asking price has shot up 93% to £546,000 over the same period.

Stephen Ludlow, Chairman of ludlowthompson, comments: “One common factor is that these new brewery businesses are normally set up in space which is relatively cheap, such as railway arches, but located near to their market of the young and affluent.

“These kind of premises are often in areas which are also popular with developers or investors thinking about property up-grades and have the ‘vibe’ that younger professionals want, so there is a natural fit."