The UK’s independent brewing scene is booming. Recent figures from the British Beer and Pub association put the number of active breweries in the UK at over 2000, meaning that the UK has more breweries than any other European nation. At the heart of this growth have been the UK’s metropolitan areas, cities such as London, Manchester, Newcastle, Bristol and many more.

Thankfully that growth hasn’t been restricted to the cities, with more breweries choosing to establish themselves in smaller towns and in rural areas – we’ve even seen established city breweries such as Redchurch in London, start to build production facilities outside of these city hubs.

Earlier this year I interviewed Dan Lowe–who co-founder Fourpure Brewing Co with his brother Tom in 2013. In the interview Dan spoke to me about how Fourpure were planning a similar move to Redchurch, in that they were looking at expanding to a purpose built brewery on a greenfield site on the outskirts of London. If your thinking that you never saw that interview then don’t worry, you didn’t, it was never published.

That’s because before I had a chance to do so, Fourpure changed its plans–for the time being at least–instead choosing to invest over £2 million in its existing site in South London. This expansion will involve a new brewhouse, more capacity, more lab and QC space and eventually they’ll also double the size of their taproom.

This, along with a whole bunch of other local breweries, including Partizan, Pressure Drop and Mondo, also investing in their London sites, is indicative that there is still one hell of a lot of room here for growth. This growth is also giving newer, smaller breweries a chance to establish themselves too, as the expanding breweries move into other markets, thus freeing up space at the point of entry.

I headed down to Fourpure’s brewery, at the end of the Bermondsey Beer Mile to catch up with both Dan and Tom, to make amends for that interview I never published. This was no mean feat, the Lowe brothers travel a great deal, especially as Fourpure is expanding as fast internationally as it is domestically but it was great to finally catch up with them, and find out what’s happening at their brewery.