Welcome to February’s edition of the brewsletter! As March is only a few days around the corner, and the evenings are getting a little longer, we can hazard a look towards the spring.
Beer Festival season is now upon us with Cloudwater’s Friends & Family kicking everything off last weekend, and our travelling tipple taster James went along to a very interesting Industry expo to learn about what the industry has in store for 2020. Oh yeah, and it would be rude for him not to go to the opening session (with unlimited pours!). We also take a look at the prominence of so called ‘Gypsy’ or ‘Cuckoo’ brewing in the ever growing beer scene across the globe, how Cloudwater are championing their customer's health, and we’ll give you a sneak peak as to what stock has come in over the past few days!
Friends & Family & Beer Festival 2020, and Industry Expo
Friends and Family is Cloudwater's premier Beer Festival, hosting a mouth-watering line up with many of the world’s best breweries. This year also included a trade Industry Expo under the title "Craft Beer For Change". So we send our roving reporter James McKeown up for the day, here’s what James had to say:
Starting with the industry talks in the morning then following up with the public festival in the afternoon, the day was packed full of world class breweries and rare beer beers. One of the trade talks big themes was inclusivity which was felt was an important discussion piece and as much as we love craft beer diversity is seriously lacking. Another panel discussion was on the future of IPA’s amid the “haze NEIPA craze” we’re all seeing. The final talk of the industry expo expanded on these concerns of equality and fairness in the world of craft beer. Discussing ideas for expanding inclusivity and diversity, it was agreed craft beer could be more welcoming to racial diversity and the LGBTQ community. With some great input from the Queer Brewing Project.
After the Industry Expo I was ready for a beer and the first session started at 6:30pm. This was a world class showing by world class brewers, many of whose taps never had queues less than 20 or more people. Breweries such as Trillium, Deya, Track, Basqueland, JW Lees, Kernel, Evil Twin, Omnipollo, and obviously being in Manchester, Cloudwater had their beers to present. With some absolutely amazing beers including Chubbles Cloudwaters Triple IPA. However, I tried to break out of my usual hop focused beers and try the full gamut that beer offers, from Imperial stouts, Schwatzbiers to light lagers and mixed Fermented Sours. But for me a stand out beer of the day was Sour farmhouse hoppy ale by the American Sour master Jester King and Green Bench Brewing’s brilliant fruit mead.
On my return Os & Josh asked me “so what was your best beer” and the look of bemusement when I told then it wasn’t a beer but Green Benches fruit mead! All in all it was an amazing day, learning a lot about the wider craft beer industry while also sampling some of the best beers out there!James
Cloudwater on the ever increasing ABV debate
In a not-too-distant past, beer was brown, and it had to be around 4%. Now in the wonderful halcyon days of beers that are 'dank' 'murky' and bursting with juice, certain people have started to realise the steady rise in the alcoholic content that seems to be proportionate to these flavours arising. Certainly the addition of better quality ingredients and increased craftsmanship when brewing can mask the 'boozy' tastes, but since tasting Chubbles, Cloudwater's annual collaboration with The Veil (a Triple IPA weighing in at 10%), it really made me take a step back and think. Don't get me wrong, it tasted fantastic, ripe stone fruits and mango with a thick, luscious body. But not a hint of booze. None at all. It is definitely sorcery to make a beer of that high percentage taste like something that has come straight out of a carton, but how far can brewers push that? And how much can we as consumers take before we're knocking back 440mL cans of 10% beer without breaking a sweat?
Ironically, just a few weeks before its release, Cloudwater released a blog post outlining how the industry standard has changed from pre 2000 4% bitter, to currently 6.5-7.5% IPA's, 8.5+% DIPA's and 10+% Imperial beers. Their worry is 'that modern drinkers faced with the ABVs creeping higher, with small batch innovation steering drinkers towards stronger beers, are at risk of adverse long-term effects there's no worldwide precedent for'. And they continue to say by lowering the ABV across their whole range by 0.5% for 2020, that an average person drinking the same amount as last year could end up consuming 10% less ethanol throughout the year. Scary when its put in terms of ethanol, isn't it...
Being the forward thinking, people loving brewery Cloudwater are, our health is at the forefront of their minds. So watch out in the next few months, many other breweries could follow in their footsteps. But let us keep the hazy, juicy, dank, piney, murky goodness!
Cuckoo/Gypsy/Nomadic Brewing
'Gypsy' or 'Cuckoo' brewing is a style of brewing whereby the brewer does not own a commercial sized brewing kit, they merely 'rent' a large commercial kit to brew a special one off batch of a certain beer. This phenomenon was thrust into the limelight in the mid-to-late 2000's when the likes of Mikkeller, Evil Twin and To øl were smashing the beer scene out of the park with their experimental style of brewing. Since then Omnipollo has joined the ranks of being an 'elite' nomadic brewer. It is worth noting that this is a very cost effective way to start up a business venture as a brewer, and a great way to earn experience in the brewing world without having to lay down the initial cost of setting up a commercial size kit. Local breweries such as Neon Raptor and Liquid Light both started this way, in fact Liquid Light are still brewing out of Magpie Brewery as we speak!
However, as always, there are slight drawbacks to this method. Each brewery has a slightly different setup, a setup that compliments the brewery's style and core values, and compliments the head brewer and the way they want to brew. so therefore it is always hard to tinker with recipes and hone down a core range. That is why we have seen in the past 15 years, most of the original gypsy brewers have settled down into more permanent residences. Mikkeller was the first to do this in 2013, establishing a larger brewery in San Diego, USA whilst still using many breweries across europe. More recently To øl have designed 'To øl City', a huge development of warehouses in Denmark to brew all their recipes in house, and Evil Twin have aquired their first home brewery in Queen's NY, and its definitely on the beer tourist's list of things to do in New York!
Finally the last of the true Gypsy Brewers Omnipollo have settled down in ther hometown of Stockholm, in a wonderfully refurbished church to house their weird and wonderful recipes. so look out in the future for more of that stuff coming up! If you were here to try the AON Glenmorangie Barrel Aged Imperial Stout we had on tap last weekend, you should know what we are talking about!
Stock Update
"Enough of the essay's, where's the beer!" we hear you say! Well we've had a good few weeks stocking the fridges back up after January, including this weeks drop of lager and other German Styles! Lagers, Pilsner's Dunkel's and Doppelbocks were all dropped in this week! Kloster Andechs are a noteworthy addition to the fridges with their Spezial, Helles & Wheat Beer. Prost!
Our mates from up the road, Brew York, dropped in yesterday as well, arms full of their latest wares and we've got to say, they look and taste great! Everything from a dank and juicy NEIPA, Juice Campbell, to a lip-puckeringly tart Gooseberry sour to keep us all busy for the next few weeks, with a hazy DDH pale thrown in there for good measure!
Thanks to all of you that have been to Kraft Werks this past month, and those of you that are planning to come and see us this month, we look forward to seeing you!
We have a couple of tap takeover's in the pipeline, but if any of you have an idea, feel free to let us know!
Happy drinking!
Josh, James and Os