When we decided to spin DeskBeers out of Mint Digital - the digital product agency that incubated us for a year - we thought crowdfunding would be a great fit. Because we already had a “crowd” in our customer base, and because of the broad appeal of the concept (who doesn’t love beer delivered to their desk?) we looked to crowdfunding as a way to raise money by leveraging these two assets. And it was a success! We blasted through our target and, since March, have been putting that cash to good use.
But what about the platform we used? Since founding in 2011, Crowdcube has established itself as the leading investment crowdfunding platform. They have funded more than 270 businesses and have over 190,000 investors on their books. More importantly, they have been a great DeskBeers customer since we launched UK delivery back in January 2015!
While funding on Crowdcube was no walk in the park (the team at Crowdcube will be the first to tell you how much work goes into running a successful campaign), the tools provided by the platform made it possible to reach a large number of potential investors, send those interested our business plan and answer any questions they had both publicly via the forum and privately via email.
As entrepreneurs themselves, the team at Crowdcube understand the difficulties of raising money in order to start and grow a business.
“We want to give entrepreneurs the opportunity to take control of raising finance from their own network of friends, family, customers and ‘the crowd’.” - Crowdcube
So how does DeskBeers fit in with the culture of this world-leading investment platform?
“Our ‘crowd culture’ is seriously enjoyable. We are serious about what we do and maintaining our position as the global leader in our sector and we get a great enjoyment out of it … what better way than to have DeskBeers on a Friday afternoon?” - Crowdcube
When good news strikes, such as another company successfully hitting its funding targets, Crowdcube HQ has been known to erupt in celebration. Among the whoops and cheers (even an air-horn has been heard once or twice) you’ll find the revelry backed up by some delicious craft beer.
“…a social, celebratory craft beer is always a good motivation” - Crowdcube
Post Script:
Crowdcube take investing on their platform very seriously and asked me to include the following risk warning about investing in start-ups:
Investing in start-ups and early stage businesses involves risks, including illiquidity, lack of dividends, loss of investment and dilution, and it should be done only as part of a diversified portfolio. Crowdcube is targeted exclusively at investors who are sufficiently sophisticated to understand these risks and make their own investment decisions. You will only be able to invest via Crowdcube once you are registered as sufficiently sophisticated.
The internet, mobile apps, “technology” - apparently it’s going to be a big deal. We’re not convinced, but if you are you might want to consider learning to code and if you do, you probably want to talk to Alice from Steer.
Steer is a code school. They run classes in person from their classroom in Clerkenwell. Subjects covered include Front End development, Ruby on Rails, Javascript and iOS app development. All classes are taught by their team of professional developers, and all are completed in five days or less.
Aimed at designers, marketeers and entrepreneurs, Steer courses are an intense affair. The Steer team recognise that people are giving up a lot of time to improve themselves - time that could have been spent holidaying or at work - so a lot of effort goes into making the classroom an inspiring environment in which to learn. From the classroom itself to the snacks on offer, no small detail goes unnoticed.
“DeskBeers fits nicely into it because it’s more of a personal touch than just getting regular beer. I also think that in the tech industry, we take a lot of crazy ideas for granted. But when you’re new to the scene like a lot of our students are, it can be pretty inspiring to see that an entire business can be built around such a simple idea as weekly beer deliveries.”
Steer doesn’t run courses every week, nor is the demand for beer at the end of the courses consistent. In the winter, for example, Alice reduces the weekly order down from two boxes to just one. It’s dark by the time classes finish and some folks just want to brave the cold and get home. But come rain or shine, at the end of the week the whole Steer team joins the class, bringing with them their DeskBeers boxes:
“It’s kind of like a celebration. On the courses there are two teachers but there are more of us on the team. It’s nice for the rest of the team to meet the class and for them to meet some of the other teachers and chat about other areas of development that they might be interested in.”
Friday drinks, then, are an important way for the wider Steer team to interact with their students, and for their students to pick the brains of more than just their teachers. And this isn’t just paying lip service to supporting students and networking - more than one past student has gone on to become a member of the Steer team.
DeskBeers fits in at Steer by providing something a little special. It fits with Steer’s ethos of quality in teaching. The flexible subscription allows Steer to get the right amount of beer for their classes, and serving beer at the end of the week gives a focal point for socialising, networking and, for those with insatiable minds, more learning.
DeskBeers is the beer delivery service designed specifically for businesses. If you want great beer delivered to your office, you should take out a subscription at deskbeers.com.
Some customers will have been fortunate enough to receive a few bottles of One Mile End’s Salvation Pale in their boxes recently. We were excited to finally send this beer out, and decided to find out a little more about the brewery that produced it.
Simon McCabe, Head Brewer at One Mile End, was kind enough to take a call with me to answer a few questions and give a little background on One Mile End - the brewery in the cellar beneath the White Hart pub on Mile End Road.
Like many in the London brew-scene, Simon got into home-brewing after visiting the USA. He was seduced by the hop-forward style of brewing that was becoming popular in the States and, on returning home, Simon took to home-brewing in order to create beers in this style. Eventually Simon wound up in a job at Redemption in Tottenham, where he brewed and learned the trade under Redemption’s Andy Moffat.
When the opportunity to use the kit at the White Hart presented itself, the chance to take control and experiment for himself was an appealing one. Simon jumped at it.
The White Hart has long been known as a brewpub, but the kit in the cellar was mostly used to produce beer for those drinkers seated above the floorboards. Nine “lovely stainless steel tanks” in the cellar belied the potential for a larger scale operation. Simon set about re-branding the brewery in order to enter the wider craft beer market.
Initially Simon worked alone, experimenting and developing the recipes that would become the core range of the new One Mile End brewery. A few months later, the re-branded brewery was launched to the world in October, 2014. Since then, the brewery has gone from strength to strength, and now is brewing consistently at full capacity. Every brew is sold out, and it’s everything the team of three can do to keep on top of things in that small space beneath the pub. I asked Simon how running a full-scale brewery from a London pub cellar was going:
“Working with that amount of beer in such a small space takes a lot of getting used to. Everyone has got to be on the ball - everything has to move in and move out at precise times otherwise there’s no room for anything!”
It seems like the brewery is busting at the seams right now, and to that end the hunt is on for a larger premises. But don’t fear, the White Hart will still remain a brewpub, and One Mile End will still remain beneath it. The plan is to move production of the core range, including that wonderful Salvation Pale Ale, out to a new, bigger site. Doing so would free up the kit under the pub to do what it’s always done - experiment, and brew for the patrons drinking upstairs.
Like the sound of One Mile End and their Salvation Pale Ale? DeskBeers delivers beer like this to offices across the UK every week. Sign up today.
Last Friday we sat down with Noam from Mint Digital - a long time subscriber of DeskBeers - to find out a bit more about Mint and how DeskBeers fits into their lives. Noam is a Director at Mint, responsible for heading up the Agency side of the business. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.
Subscription: 12 beers every week (+ extra on special occasions)
Please could you tell us a bit about Mint?
Mint is a hybrid agency and incubator of digital products. We turn ideas and insights into products people love. Mint has a bit of a niche in building products that straddle the physical and digital worlds where the customer is buying a physical thing, but it’s got an intrinsic digital or personalised element to it. Things like Stickygram and Boomf, Foldable Me, Projecteo etc. I feel like most the digital world markets stuff and drives people to stuff rather than make things people actually want to have and hold. Mint is product focused - things we want people to buy.
It’s really about taking the seeds of ideas and turning them into something real, and ultimately things that people love and want to use. It’s all about trying to to it in a way that’s de-risked and builds confidence in ideas. It has a lot of Lean elements to it in terms of being iterative and validating assumptions - building up to that final product that people love rather than assuming what people want.
How does DeskBeers work at Mint?
It tries to encourage people to stop work around five on a Friday and just relax and have more casual conversations. We put it in the calendar as an event so that we didn’t miss it. We just found that we were getting too busy. Half the office would be too busy to stop. Inviting everyone to an event has helped.
There’s a serendipity to it - sometimes everyone stops and it’s a bit of a craic, sometimes not so much. Sometimes it leads on to a couple more beers at the pub. It leads to conversations that you might not have ordinarily had. One thing we’ve done, which is quite nice, is invite potential partners along - somewhere between a meeting and a social thing. It’s been a nice thing to say “Hey, do you fancy joining us for DeskBeers on Friday?” It’s quite casual, they get to meet more Mints… it’s worked quite nicely.
It seems like a month doesn’t go by without news of a new brewery inLondon. While this is great news for fans of good beer (like us), itcan sometimes get a bit overwhelming. You want to try them all but
don’t know where to start. We think there are two solutions; sign
up for a Deskbeers subscription to keep sampling local beers
every Friday, and go on a brewery crawl. Everyone knows about the
Bermondsey beer mile, the mecca for craft beer fans in London, but as
the craft scene goes from strength to strength in the capital, other
crawls are developing that we think are worthy of your time. A
brewery crawl allows you to sample a wide range of beers and
breweries in one day, get to know the brewers and start adding to
your list of favourite pale ales. We’ve searched the capital and
found three crawls to liven up your weekends.
Our
first crawl takes you on a beer filled journey between two of
London’s most vibrant and multicultural areas.
Starting in Queen’s Road Peckham, first stop is Beer
Rebellion, a cross between a bottle shop and a bar run by Late
Knights brewery. They serve a mixture of their own beers and a range
from other independent breweries in both casks and kegs. Late
Knights’ own beers include the Old Red Eyes red ale and the
creatively named Dawn’s Early Light, an American pale ale that pays
homage to our Yankee friends’ national anthem. Beer
Rebellion is open daily from 12-11.30pm.
A
fifteen minute walk through Peckham brings you to the second stop on
the crawl; Brick Brewery.
Founded by local resident Ian Stewart in late 2013 in a Peckham Rye
railway arch, Brick has so far made no moves to become a large scale
brewer and produce just five barrels per brew, preferring to focus on
quality not quantity. Ian opens up the tap room on Friday evenings
(5-9pm) and Saturday (12-9) where you can taste all the regular beers
plus some of the specials that are available exclusively to brewery
visitors. The core beers range from a 3.9% light cask ale to 5.7% IPA
and a few others in between.
After
sinking your second drink or more - we’re not judging, honest - you
can either walk it off (20 minutes) to reach the next stop on the
crawl or if you need beer quicker than that, jump on a train at
Peckham Rye to take you to Denmark Hill in a mere three minutes. The
Phoenix pub in Denmark Hill station isn’t technically a brewery
but they do serve a rotating range of “innovative craft beer” and
provide a convenient stop on our journey to Brixton. If you’re
getting hungry then the Phoenix also serves food, however Brixton
market and all it’s street food treats await two stops further down
the crawl.
A
15 minute walk from the Phoenix brings you to the Beer
Hive, home to Clarkshaw’s tap room as well as the London Beer Lab
who run courses for those interested in making their own beers. We’re
sticking to the drinking part of the equation for now and Clarkshaws
offers some tempting and fantastically named options. Curse of
Cthulhu is not only the most difficult-to-spell beer we’ve come
across but also has the honour of being approved by the Vegetarian
Society, which somehow makes it seem like a curse that might not be
all that bad for you. One of the more recent brews is the Gorgon’s
Alive golden ale (see what we mean about these names!?) which is made
with Goldings hops from East Kent. Clarkshaws started off in East
Dulwich before moving closer to Brixton. The Beer Hive is open from
12-6pm on Saturdays.
Final
stop on the crawl is a contender for the best craft beer packaging
around, Brixton Brewery.
The colourful and loud designs are not only interesting to look at,
they also reflect the vibrancy of the surrounding area. The brewery
has a slightly unusual founders story in that it was set up by two
couples who also both happen to be parents, making this a true family
business. The core beers are all named after local landmarks;
Windrush Stout takes inspiration from the ship that brought over the
first wave of West Indian immigrants to the area, while the Reliance
Pale Ale is named after Reliance Arcade, a passageway off Brixton
market full of local businesses. You can sample these beers and more
from 12-4pm on Saturdays.
Finishing
in Brixton means you now have access to all the exciting dining
options that have sprung up over the last few years. Market Row
houses sour dough pizzeria, Franco Manca, while Brixton Village has
Honest Burgers. There are far too many other eating options to list
here but all will help you soak up the beer. If you’re not finished
yet and want to grab a few bottles to take home with you, Market
Row Wines has a good selection of local craft beers. If you’d
prefer to line your stomach before the crawl then just do the route
in reverse.
Our second crawl remains
in south London, fast becoming a hot bed of craft beer creativity. We
start at The Florence,
a brew pub in Herne Hill. Led by chief brewer, Peter Haydon, who is
also an author and pub historian, the pub produces a core range of
three cask beers along with seasonal specials. The Weasel is a hoppy
golden ale, the Bonobo is for fans of a dark bitter while the Beaver
is a wheat beer. All beers are below 5% in volume so again, this is a
good place to begin the crawl. Being a pub means you don’t need to
worry about the opening hours either.
Round the corner is
Canopy Beer Co which has
well and truly put Herne Hill on the craft beer map. Located (as
seems a pre-requisite for breweries these days) in a railway arch
opposite Brockwell Park, Canopy specialise in small batch beer that
helps them brew twice a week and allows them to keep experimenting
with new specials. They do have three permanent beers though; the
Brockwell IPA, named after the aforementioned park, the Milkwood
Amber ale and the Ruskin wheat beer. These guys don’t have a regular
open day yet but they have confirmed they will be open this weekend
(28-29th
March) so more incentive to start exploring straight away.
The next stop on the
crawl is a fair hike so we recommend you get the number 3 bus from
opposite Brockwell park (outside Costcutter) to take you up to Gipsy
Hill where we have three breweries to visit. The journey takes
roughly five minutes and you need to get off at Paxton Green.
Gipsy
Hill Brewing Company have definitely won a place in our hearts
for their commitment to brewing full flavoured beer below 5%. This
focus on great tasting session beers means they are perfect for,
well, eerrrr…..a session, such as as this craft beer crawl in fact.
They have three core beers for now, the Southpaw amber ale, Beatnik pale ale and the Dissident English porter. All three taste great and you can get your hands on
them on every first and fourth Saturday of the month when the tap
room opens from 1-6pm.
Next stop, The
London Beer Factory, which is conveniently located on the same trading estate as Gipsy Hill Brewing Company. Set up by two brothers, Sam, who has a
degree in Physics and Astronomy and Ed, who has experience in the
wine industry. They like to think they combine both “science and
art” in their brewing process. With a 20 barrel brewery to their
name the boys have plenty of room to experiment and brew specials to
sit alongside their range of permanent offerings. The core range
includes the Chelsea Blonde, the London Session ale and the Paxton
Pale Ale named after Sir Joseph Paxton, the architect who designed
the nearby Crystal Palace structure which burned down in 1936. The
brewery is open at irregular intervals so best checking their twitter
feed (@LDNBEERFACTORY) to make sure they are open for drinkers.
A nine minute walk up
Gipsy Hill to Crystal Palace brings you to the second Beer
Rebellion outpost (the other branch is in Queen’s Road Peckham),
again run by the folks at Late Knights Brewery. The shop and bar
follows the same formula, a range of their own and other independent
beers available to buy or consume. This branch has eight casks which
change every week, four keg beers and even ciders if for some reason
you need a change from delicious beer. There is also the added bonus
of food in the form of “London’s best burgers” that provide you
with something to soak up the beer and reflect on all the beers
you’ve tasted.
Our last crawl is in east
London and gives you the chance to wander through London’s newest
park as well as seeing first hand the venues where Team GB collected
65 medals in the 2012 Olympics, 29 of them gold. However, first up is
Redchurch Brewery in Bethnal Green. Redchurch
are all about keeping it simple, their brews are unfiltered and
unpasteurised and they believe people “shouldn’t tolerate bland,
flavourless beer” while the pared back packaging reflects their
no-nonsense philosophy. Amongst their regular options are the
Bethnal Pale, Shoreditch Blonde, the Brick Lane Lager and the Hoxton
Stout, all of which are available to sample in the tap room from 6pm
on Fridays or all day Saturday. The Brewery is a five minute walk
from Bethnal Green tube.
To get to the next stop
on the crawl you’ll need to retrace your steps to Bethnal Green
station (if you came that way) and get the Central Line (the red one)
one stop to Stratford. Once there, follow the signs to Westfield
Shopping Centre, an odd venue for a craft beer venue admittedly, but
bear with us, it’s worth it. In the Great Eastern Market area you
will find Tap East, a
cross-breed of brewery and bar. They have a regularly changing
line-up of 16 draught beers, made up of their own brews and guest
ales. In addition there are more than 100 bottled beers meaning you
will never get bored. Amongst their own creations are East End Mild,
a 3.5% brew with “dark toasty notes and a smooth finish”, Coffee
of the Morning, a strong stout with freshly ground coffee beans as
well as a light and citrus Tonic Ale (3%) for those trying to take it
easy. Tap East is open from 11am-11pm Monday to Saturday and from
12-10pm on Sundays.
When you’ve had your fill
in Tap East, follow the signs to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for the
next leg of the adventure. The park is still being finished but
there is plenty to keep you occupied already, like a climbing wall,
some pretty fun looking swings and of course the Olympic arenas now
open to the public, not that we advise combining strenuous physical
activity with beer. For £12 you can also go to the top of the UK’s
tallest sculpture; the Arcelormittal Orbit, or in normal speak, the
red helter skelter thing.
If you’d rather spend
your money on more beer you need to head to western edge of the park
and the signs to Hackney Wick. Here you will find Crate
Brewery & Pizzeria, right at the bottom of the White Building
and next to the canal. If the weather is good then take advantage of
their outdoor picnic tables next to the water. This is the halfway
point of the crawl so it makes an ideal lunch venue and Crate
delivers strongly in the gastronomic stakes. Big, crisp, stone baked
pizzas provide a great accompaniment to Crate’s range of seven core
beers which include a 4.3% Best bitter, a 5.8% IPA and 4.8% lager
while pizza options range from Middle Eastern lamb to red onion,
courgette and feta.
To get to the penultimate
stop on the tour you can follow the canal south to Truman’s,
one of London’s most historic brewers. First established nearly 350
years ago and one of the capital’s last independent breweries before
it was sold off in 1970, Truman’s was reborn in 2010 following a 21
year closure. It now occupies a smaller site in Hackney Wick (no
longer the iconic Brick Lane building) and intends to focus on being
the best, not the biggest. A separate bar and tap room, The Cygnet,
has a fantastic outdoor terrace right on the River Lea, 100 yards
from the main brewery. If you get bored of the views then there are
outdoor pool tables and ping pong to keep you entertained, as well as
a full food menu. The Cygnet stocks Truman’s own core beers including
the Swift golden ale and the Zephyr, a hoppy pale. All of them are
made from 100% malted grain and usually come from a cask. If you live
locally you can bring a utility bill along to get 15% off.
For the last stop on this
east end crawl you need to head back to Hackney Wick station and go
two stops west to Hackney Central (five minutes). A short walk from
the station is The Cock
Tavern, a brew pub where you can get your hands on beer from our
last two breweries. The first, Howling Hops, is brewed on site
underneath the pub and this is pretty much the only place in London
you can drink it. Their eclectic range includes the Ruby Red Dinner
Ale, the Duchess Single Hop Ale and a Chocolate stout. The Cock also
stocks beers from the East
London Brewing Company (ELBC) who operate out of Leyton but do
not have their own tap room. ELBC are a family-run microbrewery with
just 10 barrels but they still manage to produce a good range, from
the increasingly ubiquitous American pale ale (Cowcatcher, 4.8%) to
the Quadrant, a dark, fruity stout that was brewed in collaboration
with the winners of the National Homebrew Competition.
If you’d like to enjoy
some of these beers from the comfort of your own office, don’t forget
to sign up for a subscription
to Deskbeers and instantly become the most popular person in your team. We
deliver great craft beer to great companies every Friday. Friday beers have never tasted this good.
We talk to Paul from Windsor and Eton Brewery today. They supplied us with an IPA called Kohinoor, which made up half of last weeks round. A brewery with a diverse range of beers and some exciting plans for the future, WeBrew are ones to watch.
Describe Webrew without using the words “brewery” “pub” or “beer”.
Traditional, passionate business making the best product that people love.
Do you have any future events coming up?
We have open tours on the 1st Wednesday of every month as well as some Saturdays. Check it out www.webrew.co.uk/events
Do you have a favourite hop?
My personal favourite is Mandarina Bavaria - we use it to brew Mandarin, our Christmas Ale, it’s light & refreshing & full of aroma - perfect with Christmas dinner.
What’s the best perk of working for Webrew?
It is by far the friendliest place I’ve worked. Everyone loves their jobs and has real passion for what they do.
What beers are you thinking of making next?
Kieran, one of our younger brewers and son of our head brewer Paddy has just launched a new brewery brand called Uprising with his first beer, Treason, a West Coast IPA. Kieran has lots of ideas for quirky, craft keg beers so keep an eye out for them.
Personally I’m relatively new to the brewing industry but have a long background in the hospitality business. The rest of the team tend to rave about many of the London Brewers who form the London Brewers alliance (LBA)
Knight Club is our members club. Fans of the brewery can sign up to annual membership where they attend a host of evenings at the brewery with guests, where they can be amongst the first to try new beers and hear the latest news.
What are WeBrews plans for the future?
We’ve just recently expanded the brewery to accommodate more beer and a larger shop & visitor’s area. We’re also close to acquiring a property in the town to turn into a traditional tavern. Ultimately we want to be the best craft brewer in the country.
In this weeks edition of meet the brewer we speak to a South London brewery Gipsy Hill. They supplied DeskBeers with two beers last week the Beatnik and the Southpaw, both are under 5% making them the perfect session beers. Here is a bit more about the guys past/present/future.
When did Gipsy Hill Brewing start?
We started brewing on 1st July 2014.
What made you want to start making beer?
Love for the product and thinking we could do it better. We wanted a better life designing recipes and building products that we love and are proud to sell. Also looking to fill a niche in the market - full flavoured craft beer below 5% ABV.
Do you have any future events coming up?
Open days are at the brewery (Unit 11 Hamilton Road Industrial Estate, 160 Hamilton Road, London, SE27 9SF) on the 1st and 4th Saturday of the month. Next one is on Saturday 22nd November. We also are throwing a Christmas party on the 13th December!
Favourite hop?
We are loving experimenting with some new ones that are just building a good reputation amongst breweries these days. Can’t give too many of those away, but we’re having some fun with Motueka.
What’s the best part of being a small brewery?
We run the business how we want. In early, brew hard, get out and have fun doing it. There are a thousand things to do, and just 3 of us to do them, so we’re just muddling through one step at a time - so many challenges and things to do we’ve never done, every day is kind of an adventure.
What beers are you thinking of making next? Watch this space for a darker Xmas special, some more session strength delicious beer that could play on a Best Bitter / Porter theme and maybe an interesting take on a lager…
Who are some of your favourite London breweries? Really enjoy our local scene in the South East: Brick, By The Horns, London Beer Factory, Late Knights, Orbit to name a few. Get on down for some South East London brew-crawls.
Southpaw: Disarmingly punchy. Amber with mouthfuls of malt and hops, fruit, citrus, backed up by bitterness
Beatnik: Iconoclastically fruity. Pale with a tropical air, a firm malt base and light, sharp and bitter tones.
Describe what Gipsy Hill’s about without using the words ‘beer’, ‘brewery’ or ‘pub’.
We’re about providing the flavour you crave without smacking you round the chops with all that high ABV.
More than just a delivery service for craft beer, the backbone of DeskBeers is built off several values. It’s the promising of a ‘tools down’ attitude, the offering of one of the best employee perks in London and Brighton, and also the introduction of a regular office tradition.
Robin Lycka, one of DeskBeers’ early adopters, originally signed up in August and has seen DeskBeers become as regular a feature in his office as the staff themselves.
“One of our team members stumbled upon DeskBeers through a blog and jokingly suggested that we should get beers delivered to our office”, he says. “I created a subscription without telling anyone and the first Friday was, of course, received with standing ovations”.
If office-wide standing ovations aren’t enough of a testimonial, the social side of DeskBeers became obvious to Robin after his first delivery. “How can you not look forward to that 4PM bell chiming for beer o’clock and the excitement of not knowing what kind of delicious craft beers we’ll be introduced to this time?”
Working for a high-paced and production-driven company, Robin and his colleagues also deal with customer service on a daily basis, with Robin’s DeskBeers subscription has rapidly seeing itself becoming an integral part to help fuel teamwork.
“Keeping the team happy and working well together is an essential part of success…and it is scientifically proven that beer brings people together.” Stepping away from their desks and towards their box of DeskBeers every Friday presents the opportunity to help brew new ideas over a DeskBeer or two. “During the first and second beer we usually come up with new ideas, probably because you go into a different more relaxed state of mind when the Friday is over.”
“A proper Friday treat” and at a cool 12 beers per fortnight, Robin’s DeskBeers subscription is a welcome signal for the end of the working week, setting - perhaps unsurprisingly - a beery pace for things to come. “We don’t see how we could have a Friday without it [and] the excitement of opening the box to theatrically read out the leaflet about this week’s DeskBeers.”
Happy teams, Friday treats, standing ovations and everything in-between, it isn’t hard to see why DeskBeers fits perfectly into Robin’s work ethic. So if you want to give DeskBeers a shot, head here. If your Friday thirst is already being quenched by DeskBeers, let us know what you think!
This week marks the first edition of “Meet the brewer”. It’s a new feature which helps you - the DeskBeers aficionado - get closer to the brewers of each batch of DeskBeers, every week. Helping us kick-start, last week’s brewer - Wild Card - offered us a slice of their mind, showcasing just why they’re so brilliant. Without further ado, here it is:
Describe what Wild Card’s about without using the words ‘beer’, ‘brewery’ or ‘pub’.
Working hard to do something we love.
What made you want to start brewing as Wild Card?
A hobby that got out of control. Taking over first the shed and then our lives. We grew up in Nottingham where good beer was widely available. We started out very good at drinking beer and thought we’d have a crack at home brewing. It was once we had built our own equipment that we felt inspired to make a living from brewing.
What’s your favourite non-beery drink?
Tea. Yorkshire Gold Blend, specifically. Gets us up and going for the early morning brew schedules. Without tea bags, all manufacture would stop.
What’s the weirdest ingredient you’d like to see in your beers?
That would be telling. We’ve got something very interesting coming out in the Spring.
Favourite hop?
Any fresh wild hops, regardless of the variety. There’s some great ones on Walthamstow marshes. One of the team, Toby, who is a keen forager introduced us to some great spots nearby.
What’s the best part of being a small brewery?
Being in control of our own destiny, making the beer the way we want to and having a finished product that we can be proud of. We are all involved with every part of the process, whether it’s driving the van, washing the casks, brewing the beer, perfecting the recipes, we all do a bit of everything.
What beers are next after the IPA and red ale?
Our blonde beer, the King of Hearts, is out in bottles this week. It is brewed with lager malts and then dry hopped in the fermenter with Citra. This gives loads of great hop aroma without making the beer astringent. The result is really a really zesty and refreshing brew.
Next is a London Porter, called the Ace of Spades. We’re launching this on cask at a free halloween party at the brewery on Friday 31st October. The bottles will be out soon after this. We’re really happy with the recipe, it’s complex, but well rounded with great chocolate and roasted coffee notes.
Tell us about the events at Wild Card.
We took such a big risk when we threw everything at getting Wild Card Brewery off the ground. And it was thanks to the support of locals and beer enthusiasts that we have managed to get this far. It’s been great because we now have a platform to offer other start ups the chance to make a name for themselves. So recently we’ve had a local start up called the Choi Boys doing a food residency at the brewery. They make incredible Korean food and it means we can focus on making and serving great beer. We’ve also worked with up and coming bands. We recently had the Tigercats do a gig here. On Thursday 4th December the Firestations will be launching their new album at the brewery.
We’re really lucky in the brewery because we share the industrial estate with some great neighbours. Chris Bracey’s God’s Own Junkyard, Mother’s Ruin Gin Palace, Aura Rosa Cake are all next to us. As well as some great traditional businesses like Shiv Motors mechanics. We’ve all collaborated to do some really ambitious events. We even had Javier Zalba from Buena Vista Social Club playing in the industrial estate car park.
We’ve got some other great things lined up at the brewery soon, including: - A Halloween party and London Porter launch on Fri 31st October; - A Classic & Retro Car Boot Sale on Sunday 16th November - A winter beer festival Fri 21st November - Sun 23rd November - Firestations’ album launch on Thursday 4th December - Flamenco Thief Thursday 18th December
What brewery would you like to do a collaboration with?
Mikkeller. We’re big fans.
Who are some of your favourite London breweries?
It’s always great to see other brewery start-ups who are making something from nothing and starting out with little capital and lots of hard work. Strawman Brewery in Peckham, Anspach & Hobsday are good examples.
Over in East and North London we have great neighbours as breweries, such as Beavertown, ELB, Hackney Brewery, Five Points, Brodies, Crate, Pressure Drop, Redchurch, Redemption… just to name a few. One of the great things about the brewing industry is that it is so collaborative. Rather than competing against each other we are working together to build excitement about good beer and win over drinkers from the bland, multinational breweries.
What’s Wild Card’s next move for world domination?
We’re currently planning a national infrastructure project to lay pipelines across the country. By 2015 all UK dwellings will have three taps in their kitchens. Cold tap, hot tap and beer tap…
With London being the epicentre of (almost) everything under the sun; it also shares a particular romance with the craft beer and live music scenes, with countless efforts from both sides being seen every day.
Fitting comfortably within the latter two, Signature Brew combined their love of great craft beer and live music to a) Encourage bands to brew their own beer and b) start brewing their own to wage war on the poor selection of beer at gig venues across the capital. We threw in two of their best - and recently bottled - brews into last Friday’s delivery; a 5.6% Backstage IPA and a 4.1% Signature Pale Ale, making for a lot of happy faces.
BEER NEWS
Continuing the theme of innovation, Men’s Journal have compiled a list of “(Highly) Experimental Craft Beer Style Trends Worth Trying”, including brewing with food (by not eating it), foraging, ‘Grodziskie’ malt and - erm - milk. Elsewhere, Camden Town Brewery are on the cusp of releasing their Pumpkin-spiced lager, set to drop on October 30th. Forget handing out free sweets for Halloween and remember the good stuff with Camden.
Constantly letting us revel audiovisual delight, The Craft Beer Channel have once again blurred the lines between craft beer and delectable snacks by inventing the Oreo & Chocolate beer milkshake; it looks delicious, but we’ll let you be the judge.
