Brewery Speed Dating at Beer Now

Its been a full 18 months since I last participated in one of these; so may be a bit rusty. Bear with me; I'll try to repost the blog after each new beer but sometimes can get caught up in the conversation and actual drinking! Follow along pics on +Steve Lamond and I'll add them to this post when I get a chance.

I'm sat on a table with Jim & Laura from Mashtun and Miaow; Adam from Brewbie; Andy Parker, blogger emeritus & homebrewer turned pro brewer; Veteran #EBBC attendees The Baron & Chris & the inimitable Jules of Beer Revere, Hop Hideout & Sheffield Beer Week - great company indeed.

First Up is James & Alex from Thornbridge part of a 50 strong team from Thornbridge with their nip bottle of Eldon. Roasty, Fruity


Second is a nice palate cleanser Lost Industry/ Steel City collab, not normally a fan of peach but this one is excellent. peach melba fromage frais with a hint or tartness

Andrew And Rachel from Sharps Brewery presenting their smoked Boscawen now, only 12 casks made.  Familiar Northern Ireland accent from Andrew - not far up the road from me at Limavady. Classic rauchbier aroma, rather sweet amber ale with lovely full body, great mouthfeel and fruity finish.

"Hi I'm Dan, I'm a cancer, how are you all doing?" good introduction from Abbeydale's sales and marketing director. Heathen IPA from a can - ooh trendy. Had this on keg yesterday actually, fruity mosaic, orange yoghurt and slight sweaty guava notes, clean, moderate bitterness, aggressive hooping. Trial brew #6 originally. First batch to be canned, 3000 canned on Sunday. As a brewery we mustn't forget cask, taht enables us to do all of this fun stuff but its very much our bread and butter. 30BBL brewery, 200bbl sales/ week with capacity for 300, new special every week. 'If we were to present this to the traditional drinker they'd say "its off, its cloudy" we've had a few stand up rows at SIBA this week!'

Fifth beer is Twisted Barrel Soup Dragon, 50% rauchmalt & 50% pilsner malt in mash, 250g chipotle & hand grated 110 limes for 1kg zest added five mins from end of boil. fermented with saison yeast which alongside a hint of smoke covers the nose. the taste really develops from first to last, sharp lime up first, fruity saison esters, loads of smoke then some warming heat from the chipotle. Unsurprisingly for something with a lot of my favourite flavours in its very enjoyable.

Alex from sentinel pouring his RRG a rhubarb and rosehip gose now. good as apertif, could make a sorbet from it, tonight tehy're steaming mussels in it. they make a rosehip tea (rosehips from Denmark) Yorkshire rhubarb added 5mins from end of boil, 4kg of each also "dry rhubarbed". Low salt level to avoid impact on drinkability, sits there on tip of tongue but acidity main driver. Took 5 years to find right site and pull money together.

And finally a familiar brewery for me, Ilkly Lotus. taking the end position at Edinburgh beer bloggers conference a few years ago now, they've gone through a few iterations. First consideration "what hops did we not want to use - no citra, cascade, columbus, etc no amrillo, no mosaic, no summit, no simcoe, no galaxy - to try and push us to use some more progressive hops. So we used eureka, equinox and comet" We stopped it at 5.9 which is about as high as you can go and still drink in quantity without losing your faculties. Matt from Ilkley presenting. really drinkable. Canned in brewdog, centrifuged too to prevent clogging of canning machine - more visually appearing but perhaps lost a bit of itself vs keg but keg doesnt have quite the crispness of it on can.