The Brewery on a Hop Farm
This month it will be 10 years since we did the first brew in our shiny new brewery in The Old Chicken Shed in Suckley, so it feels like a good time to do a bit of reflection on where our journey started and how far we have come in those 10 years!
When you cook with beer, you aren’t trying to make something that tastes of beer, rather using it as one of many ingredients to give a subtle beery flavour. This is good because a recipe rarely needs a full 500ml bottle of beer so there is usually at least part of a bottle available for sipping as you cook!
There are a lot of doom and gloom articles in the press at the moment about how bad things are for the brewing industry and hospitality in general. I seem to hear about a new brewery deciding enough is enough almost every week; but there are also success stories of people looking to expand and taking on staff. I think the reasons that some are doing well while others struggle are nuanced – some are beyond anyone’s control, some are industry related, and some due to choices made by individual businesses. I thought I’d talk about what I think some of the issues facing the industry are.
Regular live music is here at The Hop Shed Tap Room!
We’re seeing an increasing number of our customers asking if we have any gluten-free beers lately – what was once a niche product is now becoming much more mainstream. All our bottles are in fact now gluten free, which I think is important as it allows more people to drink our beer; but how is this possible when grain plays such an important role in brewing?
The boundaries of brewing are constantly being pushed, with brewers experimenting far beyond the traditional ingredients of water, malt, hops, and yeast to create unique flavours and aromas. In this month’s blog I’ll be exploring specialty ingredients and celebrating our two seasonal releases that both include something a little different.
A lot of breweries do them, but why go to the effort of a collaboration brew? Well personally one of the things I really like about the brewing industry is that while in another field companies may be keen to protect their trade secrets, brewers are usually quite happy to share advice and ideas to help one another. A collaboration is an opportunity to learn from someone else, share what you know, and maybe come up with something you never would have thought of on your own.
