Craft Beer Taproom Near Me in Bowes Park: Bohem's Czech Lager Tap Room

Bohem Tap Room, at 120a Myddleton Road, London N22 8NQ, is the bar of a brewery that makes nothing but traditional Bohemian lager, brewed by Czechs a few miles east in Tottenham. If your search for a craft beer taproom near me lands in Bowes Park or Wood Green, note the late start: the doors open at 4.30 pm every day, closing at 10 pm on Monday and 11 pm from Tuesday to Sunday. Tables can be booked in advance through Abe, the tap room manager, on 07708 238226.

Bohem was founded in early 2017 by Petr Skoček and Zdeněk Kudr. Petr comes from Plzeň, moved to London in 2005, and began home-brewing in 2012 because British pub beer felt too expensive. Zdeněk had driven trucks across Europe before moving to London in 2010 and running a lettings agency for Czechs and Slovaks. The two met at a party in late 2015, where Petr confessed that the beer they were both enjoying was his own home brew.

Demand outgrew the first brewery on Whittington Road, so in January 2018 Bohem moved to an industrial unit on West Road, N17, with a brewhouse, fermenters and conical tanks built in Prostějov in the Czech Republic. In 2022 it doubled brewing capacity and tripled fermenting space with more Czech-made kit. Petr moved back to the Czech Republic in autumn 2020 and stays on the board; Matěj Křížek, who came from Břevnov Monastery Brewery in Prague, is now head brewer.

The reason to come to Myddleton Road rather than drink Bohem elsewhere is the pour. Czech bars treat tapping a beer as a trade, and the tap room serves the four classic styles. Čochtan is poured neat with no foam, which the brewery itself does not recommend because it tastes too bitter. Hladinka, with a creamy head of 20 to 25 percent, is the standard, and Bohem's glasses have their legal measure line set for it.

Šnyt is the old split pour, roughly half foam and half beer, and it is the way the brewery says Zdeněk mostly drinks his lager. Mlíko, the milk pour, is almost all foam, sweet and creamy, and meant to be drunk fast on a hot day. Ask for a Hladinka first, then order a Mlíko as the second round to taste how much the foam changes the Saaz hop character. The glasses themselves are made in Prague exclusively for Bohem.

Abe Haberle, who is from Prague, runs the bar and is the current chief tapster. He was trained in all four pours by Marek Průša, the brewery's original tapster and a certified Pilsner Urquell tapster, who returned to Prague in autumn 2023. Abe studied literature and, according to the brewery, speaks a dozen languages and is fluent in four.

The core range is short. Martina is a 4.0 percent session pils with a floral aroma and a dry, spicy finish. Amos, the best seller, is a 4.9 percent Czech pilsner with lemon and honey notes. Sparta is a 5.4 percent amber lager with toffee and orange-peel notes, and the brewery credits it with persuading local drinkers to invest in its expansion. Nicholas, a 4.5 percent Czech black lager, was first brewed for the opening of Bohem's second pub.

Seasonal beers rotate through. Recent specials have included Nela, a 0.5 percent alcohol-free lager brewed with We Can Be Friends, Vanda, a 3.5 percent dark lager made with Madagascan vanilla, and Lucifer, an amber lager brewed with yellow habanero chillies. If you only try one beer, make it Amos in a Hladinka pour; the chilli lager is a curiosity rather than a session beer.

Bohem publishes what it calls a Lager Manifesto. Every beer is mashed by decoction, with part of the grain boiled and returned to the mash, then bottom-fermented with lager yeast and lagered for at least five weeks in temperature-controlled tanks. There are no additives, no added sugar, no forced carbonation and no high-gravity concentrate, and the beer is sold unfiltered and unpasteurised.

The brewery says it is the only UK brewery following all of these steps, and it limits its stockists to bars with trained staff who can store and serve the beer properly. That is why the tap room, where lines are short and the staff were trained in-house, is the best place to judge the beer. The tap room also has live music and featured in Des de Moor's London's Best Beer, Pubs and Bars, Volume 3.

Myddleton Road is a small high street of independent shops and cafés between Bowes Park and Bounds Green, and the tap room's 4.30 pm opening suits an afternoon spent elsewhere first. Alexandra Palace and its park are a short bus or train hop north-west, and the slope below the palace gives one of the widest free views over London, best in the hour before the tap room opens.

Bohem runs three pubs as well. The Nicholas Nickleby at 6-8 Ferme Park Road in Finsbury Park opened in July 2024 with a Czech chilled-water bath for glasses; the Queens Arms at 139 St Philip Street in Battersea is a revived 180-year-old pub; and the Packington Arms at 125 Packington Street in Islington opened on 25 September 2026. If the tap room is full on a Friday, the Nicholas Nickleby is the nearest place pouring the same beer.

Address: Bohem Tap Room, 120a Myddleton Road, London N22 8NQ, near Bowes Park station. Hours: Monday 4.30 pm to 10 pm, Tuesday to Sunday 4.30 pm to 11 pm. The beer is lager only, brewed at the Bohem brewery on West Road, N17. On Friday and Saturday evenings a booked table saves standing at the bar.