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36 Gould St
Manchester, M4 4RN
0161 819 2767
Blackjack brewery / Blackjack Beers, making great beers since 2012. Based in Manchesters Green Quarter tucked under a railway arch, boasting events and tastings in the beer garden. Home to Glassworks Drinks Distribution & the Six O Clock Brewer.
The history of neighbourhood, Angel Meadow, is industrious, dark and fascinating. When Ensemble developed our new brand, they ran with this history as a focal theme of our new identity. I thought it would be interesting to dive further into this history; I caught up with Dean Kirby - a local historian, host of the history podcast Every But A Beach and journalist with a specialist knowledge of the history of the area.
I suspect if you are hear reading this blog then you may have noticed that we’ve had a little change up around here at Blackjack over the last few months.
In June, we released a full, new re-branding of Blackjack’s visual identity, designed and developed for us by Ensemble – a studio based in Manchester’s Northern Quarter.
How do you start to completely rebrand a brewery which has had such a consistent identity for over a decade? Developing the brief was as interesting as the solution. Pragmatically speaking, we produce over 42 unique beers a year at Blackjack, so we realised early on that we needed a streamlined system of producing can and pumpclip designs that had a coherent language.
Ensemble began the project by addressing what matters most in this industry; the community around us. Using a survey that was sent out to the whole spectrum of people that engage with Blackjack; from pubs and shops that buy our beers, other local breweries, businesses to direct customers in our bars and friends of the business.
What came back taught us a lot about ourselves and helped us focus in on the existing aspect of Blackjack we wanted to celebrate – our pubs with their regulars and communities and specific sections from our product range. It also taught us about the new directions we could travel in with a new identity.
Ensemble took our logo – almost completely unchanged in the brewery’s previous 12 years and delved into the history of the character. They uncovered its origins in the Knave of Coins, a reoccurring character and motif of a trickster throughout myth and folklore. The new logo references something of the old logo but the character is reworked into something clean and structured, as well as practical in terms of its formatting and usage on our printed and digital media.
Developing on the idea of the Jack as a character, Ensemble began to develop a narrative you can find across the brand as a travelling entity that seems intrinsically linked to the delivery and service of Blackjack’s beers. Martin James Power of Ensemble tells us “The previous incarnation was much loved by their existing local customers but was less known amongst the stacked bottle room fridges. This, paired with the desire to move away from any association with casinos or gambling, gave us room to reestablish and celebrate the Jack, from the face card, to a pivotal character of folklore, who brought to life the stories that we share when sat with a beer”
How do you provide texture and personality to tales of the Jack and Blackjack’s beers? With a custom typeface, of course. Ensemble literally took to the streets, researching the historic signage, building fronts and engravings of the area. Referencing the unique quirks, styling and signatures of the lettering in the area surrounding the brewery, they developed Blackjack Meadows; a sans-serif display typeface that is now used to communicate, elaborate and explain all the information you might need across Blackjacks visual language.
The area that provided inspiration for Ensembles work, the tale of the Jack and the typeface; our neighborhood. A historic and fascinating part of the city and could really be described as the key ingredient in Blackjacks new visual identity. Many people will be familiar with Angel Meadow’s association with Engels, who famously coined the phrase Hell upon earth describing the area.
“Our location in Manchester is dripping in rich and important history, albeit both quite dark and revolutionary.” director Jon Hartley tells me. “Working with Ensemble who helped us eke out a method to subtly convey both our own histories and the history of the area we feel privileged to call home has been quite the journey.”
The modern park of Angel Meadow & St. Michaels Flags itself is what remains of a mass public grave following a cholera outbreak that decimated the area. Sitting behind where the St Michaels church once stood with only it’s flag stones remaining, it is protected by various means from being built on top of, leaving it now a little green oasis in what is fast becoming a highly developed area, supporting an incredible range of independent, local businesses.
The history of Angel Meadow is something Blackjack can’t ignore – referenced in many of our beers such as Ragged School and Dancing Saloon; named after the Charter Street Ragged School & Working Girls Home, opened in a former dancing saloon and brothel by evangelical christians 1853, providing for those in Angel Meadow who were escaping the Potato Famine at the time.
“Blackjack had something that most other breweries of 12 years didn’t have – a heritage story, not of their beer, but of their neighbourhood.”
- Ensemble
This sense of place as part of Blackjacks narrative and identity encouraged us to think about how we view our own beers and our own products. We’d heard from the initial survey that we were recognised for the quality of our traditional styles of beers so how do we marry that up with our own increasing excitement about the quality of our beers that fall outside of that style of brewing?
With Ensemble, we looked at each of our beers as individual products and considering how, when and why they were brewed, we began to understand and recognise how each beer fits into a range – We had already begun something similar to this with our Pub Ale series; a range of beers inspired by historic, old school, unfussy cask beers historically found in British pub culture.
Building on this we developed the Angel Meadows range – the bitter, pale beers inspired by the American West Coast we as individuals began our lives and careers in the industry drinking. Next to this we developed the Future of Modern range – more conceptually definied, this is where we placed every beer that riffs of a classic style or is a developmental, learning process for us.
Alongside our constantly expanding lagers, collaborative beers and the soon to be released Hell Upon Earth and Jeune series, Ensemble developed a system of can and pumpclip design that uses additional fonts, formats and imagery that creates a cohesive language across the brand whilst maintaining variety amongst the ranges.
The final piece of the puzzle? The complete logotype – Ensemble created a wordmark that encapsulates what we’ve learnt about Blackjack and what we want to do with Blackjack going forward. Something that’s communicates the heavy, industrial past of the area with the modern brewery with operate as now.
“The opportunity for us to celebrate our heritage and the very streets we were founded on was something we loved. It not only gives us a story to tell but celebrates our very foundations in the type that story is set in”
- Rich Fowell, Blackjack
If you’re interested in hearing more from the team at Ensemble about the development of our new brand then please have a look at some of the press it’s received from these publishers:
“I think we’ve had a “west coast” from the start - If we’re talking about it as a big, hoppy, American style pale ale” Rich Andrew tells me, who himself - like west coast beers, has been with Blackjack from the start. Asking him what his earliest experiences of one might be, he says “I think my first probably has to be something like Phoenix Arizona”.
Talking about someone’s earliest experiences of “craft beer” is an often repeated conversation and invariably leads back to discussing beers from the American west coast in one form or another. For beer drinkers of a certain generation, this stronger, more bitter, more aromatic take on pale ales and IPAs was a gateway.
“So mine would almost definitely be Sierra Nevada Pale Ale at The New Harp Inn in Hoarwithy, Herefordshire, of all places in 2004” Joe Bird tells me, when asked the same question, “But I do remember we also had Rogue coming through at that point… Liberty Ale was another biggy”. Joe has opened the floodgates on a Whatsapp group discussing the subject:
“I think I was similar to Joe in terms of Sierra Nevada, but I’ll be different... It’d be Marble’s Dobber or Summer Wine’s Diablo, when I moved next to The Marble Arch in 08/09. When they had it on it was an absolute treat” chips in Rich Fowell,
“Diablo is a massive shout!”
We go on discussing the likes of other UK breweries and some of the beers around that time producing the mega hoppy IPAs of the time – The Kernel, Thornbridge, Moor…
We’ve been getting dewy-eyed and nostalgic for our formative drinking years as the first of our May seasonals is exactly the kind of beer that got us all into drinking beer in the first place. Round Are Way is a west coast IPA true to form; a big old 6.5% amber dose of Centennial, Chinook and Cascade.
“I want a buzzsaw of hoppiness in the mouth.” Kieren Johnson, our headbrewer tells me “…I think the C hops are important for the west coast style, but generally, I am looking for hops that bring dank, resinous, piney, pithy character.” The term west coast itself, whilst not a new term, has certainly only become common lexicon since the appearance of it’s east coast cousin. What you might have once more commonly seen called an American Pale Ale has gained it’s Californian moniker over the last decade with the rise of a sweeter, less bitter, more aromatic style of pale ale from the American north east.
Our second May release is a great example of balancing beers’ four ingredients in a completely different way to still produce a hoppy, drinkable pale ale. Canvas is a New England pale ale with a giant New Zealand hop bill. Where Round Are Way’s malt bill is straightforward with malted barley and a small amount of specialty malt for colour and chewiness, Canvas is bolstered with oats and wheat to provide a softer, gently sweet body. The sweetness is helped along with chloride additions to the water where Round Are Ways profile is based on the classic Burtonised water profile.
Motueka and Pacific Sunrise make up the dry hop in Canvas “For New England style beers, I tend to think go for the juicy and fruitier varieties. I am looking for tropical fruits, or chewy sweets”. The bitterness of west coast style beers is almost completely gone and the citrus, pine aromatics replaced with full tropical, almost bubblegum notes.
These two takes on pale ale are as different to look at as they are to taste; Round Are Way is pin bright and rich amber, a light cream head forming in the glass with bubbles so fine it looks like the can has been poured through a sparkler. Canvas is almost completely opaque and gentle yellow, you can see the sweeter body in the way the beer fills the glass as you pour it.
The opaque haze of New England beers is a familiar sight on pub and bar tables these days but this hasn’t always been the case. The clarity (or brightness) of beer is a debate as old as the industry, as Kieran can testify
“Hazy beers were always a thing, I remember long conversations with brewers from The Kernel, Redemption and Camden talking about haze and people arguing that if you are removing something, you must be removing flavour in some capacity. There was a good split of people talking about whether it was just lazy brewing, or the 'real way' to enjoy beer. Over time, as new breweries came along things became even hazier, even softer, even juicier.”
The way the sweeter, more aromatic take on pale ale has swept the UK palette has been something incredible to witness from a brewing and bartending experience and a fascinating challenge for the Blackjack team.
“Brewing New England beer is an interesting question. It feels like the first 3 years or so of me being a brewer were like the hop wars; more IBUs! more dry hop! At some point that suddenly switched towards bitterness being less favourable and slowly New England beers crept in.”
With New England styles now comfortably filling the pots of UK beer drinkers, were peoples first experiences of them as important as those first sips from California back in the noughties?
Joe brings up our friends and fellow Mancunian brewers “I can’t really remember my first New England beers but I’d probably say they had to be Cloudwater. They massively pushed the envelope before anyone I can remember”.
Rich Fowell heads slightly further afield before bringing it back to another outstanding Manchester brewery that specialises in New England styles;
“[My first experience of New England beer] was probably a trip to Other Half’s original taproom in the depths of Brooklyn, then coming back and also having some of the Track DIPAS to launch at Altrincham Market in the reasonably early days.”
I would love to hear any stories you have of your first experiences with either west coast or New England style beers, any great examples you’ve had travelling or closer to home. Please let me know on Blackjack social media or with the email address provided below and we can share peoples stories in a follow up post.
Round Are Way is available in both can and cask, Canvas is available in can and keg. Both are on our webshop and available to trade now.
George
George@blackjack-beers.com
Beer, at the end of the day its just a drink, 568mls of malt, hops, water, yeast and time, right? Well , yes ultimately it is, but sometimes it’s not, its more than that. It’s a social lubricant, it’s a national flagship, a regional bond, a timestamp to the end of the day or the start of a break. It can transport you back in time and space to a memory, a place, a feeling a warm summer's day when all was well.
It can be a communal bond, between family and friends.
The late Dr. Andy Fowell (left) with his son, Rich Fowell.
Back in September 2021 Rich Fowell, the founder of our very own Jack In The Box Altrincham and one of the Brewery’s & Bar’s directors was preparing to get married to his fiancée Elyse. The wedding had already been delayed twice by the prior 18 months of COVID disruptions, but they held off wanting to celebrate with family and friends. However, devastating news arrived one week before the date. News was received that Andy Fowell, Rich’s father had died in a cycling accident in Snowdonia aged just 66.
Weeks later Rich approached the Brewery team resolutely set on brewing a charity beer to raise money in his father’s name. As we discovered, for the last 25 years of his life he spent setting up the palliative care system across North Wales and beyond. His work was of huge benefit to those with Motor Neurone Disease, and their end of life care, with him, later becoming a trustee for the MND Association. In fact, two years ago he and his friends Steve and Roger cycled from Istanbul to Anglesey raising £25,000 for MNDA. Asia To Anglesey Facebook
What was called for was a 4% hoppy pale ale on cask and in can. A perfect match to that post cycle refreshment, a thirst quencher with a citrusy punch. A crowd-pleaser and a beer suitable to raise a glass in memory. To continue the fine work Andy and co started, we’ll be donating 50p from every pint sold and 50p from every can sold to Motor Neurone Disease Association in memory of Andy. We hope to donate around £2500 once all sales are in.
Roger, Rich & Steve at the brewery.
Rob from Loughran Brewing Stores who donated the hops for the brew.
To help us in this mission we’ve been blown away by the support we’ve received from our suppliers. Rob, Hamilton and Loughran Brewing Stores have very generously donated their expertise and 3 hop varieties that fit the bill for our citrusy, refreshing beer. Cashmere, Idaho 7 and Meridian. Rob Hamilton was actually the founder of Blackjack, moving on to Loughran Stores in 2020 and worked alongside Rich for 8 years. Rob and Loughran were the first to offer help to us to make sure we can achieve our charity mission and offered their expertise in offering a blend of hops that will hit our target. Crisp Maltings, who is our sole supplier for base malt at Blackjack came in with an amazing offer to supply the whole malt bill for the brew, again a massive help, no questions asked, reliable and resolute of support above and beyond from one of our key suppliers. And finally, Lallemand has provided us with a whole brew pitch of yeast. Gram for gram this is the most expensive addition, we are hugely thankful to them as well.
Huge thanks to Crisp Maltings for the donation.
So where does all this lead? Well to 23rd of Feb when who else but Andy’s son Rich and two cycling partners in crime Roger and Steve who cycled across a continent with their late friend to raise money for charity, joined our newest brewer Sam to make this beer a reality. Mashing in a simple blend of Crisps Extra Pale & Wheat to an original gravity of 1.039. We’ve added a dash of bittering and a late hope whirlpool blend of Meridian, Cashmere & punch Idaho 7 T90 pellets donated from Loughan, with more in store for a big late dry hop hit.
Roger (left) & Steve
The Curly Hetchins didn’t mean anything when we were told that’s the name of the beer, but the cycling buffs seemed to have a knowing nod. The Curly Hetchins as it transpires is the model of his much-loved bike, which Andy bought with his first pay as a doctor, and still rode most weeks. Beyond its lasting name, we have to thank Emma Hobbins who has produced a fantastic and beautiful hand-drawn illustration of Andy’s bike for the can design and pump clip.
More news to come, but book in March 15th for the launch of this most special of beers from Blackjack.
Darcey & The Brewery Team.
Needless to say 2020 and it’s on going COVID hangover into 2021 has been top of our list of problems as an employer, brewery, brewtap and small fleet of bars. I think all of us here would count ourselves lucky to have been able to come out what appears be the end of a global pandemic having had the dedicated care of the NHS, Care Staff and other Key Workers to ensure our safety. I myself, a lifelong asthma sufferer and as someone who uses the NHS for respiratory issues more than most know the work that is done is essential and of great comfort.
Read MoreSeemingly a lifetime ago, back on the 14th of Feb 2020, before COVID, before any of this chaos, the directors of Blackjack signed on the multiple dotted lines at the bottom of a contract and agreement to buy a brand spanking new 15bbl brewery and a small but bespoke fleet of dual purpose fermenter/conditioning tanks.
A major step for the company. This came only a couple of months after a restructure that saw the departure of Rob, the founding company director whilst bringing in the associated market bar and pubs companies fully into the fold of Blackjack Brewery. A crystallisation seeded centrally by a huge investment in Blackjacks future, the brew kit.
Fast forward a few weeks to these pictures, 3rd of March 2020. The first real introduction between our team and Gravity Systems who have designed and installed our new brewery and plant. Little did we know this introduction would be the last face to face and the last time in 10 months that the team could assemble in the same place.
little more than 3 weeks later and all our bars were closed, staff safely at home, the country in lockdown, our whole industry mothballed, and I am not ashamed to say nerves began to fray. Originally as per the guidance at the time we planned for 3 months closure, whilst this was well within our plan for opening the brewery; after all we had a September installation date to be brewing by October, our concerns however fell closer to home.
The Smithfield 24 Hours After The Close Down Order
Glassworks Drinks Distribution had been the glove to Blackjack Brewery's hand since nearly year one. The two companies, originally merely only shared a unit, but this developed into a symbiosis over time resulting with the two merging in 2014-15. Glassworks was a wholesale company that pumped craft and modern beers into the city of Manchester, I don’t think its going to far to say it set the stage or at least laid the foundation for the world leading beer city and trendy suburbs you’ll find now, all this since 2013. If you've been drinking crafty beer in, or around Manchester for a few years no doubt you've had something bloody tasty that came via Glassworks and as such Blackjack.
A busy operation, sometimes more than 12 pallets heavy laden with the freshest beer the UK could provide landed weekly, 2 vans a day 5 days a week shuttled both wholesale and Blackjack beer across the region. 100's of fresh cask and kegs weekly. A working stock holding of up to £110k of date sensitive fresh beer. Once the initial shock of the industry closing and learning a newer normal had set in the realisation sank in. ~£80k+ of draught cask and keg stock both Blackjack and Glassworks was suddenly at risk, the 3 months we expected to be closed was way past where some of this beer best before was. All of this stock on credit to your peers and friends in the industry, we didn’t want to draught, we didn’t want to start what could be a domino effect of the industry collapsing in, equally we were not trading, we couldn’t afford the bills that were becoming due. We had a problem...
Cask In A Box: Lockdown 1’s Saviour
Using a word I have grown to hate, however a word in reality does sum it up best, Blackjack pivoted. You see, we sold a lot of beer to trade, in fact Blackjack ONLY sold to trade. We had a barely functional web shop and all our focus was on wholesale suppliers and customers, our customer face was the bars, but they were closed. Something had to be done otherwise the whole thing was to be canceled. We saved cask beers from the drain by developing Cask in a Box beer, beer in a bag in a box, which we continue to sell now, we invented mini kegging stations to fill and save the keg and tank beer we had. These sales, these pints of fortitude, saved our company, saved the jobs and futures of our staff and all this only worked because of the the fantastic people of Manchester who took up the mantle and became our sole income and friends during those very traumatic months of lockdown 1.
The Brewtap: Same but different for 2020
Eventually restrictions eased, pubs opened slowly and carefully for the Summer, we got brewing again and focus re-shifted into installation of the new brewery. We opened our brewtap and bars only to have them closed and restricted by local lockdowns and the now infamous Tier system. Dates had moved, COVID and the banking system made sure of that but we were hopefully of a pre-xmas installation. We closed up the brewery tap in September with a cold but fantastic live music event thinking we were just around the corner to completion. What else could go wrong?
Last Brewtap Gig Of The Summer
November, the kits been delayed again, COVID is spiking, Tier 3 is really causing us some problems, it's cold, the flooring needs time and it needs to be right. The old unit where the mountain of anxiety that was our precovid stock is now empty. A brand new epoxy blue floor and drainage system is being laid, but it takes time, and COVID lockdowns keep chipping away at our schedules.
Then disaster, further disaster, all this time you see, our faithful brewery system, originally born of Marble Beers back in 1997 and since expanded, modified and fettled has been keeping the Blackjack flag flying. Making the best beers the companies ever made, a motivated team is smashing high quality beers consistently, energy is high for the new brewery and a new way of working. But, a catastrophic break down stops all that. The gas burner has burnt its last, the bumbling rumble, both deafening but background was familiar to anyone that’s visited Blackjack on a brewday. That noise came from the kettles burner has been threatening for nearly a decade to conk out. Almost a triggers broom affair by this point its had more replacements parts and work done on it than would be expected of even the highest quality piece of equipment. Even the most flexible and adventurous of gas engineers wring their hands at the prospect of getting it going again. Quotations fly around at £20k+ for a solution. We can’t justify that can we? No, the new brewery will be in soon, we have got stock it'll be fine. We keep what's already in tank going but the old kit has brewed its last beer Blonde (foreshadowing for anyone keeping up).
Tara brewing the final beer: Blonde back on the 2nd of December 2020.
The Smithfield, Sawn Street: Closed again for winter
What happened next? Ah yeah Lockdown 3 lands on us, a new date of the second week of Jan, for delivery of the new brewery and by this point, almost amazingly it actually happened! Early on a cold and drizzling January day 3 articulating waggons turn up, and with some of the floorings expansion joints still tacky, Kettle, Mashtun, HLT, CLT, 4x 50hl thanks, 3x 25HL were positioned in their new home with brewery team eagerly looking on at the columns of stainless which dwarf everything we’ve brewed on before.
4 weeks from delivery to brewing would be normal ish, engineering whilst awarded as a science does have a degree of art, you can’t rush art, but still normally around 4 weeks right? Well, our story thus far has been far from normal, so why would it end normally? We had the 14th of Feb at the end of the gantt chart, 14th of Feb for grain to hit water and the dream to come alive. Now if you've come this far in our winding tale, that date may ring a bell, back in on the 14th of Feb 2020 this whole epilogue began with the signing of papers and the order of the kit, how serendipitous that would be!
Those of you still with us will know this didn't happen, here we are in April, on a cool hazy morning about to brew that first beer. 8 weeks later than the gantt told us. GAS was the problem, not gear acquisition syndrome (ok maybe a bit of that), but burning fossil fuel gas, or liquid petroleum gas. The life blood of our system. Using LPG, drawn from, the depths of the earths crust, energy from sunlight that shone on plants and swaps 120 years ago distilled by time into complex hydrocarbons, extracted from the Brent oil fields off of Scotland’s ragged coast. we were set to fire a steam generator, the heart of the new brewery. This steam under pressure, piped to our copper and hot liquor tank would provide amazing efficiently, we would boil faster, longer and harder, improving our control on the beers and styles we wanted to make. An efficient system, and part of the core design of the brew house.
Irk Street, a shuttered brewery
Forgotten streets
However friends, this is another chapter in our tale of woe. Being on the unfashionable and forgotten backstreets, sandwiched between the trendy Norther Quarter that demands its beer and the Green Quarter where many of those patrons reside, sits our two archways. We straddle Irk Street, a forgotten cobbled Victorian dead end road, that last had anything approaching it's heyday 100 years ago. All this means that this forgotten road despite being overlooked by the old gasworks never got mains gas installed. Bulk Storage we cried! “That's the key”, that's what the plan was. Our peers in the industry across the nation have the same problem, railway arches and the small roads and estates tend to be cut off from infrastructure spending so plenty of our compadres have the same problem and the same solution. Bulk gas container in your yard, hook it up off you go! Great! However, landlords, subcontracts and litigation mean we were delayed once more. Our investment towered above us in Arch 34, the accumulation of 12 months of graft stood unused. The lustre of the stainless steel that once wowed us suddenly shimmered cold and burdensome. You see at some point we had to start paying for this equipment, and with quite frankly amazing support from some of our lenders and Gravity Systems we were able to delay, but with steel hitting concrete we had to start to pay the Ferryman at some point.
Clever electric conversion: The Kettle
With litigation on going and people with clipboards and important sounding job titles arguing over the exact positioning of an LPG tank, power was out of our hands once more, but ultimately our fate riding on the coming weeks we had to act. Back to that word I hate, pivot. What do you do with a gas powered brewery when you cant get gas? Yeah, that is correct my friends you convert it to electric. Thanks again to the amazing help from the team at Gravity we installed elements in our HLT and Kettle. It's not ideal, in fact we would have designed it from the ground up different if this was our final solution, but for now it'll have to do. It'll get us brewing, it'll get our team back to work. We'll keep fighting to get our gas, we'll get it done, but we've got to take in our own hands our own destiny and get brewing.
Would you believe this started at 5am as a quick post to socials to let our fans know that today, the 29/04/2021 Blackjack is brewing again. We'll be joined today by Jenn Merrick who works with Gravity to onboard new breweries and offer salient advice but brewers new and old. A total mix of emotions has kept me awake most of the night, trepidations for gremlins in the system, excitement to get brewing, nerves about the industry and self-doubt after so long with out defined purpose and dates. But today we brew, and what are we brewing? Blonde, that beer that saw out the old kit, a beer quaffed at the marketbars by our fans. It’s not cutting edge, but when that first cask gets tapped it’ll be the most well deserved and hard fought for pint I’ll ever have.
The best plans of mice and men, whats missing? Whats left to do? Budgets existed and for an amazing rebrand to really launch us into the stratosphere, time and tutorage to really understand what we are about, to communicate our dream to you all. A canning line to get our beer out to the people, lab gear to put us amongst the best breweries in the country, all this on hold but queued up read to roll just as soon as we can get brewing and get beer back out there and start turning the wheels of industry once more. Whilst we may be missing some items of our dream list, we do have this kit and that’s all we do have, but because of its quality and compromise design we’re going to make the best damned beer we can and that’s all we can do. So no big rebrand launch or inviting people to our dream tap but we’ve been here before, would it really be Blackjack if it was 100% ready and 100% slick? It’s almost like starting again, 9 years back, completely wiped and back to the start but we have this kit we have a desire as a team to brew the best damn beer we can. Wish us good luck and please do try our beer because we’ve tried really hard to get to this point and with this kit we can do so much still. Not what we intended but we have this. And we have our team and it’s show time.
The brewery tap space is a work in progress, it’s taken a backseat for the reasons above, we’ll get open this summer, again not in idea ways, but enough to show you what we have done. So keep an eye out and come visit some time.
Summary, it’s been bloody tough but we cant wait to share what we are going to make. But we've got loads of great new beers to show you in the future, we cant wait to stretch our legs and brew the beers we have always wanted to. We cant wait to get our Market Bars back open, welcome you back into the Smithfield and also show you around our brewery and tap, the focus of so much energy, blood, sweat & tears from the last 14 months.
We'll see you soon..
Darcey
