A WILD BREW: DUCK & DIVE PAIRS PUNK WITH PINTS ON DAY 2 OF LONDON FESTIVAL

PHOTO GALLERY | DUCK & DIVE | SIGNATURE BREW HAGGERSTON, LONDON | 7th February 2026 by Lucy McLachlan

London Brewers Signature Brew held three day festival Duck & Dive at their Haggerston taproom and music venue which saw beers created to match the headliners.

Signature Brew have been collaborating with artists since 2011, releasing limited batches with names like IDLES, Enter Shikari, Mogwai, The Libertines and Hot Chip to name but a few. Winning brewery of the year in 2018 and 2011, their range of drinks is always music related (we were drinking the aptly named Lo-Fi non alcoholic beer) and three have been crafted just for this weekend’s festival.

Friday headliners Cowboy Hunters have Chunters Cherry Brew, a Cherry Belgian Beer and Sunday’s headliners Hyphen get the Deskjob Honey Ale (named after their 2024 single). We are here for Saturday’s day 2 where Brighton’s Opus Kink boast their Bitter Showboy Nitro Stout for latest single release I’m A Pretty Showboy.

Starting Saturday off are Bristol based DIY trash punk band M/X, and London based post punkers Goldenbloom and London’s The Youth Play. Sadly, we missed these thanks to being held for an hour on the train into the city but hey, Delay Repay is a wonderful thing.

We arrived in time to catch Dublin based hotgirl whose 2nd EP Blast Off was released just last year with some heavy Alt-Rock 90’s Garbage vibes. Plus London based alt guitar band Sterling Press bringing new single Leaves Do Tumble to be released on Friday.

London based Alt-Rock punk trio Dead Air were moved to the Saturday line up from Sunday and got the crowd talking about how made up they were to catch the set. Fight song EP Do It For The Pay was released in Jan with another, Wide Villainy on the way in March. Dead Air barged right in and upped the vibe for the rest of the night with heavy riffs, absolutely pumelling drums (check out drummer Rich Greenbury‘s brief stint in the Foo Fighters in 2019…) and call to action vocals.

Manchester darlings YAANG drew all the crowd inside with their own brand of electro synth punk. The NO EP was released last year and we dare you to not to want to get up and dance to ‘Til Morning Light. YAANG bring all the moves, guitar throwing and infectious dancing to their energetic live sets, always one not to be missed.

Joe & the Shitboys are ‘Queer Shitpunks’ from the Faroe Islands. They have three albums since 2020 in their Resons for Hardcore Vibes (typo intended!!) series and a Greatest Shits released last year. Originally forming to call out the conservative behaviour in their homeland Joe tells us tonight (whilst we wait for a mic cable to be replaced long enough to venture into the crowd) that abortion was recently made legal in the Faroe Islands. Riling the crowd up that since their government is taking a step forwards, our own UK government is taking many many steps backwards. Intense and all powerful, Joe & the Shitboys get right into the crowd, screaming into faces one minute and getting the whole room to squat on the floor for one big united jump up the next. These guys need to be obeyed, if you can’t squat on the floor you can hover on the stage instead, there’s no hiding from this set.

Opus Kink claim this is their last London appearance for a while. The band have a number of sax filth art punk EPs and Singles out, 2019’s Faster Than The Radio and 2022’s I Love You, Baby have been a long time favourites.

Six musicians cram onstage armed with their own cups of Bitter Showboy, singer Angus Rogers has had his gone missing from the fog machine and orders one to be sent over to the stage. Nitro Stout in hand and we can carry on. Except halfway through the first song half the stage blows it’s power due to the amount of equipment the band have. Three blown restarts, a venue employee renamed Spiderman (for crawling up in various parts of the ceiling rerunning cables and turning off unneeded lights to make space for all the electricity needed to power an Opus Kink set), a total keyboard abandonment (we need to keep some lights on guys) and a round of tequila for the band later and we’re back up and running. Kudos to Opus Kink and the venue employees for not losing a single audience member, it was all part of the entertainment than anyone getting frustrated. Launching into St Paul of the Tarantulas with just a synthesizer the crowd was wild and right behind them all the way from then on, what power cut? However long it is until their next London gig, Opus Kink went out with a bang, don’t sleep on catching these guys live.