A year on from the article presenting Neptune, Rock the Boat, Parker, 3 Potts and Red Star to a wider audience, things have progressed in the Liverpool beer scene once again. We have another slew of breweries opening their doors, mashing and sparging into our pubs, bars and bottle shops. There is a healthy spread of styles too on this occasion, with some cask brewing accompanied by a couple of keg only brewers, meaning there could be some very different beers hitting Liverpool’s taps over the next few months. Whilst one or two (or even more, for those with an attentive ear to the ground) might already be known to people, they have only really gotten going in the last twelve months and hopefully, we shall see more for an ever-burgeoning scene. The addition of Mad Hatter Brewing Company growing into a very impressive new site, Rock the Boat, Ad Hop and Melwood all beginning to bottle beers for local shops and other breweries on the scene looking to expand into bigger capacities and bigger premises is a good indication that things are healthy here on Merseyside. This provides a fertile pool into which the newbies can dip their toes. So who are these new brewers ready to sate our thirsts? We have a few cask based brewers in the shape of The CRAFT Brewery in Southport, Big Bog Brewery who have opened a second site in Liverpool and the politically charged Republic of Liverpool Beer Company. The other more wild card entries are the honey-fuelled Moonsugar, exciting craft newcomers Glen Affric, the fictional brews of Chapter Brewing and the squared circle stalking Top Rope. So, what do they all offer? Read on… The CRAFT Brewery, Southport Head Brewer, bottle washer and all rounder, Robbie from The CRAFT Brewery gave up some of his time for a little interview. Thankfully there were no awkward questions, just enough to tease out what his brewery stands for, what he brews and where we can find it. Hi Robbie, what made you take the leap from whatever you were doing before, to becoming a brewer? (what were you doing prior?) Well, prior to setting up The CRAFT Brewery I was a Software Sales manager covering Europe for a US company. The travel and commitment to them was huge all I wanted to do when I got home after spending time with my wife was go to the pub but conference calls between 7am and 10pm updating status' and reporting to people who didn't know how Europe "worked" was a up hill struggle. There were two bottle shops in Southport the Inn Beer Shop and the Tap and Bottles where I could enjoy something different from the normal John Smiths or generic Bitters. What I didn't see was a local brewery that was making what I liked to drink flavourful hoppy beers. So my wife convinced me to start brewing my own at home and after some time, had enough spare to share bottles with the CRAFTY Tasters the rest is history! Did you think the market would be accommodating, given Southport has a solid number of breweries at the moment? (Southport, 3 Potts, Parker and possibly up to Red Star). At the time of setting up there was only Southport Brewery and Parker who were doing traditional ales, they’re both great breweries whose beers I like, but I saw there was room for what I wanted to make. 3 Potts came along about the same time and concentrate on stronger beers, which as an afternoon drinker personally meant they are not the sort of session beers I wanted to make. Red Star Brewery hit the scene just after I had started selling my beers commercially too. What sort of styles do you brew and what dispense... (Cask/keg/bottle/can) and would you consider changing things around? What are your core brews? Initially I started experimenting with different styles and gave them Masonic themed names such as Labour to Refreshment Masters Maul and Brethrens brew. Eventually, I settled on three key styles; an IPA, a Golden ale and a dark ale packed with flavour and easy to drink. These are available in Cask (Pin and Firkin) and bottles. Where can we generally get your beers from? Southport has been my main target market while I get set up (to reduce travel costs) selling to the bottle shops, bars and restaurants and event venues in town. What sort of size kit are you on and do you have any plans to grow if things go well? I'm currently brewing on a 100 litre system from Powell Brewing. Expansion has to be organic as I'm self funded I have replaced my initial 6x60 litre fermenters with 3x210 litre fermenters allowing me to help meet demand at the moment expansion in to Liverpool and Preston are on the cards having 2 current customers in these areas. What breweries have influenced you in terms of what you wanted to brew and what do you aspire to, as a company? Rick from Parker brewery and Peter from the Inn Beer shop have been instrumental at looking at the bigger picture and are always happy to offer advice; both having lived through the growing pains experienced as a start up. But everyone I meet Les from Neptune and John from 4Ts who I only met recently are happy to give advice and support. I have to add, there is a big debate at the moment with CAMRA between what is Craft and what is real ale and whether they can be the same. My beers are real ale and hand Crafted the only machinery I use is a pump I even sparge by hand so as long as the beer is good does it realty matter? I think everyone should support their local breweries; give them a try you never know, you might like what you find! Moonsugar Brewing Company, Hunts Cross Moonsugar have been hovering around the scene for a little while to date, without a product actually being released though they are on with pushing things along and awaiting a few bits of paperwork to come through before they can really start hitting the scene with their curious brews. Their focus is mainly on mead and braggot, along with a few other pale ales, stouts and IPAs which we were lucky enough to try on the Liverpool Beer Collective Tap Takeover weekend at The Dead Crafty Beer Company. Hi Matt, can you tell us who is involved with Moonsugar Brewing? Moonsugar Brewing is made up of just two of us Matt Longmore and Stuart Kidd. What made you all decide to go into opening a brewery? Stu had been into brewing long before Matt and had always brought what he'd made round to try. When Matt got into brewing there was the shared interest and heads were put together recipe ideas produced and that led to test batches. We really enjoyed what was being made so we tested it it out on friends and they all went down really well, so we decided we wanted to see if we could turn it into a business and all our ideas kind of exploded from there. Do you think there's much more room on Merseyside/Liverpool for new brewers in terms of supply/demand across the North west? What size kit are you going to be brewing on? We would like to think there is room for us in the local brewing scene as we feel we're bringing something a little bit different from what other breweries are producing in the local area. We're currently still working on a relatively small kit but that suits us fine we don't want to over stretch ourselves initially and the small batch suits us as well l, after all our core brews could be considered a bit niche. What will be the core brews you'll be doing? We won't be focusing on a huge core range but there will be a few recurring brews but we've found certain styles that we're good at and we aim to bring different variations of those. Will you be doing anything in terms of styles that the other local brewers aren't covering, any exciting new brews? I think there are definitely styles we will be concentrating on that aren't heavily produced locally. Our main focus for the future is our brews made with honey primarily mead and braggot, which is exciting because there are so many ways you can change the tastes of these it leave a lot of space for variation. What existing breweries out there would you say have influenced you guys in the set up, style and brewing? I don't think there's been any particular breweries that we can say have influenced us to set up shop. When we had the idea to set up we didn't think about how other breweries did it or what kind of brews they produce. There are breweries we love to drink though, we're both fans of Siren, Atom and a few well established traditional breweries; we like a bit of everything. Do you think much about expansion at all, in case things really do take off for you at all? Expansion is something that always gets thrown around in discussions but we're miles from there at this current time so it's all just talk. If it did turn out that we raised the capital needed to expand we've a fairly good idea about how we might go about it. For now though we're going to keep tweaking till we're happy (nearly there honestly) and keep focused on our launch prep which we are confident should be in early 2017. Thanks to everyone who's helped us out, tasted brews, given feed back and for being so patient with us. Glen Affric Brewing Company, Birkenhead A new brewery that started their operations at the end of September 2016, Glen Affric is named after the area near Loch Ness where Craig and Calum McCormick initially looked at setting up their brewing near to the family home. The idea of setting up a bar and microbrewery was quite daunting given the levels of renovation needed on the property they were considering, so plans for development up in Scotland were placed on hold. Over the last few years and having worked in Shanghai and Hong Kong, the brothers and their Dad got some insight into the craft beer movement over in the far east, with brewer Craig having completed some work experience with Boxing Cat Brewing alongside working in recruitment and in landscape photography. The younger of the McCormick brothers, Callum, had just finished a degree at the University of Liverpool and with a family home being in Heswall, property was found, ideal for setting up their brewing operations in England. Good transport links, ready made market and ready-made industrial premises made the decision to locate here a little easier. The set up will be an initial 2.5 barrel set up, to produce kegs and hopefully for Glen Affric, an early 2017 canning production. Their brewing premises also has scope for use as a brewery tap which again, will sell only kegged beer, as they look to keep their brand firmly away from cask dispense. Craig McCormick will be handling the brewing operations, having completed the Brewlab [LINK] course up in Sunderland, he stated that they will be keeping the brewing relatively simple at first; standard yeasts and a focus on malts and hops for their first core recipes, hopefully exploiting their links to China and Hong Kong to bring in some more exciting gear. There is a definite lean in the brewing towards West Coast US sensibilities with their initial core brews being a Session IPA at 4.4%, a New World Pilsner at 4.8% (this will be brewed using extra pale pilsner malt, pale malts and some caramalt) alongside an American Pale Ale at 5%. Although they are barely started, Glen Affric have a very definite sense of direction and high ambition for their operations, looking to potentially expand into coffee roasting (as Craig is a self confessed coffee-geek, having roasted his own beans (ooer) for some time and their father has experience in distilling. These extra facets to their brand may also have an effect on their brews and both Craig and Calum were very positive how these things would tie together. Exciting times, new brews and potentially Birkenhead getting its second brewtap (after the sadly, recently closed Peerless Brewing Company Thirsty Thursdays). Republic of Liverpool Brewery, Liverpool The Republic of Liverpool Brewery sprang up rather quickly, a few very vague articles did the rounds on local media later and some interest has been stoked, so I thought I would contact main man, Tony Rothwell to get the low down on the initiative with the rather fetching tee shirts. “The Republic of Liverpool Beer Company is an aside to the existing Stamps Brewery, which remains their business. The Republic of Liverpool was set up to produce beer and sell T shirts, expounding Liverpool's rebellious spirit, so to this end, it may last or it may not! The Ship and Mitre brews on the same kit once a week as an HMRC registered 'Cuckoo brewery' and we are presently searching for new premises into which we can expand to accommodate demand. The Ship will come with us to this end.” I asked Tony what their core brews would be when they get going… “Yes, we intend to produce 3 Rep beers, all with their own clips, reflecting Liverpool's rebellious spirit. We will launch the first in approx 4 weeks. The website/Facebook is functioning, and is already selling tee shirts, we will be selling bottled beers as well. Beers will be sold from our loyal customer pubs in Liverpool only, as we will be only making limited stock. At the moment, only my son is brewing the beer, but we have a team of 5: designers, website/facebook operator, sales of T shirts and beers, etc.” So there you have it, some information has trickled out, hopefully we will see some indignantly delicious brews to match the rebellious tee shirt designs. Top Rope Brewing, Childwall Top Rope is the brainchild of beer and wrestling enthusiasts Ben Jackson and Neil Rothwell, who recently popped onto the scene by their involvement with the Liverpool Homebrewer’s Club and like Moonsugar, by holding a formal tasting of their beers for the Liverpool Beer Collective’s #LIVEBEER Tap Takeover event at The Dead Craft Beer Company. The set up is small at the moment, with a very pragmatic approach to putting the kit together for their brewing. Ben’s parents provided space to the back of their Childwall home for the brewery, whilst Ben, Neil and parents Rob and Pam all provided some elbow grease to get things moving. I managed to catch up with Neil and Ben to find out some more: Hi guys, so, how did Top Rope Brewery become a 'thing' for you? N: We meet at a homebrew club in Brewdog and we found that we were 2 of the guys that would stay behind, drinking and chatting shit, came up quite quickly that we were both big wrestling fans and it just kinda went from there. We had another little failed experiment at something similar to this about 12-18 months ago with a couple of other people, when that didn’t work out we kept on homebrewing but the passion for it was clearly there between us and it just got to a point where we decided to take the plunge and go for it. What was the beer that made you think "Yes... we can do this, I want to brew and make beer" even at the homebrew stage? N: I started homebrewing purely by chance, I had a friend who’s Mrs bought him a home brew kit, did that with him a couple times and then went and bought one myself, did a couple of extract kits before doing all grain work and that’s also what I suppose opened me properly to the world of craft beer, going to the homebrew clubs in the likes of Brewdog and 23 Club, drinking the beers there whilst also trying all the different styles of beer people made at home. I can’t really pinpoint a specific beer but the one most likely would be Gloucester breweries Chinook that we both had whilst working at the Liverpool Craft Beer Expo back in 2015. The brewer from the company was there and we managed to have a good chat with him, getting lots of good knowledge and we initially based our Overkill IPA on that beer, which is where the heavy use of Chinook comes from so for me, I’d say it was that. B: For me, another turning point was bank holiday weekend at the end of May. On the Friday I found out I was going to lose my job, then on the Sunday 3 of our beers (out of 5) won categories in the Brewdog homebrew competition. That felt like a pretty clear sign. What sort of beers are you going to be brewing for us and where are we likely to be able to pick them up from? N: We are going with some fairly traditional style beers to start with, IPA, pale, porters that kinda thing but then we have our very hop forward spicy American style Brown ale and also the Orange Soda Gose which I am happy to say is a very unique take on the gose/sour style. We do have plans for more sour beer as and when time permits along with all kinds of experimenting and the occasional seasonal beer/one of stuff to keep things nice and interesting. B: My approach to brewing has always been sort of “traditional beers with a modern twist” and I’ve got loads of recipes already at various points of completion. Distribution wise, we’re looking at an initial area of Southport to Chester. That should keep us busy for a while! Not forgetting our official launch in The Dead Crafty Beer Co in early November of course! I spy a barrel by your brewing shed, are there plans to do some aging? N: We do. We have been gifted a couple of batches of some interesting sour yeast that will come into play in time as well but for now, we are looking at doing some aging with all kinds of different beers and even at some possible blending, see how that affects the taste of the beers and see what new flavours we can come up with. Given your set up is quite small (yet perfectly formed) how do you think you'll handle expansion going forward, it is going to be something you'll consider if your beers really do take off? N: That is something that I am very excited about and very hopeful that in the coming year or so, it is something we can very seriously look at. We are very lucky in this city to have quite a range of different sized breweries and brewers who are some of the friendliest people you could want to meet on the planet so when it comes to expansion, we have a wealth of knowledge with regards to ideal premises, setting up bigger kit, actually upscaling the brews and ensuring the quality remains the same. The aim of the game is to simply make good beer that people enjoy drinking and if that allows us to end up doing this full time and working for ourselves, then I will incredibly happy. B: Part of the reason for us starting so small was to enable us to learn on the job, narrowing the gap between homebrew and professional brewing. As Neil said, the other brewers of Liverpool are the most supportive group of people we’ve ever met so meeting any increased demand should be a fun challenge. If you were a proper tag team, what would be your finishing move and do you actually own a pair of luchador masks? N: We are in process of sorting our costumes for the brewery, can’t have a wrestling themed brewery without some of the pageantry that comes with it! We are also thinking about a possible championship belt for the brewery. Regarding a finisher, I can imagine something like the Legion of Doom’s Doomsday Device, get our opponents up on Ben’s shoulders whilst I jump off a pile of kegs to take them down. B: I agree with pretty much all of that, I never said anything about spandex though! Big Bog Brewing Company, Speke Big Bog initially set up brewing in North Wales, with them still retaining a base there, whilst the second larger site near to Liverpool Airport gets business moving. Their cask-based recipes are stated as brewed to the same standard as those previously seen on the market. The brewery has also held open days in late August, so they will no doubt continue to do so should things remain buoyant. I managed to catch up with brewer and sales assistant Chris Riley and pose a few questions to him about Big Bog. Big Bog moving up to Liverpool from North Wales is a bit of a step, as I understand it, this is the second site - is that correct and will brewing continue in North Wales also? Why did Big Bog decide Liverpool was a good location for their second site? Essentially Big Bog moved owing to geography! Paul Jefferies and Gordon Hurst (The founding fathers) both live in West Derby and it was a 200 mile round trip in order to brew. As the brewery has grown and awards came along, it was getting to 3 times a week they needed to be over in Wales. This was just not sustainable and it was decided that we would relocate to a much larger premises and install a much bigger, new, purpose built plant. Brewing of Bog Bog beers has ceased in Wales as of February 2016. What is the brewing capacity/output at the moment? The new plant is 10 barrel brew length with two Fermenters and another one on order, which will be in operation before Christmas 2016. What are the successful brews that Big Bog produce and is there a core range or are you a little more fluid in terms of producing new recipes? Please see the web site for a list of our beers (the link is at the end of the article below - Pedro). We have won several awards for Quagmire and we are currently developing a Porter for release before Christmas “Peat Bog Porter” – 4.9% abv. It will contain peated malts and liquorice. What do you see yourselves adding to the Liverpool scene with the beers and presence you offer? Paul is an established and qualified Master brewer of 30 years and an examiner of the Institute of Brewing and Distilling for the Internationally sat Master Brewers examination. He also remains Head brewer and main Board Director of Hydes Brewery in Media City, Salford. He is very experienced having brewed extensively in the UK and abroad. He has many hundreds of years of brewing in the blood as he and his family are from Burton on Trent. We hope that we can offer top quality ales building on this experience. We have no intention to diverting our attentions away from producing cask ales only unlike many other micros who ae moving towards craft keg. Paul has lived in Liverpool for over 20 years, was Head Brewer of Cains brewery when it was Danish owned and has a real love for the city. Gordon is Liverpool born and bred as to am I and my other colleague Peter Hughes. Peter has nearly 40 years’ experience in the brewing industry and I the newest staff member, bring 6 months brewery experience from Coastal Brewery based in Redruth, Cornwall. We know you're dedicated to cask brewing at the moment, but is there any chance you'd consider other dispense - i.e. bottles/cans etc for the home market? Please see above. We want to specialise in continuing the great tradition of British cask ale brewing only. Can you give us a few pubs where you regularly have your beers on? Baltic Fleet, Most Liverpool and surrounding area JD Wetherspoons, Ale house – Old Swan, Hard Times and Misery, Old Bank Ale House, Caledonia, Vernon, Ma Boyles, Magazine, Butchers and there are several pubs in North Wales where we still maintain a healthy presence. Chapter Brewing Company, Sutton Weaver I was lucky to hear on the grapevine about this interesting start up brewery and got hold of acquaintance Noah Torn to find out a bit more about what was going on with the ‘Fictional Brews’ from Chapter. Hi Noah, thanks for your time… we’ll start with a nice easy question; who is involved with Chapter Brewing? Alex Monks and myself (Noah Torn) are the founders of Chapter Brewing, we met through Paul (previously Mad Hatter and now Fourpure) and discovered that we both wanted the same things from a beer and started brewing together. Currently I am working full time with Alex coming in on brew days. We will both be full time in the summer of 2017. What made you all decide to go into opening a brewery? NT: For me I was finding that although I really enjoy trying beers and exploring the various styles, I wasn’t finding one beer that I truly loved. I vary rarely drink the same beer twice in a night and this isn’t always because I just want to try everything – often it’s because I just want to find that “perfect” beer. I thought that the beer that Alex and I were brewing was getting pretty close to what I really wanted…and it turns out that others liked it too. The opportunity came up to get a 10 bbl kit and I jumped at it. Why did you locate the brewery where it is (and also... where is it)? NT: We didn’t have a lot of choice in where the brewery is and it’s currently in Sutton Weaver, wedged in between Frodsham and Runcorn. We decided that as it was already set up there (more or less – although a lot needed to be done to get it operational) we would use it in situ for the first year; get to learn its foibles and quirks before moving to a more permanent home in Liverpool where both Alex and I live. Essentially we wanted a year to decide what we needed from a brewery space, having learnt about the kit in Sutton Weaver, rather than making assumptions about what we wanted before we’d even got it running. Do you think there's much more room on Merseyside/Liverpool for new brewers in terms of supply/demand across the North west? I think that the North West, and the North East too, is going to be the next big craft beer region. If you look at the wealth of breweries in the North, the beer they’re producing is excellent: Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle – it’s exciting and demanding is growing. Where Liverpool is concerned I think there is a gap in the market. If you look at the other major cities there are many, many breweries all living peacefully together making a thriving and exciting scene – Liverpool has some fabulous breweries, particularly real ale, but not that many that are really making that ‘craft beer’ style. We want to bring something else to the scene – something exciting, consistent and, most importantly, enjoyable. What will be the core brews you'll be doing? NT: We have a core range of 6 spreading across a fairly wide spectrum. We’re striving to have a strong core of interesting beers and although we do have a fantastic pale and an IPA, the rest of our core range is slightly different – a twist on the basic style – adding something creative and imaginative to bring in that element of intrigue without being outlandish. AM: Many of the recipes for our core range are based on beers I brewed for Christmas last year. I’ve taken what worked and tweaked the recipes to make them more suitable for commercial brewing, hopefully resulting in some pretty fun and interesting beers. Will you be doing anything in terms of styles that the other local brewers aren't covering, any exciting new brews? NT: We’re fortunate enough to have spent time at Mad Hatter in the Baltic Triangle, so exciting ideas have been running through our heads ever since I started homebrewing. We’ve got a few ideas that are close to production, particularly along the sours and barrel aging route – we’re making space for aging and I’m heading to Italy to get some Malbec barrels in the new year. A particular interest for me is pale ale: as I don’t really like them. We’re working on making a range of pales that will really inspire and interest the drinker. We’re also bringing an overarching theme to the table – something a little more than just the beer. Each beer is inspired by literature and fiction; either published by others or created by ourselves. We’re not going as clichéd as “each beer tells a story” but we’re bringing our own passions into the design of the beers and of the design of the labels. AM: Another area we’re looking at experimenting in is with the use of adjuncts. A shared interest in cooking has given us ideas for beers either based around food or ones that would complement what we like to eat. I have also recently become more interested in lager (and other similar styles) after a summer holiday to Menorca, so this is something I hope we can add to our repertoire at some point. What existing breweries out there would you say have influenced you guys in the set up, style and brewing? NT: My initial foray into brewing started with Otter Brewery in the West Country but it wasn’t until I tried Mad Hatter’s farmhouse saison for the first time that I really started to realise what was out there and the pure diversity of the beer world. Gaz from Mad Hatter and Paul from Fourpure have been particularly influential for me personally – indeed it was those two who first suggested setting up on my own. Advice and time from Terry at Liverpool craft, John at Melwood and Ben at Liverpool Organic has been really helpful in the more recent stages of setting up the brewery. There are a few breweries that I always try if I see they are on – Mad Hatter, Chorlton, Buxton and anything along the Geuze and Gose style lines. AM: The whole team at Mad Hatter have been incredibly supportive of our venture into brewing so they’re obviously a huge inspiration for me. In terms of style my main influences come from the likes of The Kernel, Mikkeller, Siren and Great Divide. My aim is for Chapter to become synonymous with quality beer that isn’t out of place amongst my favourite breweries. Easy. So there we have it, another set of new breweries with a range of beers with something for everyone.
Please keep an eye on my Twitter feed, that of the Liverpool Beer Collective and give the individual breweries a follow (links are below!) to find out more and keep up to date with what's going on. Have a great Christmas everyone!! Pedro. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you to the brewers for giving up their time to help with this article and thanks for the photos from many of them when I couldn't make it to them to get some pictures! The CRAFT Brewery Part Street, Southport Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.thecraftbrewery.org/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecraftbrewery/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheCraftbrew Republic of Liverpool Brewing Company Boundary Street, Liverpool Email: [email protected] Web: https://therepublicofliverpool.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRepublicofLiverpool/ Moonsugar Brewing Company Hunts Cross, Liverpool Twitter: https://twitter.com/moonsugarbrewco Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/moonsugarbrewco/ Glen Affric Brewery Birkenhead Email: [email protected] Web: https://glenaffricbrewery.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/glenaffricbrew Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GlenAffricBrew/ Top Rope Brewing Company Childwall, Liverpool Email: [email protected] Twitter: https://twitter.com/topropebrewing Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/topropebrewing/ Big Bog Brewing Company Speke, Liverpool Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.bigbog.co.uk/home.html Twitter: https://twitter.com/big_bog_brewing Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Big-Bog-Brewing-Company-350961654987859/ Chapter Brewing Company Sutton Weaver Email: [email protected] Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChapterBrewing Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chapterbrewing/
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Having to go near enough a month without being able to really review, or even enjoy a decent beer was pretty tough. Throw into the mix the fact that I had to give Indy Man Beer Con a miss and it was a bit of a wash-out of a month. Though I am still not quite right, I managed to knuckle down and hit November with a vengeance, partially to give me something to do, but also to try and make some space for getting some beers in ready for Christmas. As ever, there are a number of styles and throw into the mix a trip back north of the border to check out the bottle shops in Edinburgh (no to mention getting over to Andrew Usher and Sons for a Mad Hatter Brewing Co tap takeover which was serendipitously taking place), then we have some really good things to discuss this month. Special shouts out again to Great Grog and especially to the guys at Bottle Baron, which I visited to the first time and was made to feel very welcome. I'll be reviewing a bit more of what I picked up from Scotland in next months blog, but there are a large number already making their way into this month's selection. So what of the beers? Read on...
And that's about your lot from this burgeoning round up! Hopefully this will give you some good ideas for Christmas beers wherever you are going to pick them up from.
Happy hunting! Pedro. |
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