Defacer - the 200th brew

All the way back in February 2013 we brewed our very first beer, Single hop Chinook. This beer became Boring Brown Beer our Imperial Best Bitter which is brewed once a year at around the same time, but I digress. It took us a full 17 months to get to our 100^th brew. For this we decided to take one of our original core beers, and go big. We went with one of the original home brew recipes, Black Perle, back from when Weird Beard was just a twinkle in the eye. Double Perle was a huge success, and is now brewed around 3 times a year, with a small amount each time going into barrels.

It then took just under 11 months until our 200^th brew was upon us, and this time we thought of something different.

It has been well documented that we at the brewery love Sorachi Ace, that most divisive of hops. It may have started with beers like Fade to Black (Black IPA with Sorachi, Citra and Summit) and Saison 14 (Saison with Sorachi and Pacific Gem) that Gregg brewed as a home brewer, or it may have been the night that Bryan and Gregg met for the first time in the Euston Tap, where the Sorachi Ace version of IPA is Dead was the beer of the evening. Who cares which came first, either way we used Sorachi at every given opportunity, so where did you think we were going to go with this.

Our 200^th brew is inspired by a kind of unofficial beer range we have, that started out life as batch 8 of our Little Things That Kill. This was a low ABV beer hopped generously with Sorachi Ace, Summit and Apollo. The beer quickly got the nick name of Sorachi Face Punch because of the huge Sorachi Ace hit you got from it. We decided to use this hopping on a slightly tweaked version of our Holy Hoppin' Hell, a double IPA, which went by the name of Sorachi Face Plant, and again another brew of ours went down a storm. So for brew 200 we thought we would push ourselves as brewers and go bigger than we have ever before. Taking this hop profile a step further and brewing a triple IPA.

Naming this beer proved to be a bit of a challenge, almost as divisive as Sorachi Ace is as a hop. To some, there was a natural progression from Sorachi Face Punch, to Sorachi Face Plant to Sorachi Skull F*ck, but for better or worse this deemed unwise. We then bashed through a number of other names, such as Sorachi Face Explossion and Sorachi Face Hugger (which our Friends at Mad Hatter beat us to). But we came up with the equally good name of Defacer, which continues one of our other favourite things, music and name beers after songs. It also kind of follows the series name, as the sorachi is ripping your face off this time. And it has of course lead to some fantastic branding and a little twist to the workings of Lup'in, our ever changing skull.

The final beer is packaged today and specially bottled into 660ml bombers. Expect to see it in a few weeks after it has conditioned. Please do drink as fresh as you can, there are so much of our favourite hops in this beer, we wouldn't want you to waste them by sitting on a bottle. It weighs in at 11.1% so beware or it really will rip your face off!

The Spreadsheet Ninja Side of Brewing: Introduction: The Birth of the Spreadsheet Ninja

This is the first in what I hope is a series of blogs giving some insight into the business side of running a brewery.

When Bryan and  I started the brewery in 2013 neither of us were able to devote 100% of our time to the project. I was still running a photography business and Bryan still worked full time at the BBC. At the start we were both involved with every aspect of the brewery operation, brewing, packaging, sales, purchasing, marketing and social media, logistics and delivery and accounts. We were men with many many hats and when we were small this was not a problem. I could deal with sales e-mails in the middle of a brew day, or put together orders in the downtime on packaging days.

As we grew, things became a bit more difficult to juggle all the balls - even when we went fulltime at the brewery. Bryan automatically gravitated towards the brewing side and I to the business side. This led to some tensions as neither Bryan nor I appreciated how much time the other half of the business was taking. At one point Bryan called me a faceless accountant during one of our discussions.  It was time to get some more staff....

So this was the birth of the Faceless Spreadsheet Ninja, Faceless Accountant is the worst superhero name ever but change accountant for spreadsheet ninja and you have the basis for a beer and now a blog series.

July Open Day Beer Line Up

It's just over a week away until the main event. We’re onto our 4th open day now so maybe you’d think it's less exciting but think again! We've got a fantastic beer line up for the day, so much so, we’re writing a blog about it.

The beers we will most definitely have on are listed below, although if a keg kicks we have more of the same and/or a whole brewery of choice so you won’t be left thirsty or unsatisfied.

Come rain or shine, you'll want to be drinking:

Little Things that Kill - Summit, Sorachi Ace and Apollo

(Informally a.k.a. "Sorachi Facepunch")

A session pale with such immense bubblegum and sherbet flavour from the hops, it's like liquid Lemon Refreshers.

Faceless Spreadsheet Ninja

Our Citra Pilsner is a go-to beer; crisp, hoppy, quaffable and how lagers should taste.

Something Something Dark Side

An innovative beer that is a mish-mash between a double I.P.A and an imperial stout: big, bold hoppiness matched with big, bold roasted malt character.

Upside to a Down Day

Another novel beer style and one-off brew: a breakfast black I.P.A as we like to call it. This is a coffee milk stout brewed with choice hops, hence the ingenious style.

Exclusive keg of Barrel Aged Blue Habit with blueberries

We’ve aged Blue Habit, a blueberry juice saison brewed in collaboration with Northern Monk, in a Bourbon whisky barrel with blueberries and...WAIT FOR IT....sour mix yeast.

This is a seriously special batch of beer and tastes as exquisite as it sounds.

660ml Bomber Brewery Exclusive: Jim Beam Barrel Aged Sadako

Our flagship imperial stout, a beautiful beer in her own right, has been barrel aged for 6 months for all those delicious whisky flavours to supplement the beer. Simply divine in 660ml bombers perfect for sharing and only sold from the brewery!

We will also have a range of our core, occasional and special beers in bottle to drink in or take-away. And that’s just the beer folks! Without a doubt, we’ve called upon Pig & Hay again for their tasty, handmade, sausage rolls and scotch eggs, including a vegetarian option. We’ve been lucky enough to encourage Craig of WeEat to provide us with his more-ish beer snacks. They’re not your run-of-the-mill nuts, the Cluster F*cks are phenomenal and our Natasha has been wishing to get her hands on since IMBC 2014. Other delights include Square Root Soda soft drinks and our cheery beery selves to serve you all day long.

July Brewery Open Day

The time has come round again for another brewery open day. Come enjoy the beers we make in the very place we brew them! Details: Sunday 5th July 12-7pm. It's a pretty straightforward equation for a super enjoyable first Sunday of the month:

Good Beer + Good People = Good Times

 

 

Each and every occasion we've been trying to make our open days better. We continue to be surprised at how many people come way out west to where we are based. Because you're making that effort, we're putting more effort into our events here at the brewery. The huge success of our last one means we are coming up with more and more to offer. Besides, it's our brewery and our rules so we can do whatever the firkin we want for us all to have a great time.





Here's a little low down of what to expect:

Drink in/take-away bottled beer
4 beers continuously on draught throughout the day
Limited edition 5th beer on tap
Special & occasional brews readily available
Brewery exclusive, Jim Beam B.A. Sadako 660ml bombers on sale
Delicious wares from Pig & Hay
Exclusive beersnacks from We Eat
The best soft drinks in town by Square Root Soda
Meet the Weird Beard brewers and team
Informal brewery tours
Merchandise including t-shirts & glassware on sale



Join the event here. Hope to see you then!

Upside to A Down Day

Not many people would admit it, but things don't always go to plan in a brewery. Beer is a living thing and so many variables can effect it, and every so often a beer is brewed that just doesn't want to behave. I could name several very successful beers out there that were born out of error; I won't though.

Back in March our head brewer took the day off, leaving our very competent team to brew the next batch of Black Perle. This happens from time to time with no problem, but on this cold morning the wind must have been coming in from the wrong direction or the planets had aligned badly as we overshot our efficiency. This means we made way more sugar in the wort than usual, which in turn means the yeast is likely to produce more alcohol. 

Picture courtesy of Matt Curtis

Our problems did not end there though; the yeast seemed to really like this beer and did not want to stop consuming the sugars. Usually with a stout you would create lots of long chain sugars that yeast don't like. These sugars are left in the beer giving it a thicker body. This time round, the yeast wanted to eat almost everything and so the beer tasted a little thinner than we would like.

To recap, we had an over efficient brew, meaning more sugar, and yeast that just wanted to eat everything. So after fermentation we were left with a version of Black Perle that is over 1% higher ABV and with a little thinner mouthfeel than we would have liked. At this point, decisions have to be made: can the beer be fixed and released as normal? Is the beer releasable at all? Do we do something a little different with it? Well, we could have added some water to dilute the alcohol and bring it back to the right ABV, but this would thin the already lacking body even more and it just wouldn’t be Black Perle. The beer tasted great, as it always does, so we weren’t going to ditch it. This is where our creative juices start to flow and we get excited. What can we now do to turn this into an interesting new beer; make a positive out of a negative; find the up side of a down day? We tasted the beer and decided that with the addition of some choice dry hops this would be the perfect Breakfast Black IPA. So we chucked generous amounts of Bravo, Apollo and Cascade hops in the fermenter with all that lovely Has Bean Coffee, and gave it some time to take shape.

We think the end product is great. And hope you all enjoy it. But not too much, really don't fancy trying to brew this one again.

Tsujigiri - A Fresh I.P.A that you don't want to mess with

 In December 2014 we were celebrating a good friend's birthday at BrewDog Shepherds Bush. As the beers were flowing so did our creative juices. The bar's general manager, and a friend of ours, Dean Pugh, was amongst the party. He got talking to Chris Taylor, one of our brewer's assistants, and our head brewer, Bryan. With all three having homebrew backgrounds the discussion was on beers they've brewed and would like to brew. Soon the trio were recounting past recipes and churning out ideas for using slightly different ingredients including various yeasts and fruits in possible future recipes.

Dean spoke of a time when he experimented with fermentation using 4 different yeasts, including sake yeast, on a single recipe. He also mentioned how the original recipe using sake yeast evolved and was successfully brewed on BrewDog Manchester's pilot kit, showcasing other Japanese ingredients including sushi rice and Japanese hops. Bryan talked about what he had seen in the sake breweries of Japan, which he had visited a few months before and so, the guys suddenly got excited over using sake yeast to ferment a beer. Things didn't stop there; they hit upon the idea of brewing a fresh IPA, using fruit in the recipe. What we were looking at now was a beer fermented with sake yeast with additions of fruit and since the theme was a "Japan I.P.A", the fruit of choice was yuzu. Then the question of sourcing such an odd ingredient in large quantities was posed, and the conversation went that way...

Months later and after several get-togethers, where the idea of this brew just wouldn't go away, a pipe dream became a reality. Dean came to Weird Beard brewery, donned a Weird Beard overall and brewed this interesting recipe along with Chris and our new lead brewer, Jonny Bright. Here's the photographic proof:

In writing the recipe the guys decided to bridge the citrus character of the yuzu with the lemon-sherbet quality of one of our favourite hops: Sorachi Ace. This hop originates from Japan and aside from being an all-time favourite, was a suitable choice for the hop schedule. They also decided upon adding Chinook to compliment the spicy notes that the sake yeast would create during fermentation. The aim and the result: an easy drinking I.P.A with a considerable twist! Speaking of twists, the name of the beer, which is obviously Japanese, can get you a little tongue-tied.

Tsujigiri literally translates as "crossroads killing" and describes the impulsive act of a Samurai testing out his new sword on a random individual or passer-by. Not too far removed from an 'impulse brew', Tsujigiri is not your everyday I.P.A but can be surprisingly drunk like one. The beer comes to 6.2% and on the nose, it's citrussy because of the yuzu. It also has a subtly herbal aroma with a fresh minty-ness from the Sorachi Ace. Sipping on the beer, you get the I.P.A bitterness through the tangy lemon and fresh herbs, but it rounds off really refreshingly and balanced. It's bang on for the summer and a delight to drink. Tsujigiri will be launched at BrewDog Shepherds Bush on Friday 22nd May from 6pm at their event.

We look forward to seeing you there but kindly request all new katana are left at home.

May-Time Open Day & Brewery Tap Room

There won't ever be a time when we are not excited to open up the brewery and invite people to the place where we're most at home. If anything, serving our beers, having them drunk and enjoyed amongst the vessels they are made is most satisfying. So we are extending our every-other-month Open Days into May!

Details:

Sunday 10th May 

12pm-7pm

We will have beer across 4 taps and bottles on sale for drinking-in. As with previous brewery events, we will do off-sales with take-out discount and growler fills. We've also packaged some sexy 660ml bombers of Jim Beam barrel-aged Sadako that will be exclusively sold from the brewery then. 

Current draft beers confirmed for the day include:
The latest batch of Little Thinks That Kill (no. 12)
Faceless Spreadsheet Ninja
Our collab brew with Brodie's "WEIRD BROdMANCE"

Food-wise, we will have the yummy wares from Pig&Hay including veggie options. And let's not forget Natasha's Home-made Beer Truffles!

Merchandise including our branded, stemmed glassware and t-shirts will be on sale throughout the day. Brewers Bryan, Gregg and our new lead brewer, Jonny, will be around to give tours & chat with you about all things beery. Hopefully see you there!

Watch this space for updates on the event.

Single Hop Series: No. 5 Single Hop Centennial

The Single Hop Series allows us to showcase our creativity within the constraints of using a single hop. So far we have got our creative side on with Chinook, Amarillo, Nelson Sauvin and Citra. With these hops, we've respectively produced an Imperial Best Bitter, Belgian IPA, Saison and even a Pilsner. So this time around we thought we better go big: big on flavour, big on aroma and big on ABV.

But which hop did we decide to play around with for the 5th brew of the series? We hadn't needed to look far since we went with a hop you will find in many of our beers, particularly our specials. We decided to give Centennial, one of our favourite hops here at Weird Beard, centre stage. It's both big on flavour and aroma and to 'tick the box' on a high ABV beer, we simply chose the style of a double I.P.A.  

Here we give you Single hop Centennial: packed full of all the citrus and floral notes you would expect, with a healthy bitterness and malt back bone to back it up. It's available to order and you can generally sip it up in bottle and keg. Excitingly, today, the only cask of this beer made to-date, is available to drink at Craft 100, Craft Beer Co Clapham.

Hope to see you there!

Sadako Imperial Stout

Back in July 2014 we released the dark, rich monster that is Sadako: our first imperial stout, onto the world. The beer was originally held back at the brewery for just under 4 months, as we never want to release a beer that we don't believe is ready. We were small and naive back then, and in hindsight feel we let her out into the wild a little early. We had simply run out of room at the brewery and we got a tad bored of moving the pallet around each day. The beer tasted good so we thought we would release it. It generally went down well, but it soon became very clear that it was still improving as it got older. By the time it had sold out, and there were very few bottles still ingaround, it was tasting fantastic!

The next batch was brewed in early September 2014 and packaged in October. Since then, we have acquired ourselves more warehouse space, where we can stick a pallet in a dark quiet corner and forget about it. For the last 6 months, batch 2 of Sadako has been lurking in the depths of the Weird Beard warehouse, watching, waiting for its chance to make a bid for freedom. Now the time has come, the video has been watched, the phone has rung and Sadako will climb out of her box. Are we getting all of these Ring references?

Sadako currently appears on our brew schedule at least 3 times a year. You can tell when we brew it as another of our favourites, Dark Hopfler, comes out of the same brew day. But we will be pre-ageing each batch of Sadako for at least 6 months before pulling it out, waxing, and releasing it. Even if only to make sure we are presenting head brewer Bryan's favourite beer at its best. It has been a long wait between batch 1 and 2, but we hope you find it has been worthwhile. Infact you can rest easy knowing that in that dark corner of the warehouse, there is yet more Sadako waiting for its time to come and get you.

A portion of each batch also goes into barrels. There is no pre-determined time scale on these; when we decide they are ready, they are ready. So you can look forward to seeing Heaven Hill, Jack Daniel's, Jim Beam, Red Wine and Tequila barrel aged versions of our flagship imperial stout coming your way at some point. We may even redo the Ardbeg aged version, but I wouldn't hold my breath....

The Bottle Shop Collaboration Brew

For the past year we have done monthly pop-ups at the Bottle Shop Arch at Druid Street and it has been an all-round wonderful experience. Not only did these bring us closer to the thriving beer community of Bermondsey, but we've built a particularly strong relationship with the team behind the Bottle Shop. We've had many immensely enjoyable Saturdays working alongside them in their space. So when we were approached by our friends from there, Andrew and Ben, to take our working relationship to a new level, we didn't hesitate. Together we've made a beer with other breweries that have 'popped-up' at or are friends of the Bottle Shop, which will be launched at Arch this coming Saturday.

"You taste better when you are scared"; is a Tart Grapefruit IPA, collaboratively brewed with Marble and Bullfinch breweries earlier this year. The idea behind the brew is itself an interesting concept; here we have three breweries working together under the umbrella of another aspiring scheme from the Bottle Shop.

The beer was brewed at our brewery in West London on Friday 13th February. The date, coupled with the  interesting beer which we will divulge later, provided inspiration for the name and the Jason style hockey mask theme for our Lup'in Skull. 

  
So what beer has been born from the minds at the Bottle Shop, Bullfinch, Marble and ourselves? Well, together we've created an I.P.A with a load of Cascade and Chinook hops in the kettle and fermenter. This isn't a scary sort of recipe these days however, and this is where you should be listening attentively, we added 100Kg of acidulated malt into the mash. Using this kind of malt was a first time experience for Weird Beard: both for Gregg, who assisted in the recipe-writing of our collaboration and Bryan, who brought the beer gasping to life on the brewday. Matt Howgate (Marble) and Ryan McLean (Bullfinch) were also contributors to drawing up the recipe and executing the brew.

In concocting this brew, we thought that if we are taking you out of your comfort zone, we'd do it a little bit more. On top of the sour malt, we added a lot of fresh grapefruit juice at the fermentation phase for an extra sharp spike of flavour. The beer both tantalises and shocks your taste-buds with its zesty-ness. You expect it, you know it's there but you go for the sip and it is still frightfully juicy and tart. That being said, it entices you to keep on drinking it.

Our beer is now ready and so we invite you to come to its launch party. Weird Beard's Gregg, Marble's Matt and Bullfinch's Ryan will all be present at the launch, which will be held at the Bottle Shop Arch. Come along, we dare ya!

Weird Beard and Brodie’s Collaborative Brew “WEIRD BROdMANCE”

There is a lot of talk about what makes "craft beer", craft. The lack of definition and the daunting challenge of doing so means any way of epitomising it is vague, contrived and often controversial. Something that is evident amongst people in the industry however, is that when it comes to the craft beer scene, everyone inspires respects and collaborates with those deserving of it. In the macro-beer world and between The Beer Giants, sadly there isn’t that same camaraderie. Stone Brewing has quite beautifully described the relationship between compatriots in the craft field as “a ‘collaboration not competition’ mindset, a constant alliance and source of inspiration”. When we were met with an opportunity to work with Brodie’s, we obviously did not say no. Besides, head brewer Jonny Bright, from Brodie’s and our Bryan have known each other from before they were making beer. It was only a matter of time that they would cross paths over a mash tun to brew together. Here’s the story...

On a mid December morning, Bryan tweeted Jonny: “I can’t see you mate” to which Jonny replied: “I’m in a van outside opposite Yeoman” and on that congenial note the brewday had begun. 

Come 9.30am, we had mashed in and both Bryan and Jonny enthusiastically mixed the grains into water for our East-meets-West collab brew. 

The day was a fairly long one but in the company of brewers, friends and beer it was thoroughly enjoyable and satisfying. Indeed, collaborations tend to be really great experiences for everyone involved. They offer opportunities for bouncing ideas and learning from one another, these are important and necessary for developing skills and generating concepts or altering perspectives. Ideas and the beers born from just get better! This is particularly ‘eye-opening’ as a brewer in the confines of his own kit. Then there is the fun aspect. Brewers simply love to brew and getting two of them together on a brewday, well, there’s a kind of romance you can’t knock and so this inspired the name of our beer.

So what was it that we made? Between us, we decided on a strong beer: one to savour and one to share. In some ways this transcends our attitude towards the industry we work in where brewers strive, independently but also together to increase awareness and accessibility of quality beer out there. Good beer is best enjoyed in good company and that spirit is then passed on. For example we have "Whale Wednesdays" at Weird Beard, which involves the team collecting after work midweek, each contributing a beer from their personal bottle collections, sharing, reviewing and having a whale of a time! The beer we made is one for that sort of occasion. 

Our beer was a mash-up of some of our own favourite recipes: think Weird Beard’s Sadako and all the best traits of a Brodie’s impy stout. This means it is big on the hops, big on sweetness and deliciously more-ish. In light of the festive season, we chose maple syrup instead of molasses to thicken the brew. With the maple syrup added to the boil and during fermentation, we emphasised the candied sugar qualities of the chocolate, amber and crystal malts used. You can also expect caramel, spice and some vanilla from it. 

Since we dictated the malt ingredients, we had Jonny decide on the hops. He suggested Galena, an American hop that rises to the occasion when used for bittering in bolder or darker beers. Together we came up with a hop schedule that ensured the beer would have a sufficiently crisp pine and wood essence to cleanly contrast, but also balance the sweetness of the malt backbone. To smoothen it up even more, we added lactose. We needn’t say it, but a lot of thought was put into brewing this lavishing imperial stout and it was made ardently, with passion from both sides.  

We made the beer, now for you to indulge in WEIRD BROdMANCE! We will be launching our collaborative beer on cask, keg and in bottle at the Hop & Berry, London in March. Limited stock will be available thereafter for your enjoyment.

Little Things That Kill - re-invented

Little Things That Kill was one of our biggest sellers last year. We admit it also caused us and a lot of our loyal customers the most problems.

The idea was to make a low ABV beer with some balls; a beer crammed full of flavour but more importantly with the body to support it.

We originally made this beer unlike any other pale ale by approaching it as if it were a stout. When we make beer, we steep the grains in water and it is the water's temperature that makes a difference in the types of sugars produced. This is "mashing". Certain types of sugars are more fermentable than others; they are easier to convert to alcohol. Most pale beers will be mashed somewhere between 60-65 degrees Centigrade to produce sugars that are easily fermented. With stouts, we want unfermentable sugars, which when left give stouts their thick, luxurious body and mouthfeel as well as the higher calorie count.

Little Things That Kill was mashed at the highest temperature we dared (+70 degrees. Centigrade.)  This was to produce more unfermentable sugars, making the beer a little more chewy and sessionable. This did work to an extent, but not as we had hoped. We made a lot of unfermentable sugars, giving the beer the desired body, but we also made hard-to-ferment sugars. This meant our beer appeared finished and ready to bottle, when in fact it wasn't.

Those of us who can't afford expensive bottling lines use carbon dioxide, the very helpful by-product of fermentation to bottle condition our beers. To do this, we leave a small amount of yeast and a very controlled quantity of sugar in the beer, called "priming". This allows the beer to go through secondary fermentation in the bottle, cask or keg. (Yes, I did say we condition our beer in the keg and so, yes our kegs are 'real ale'!)

The problem with Little Things was that the beer was conditioned, as normal, with the sugar we prime with. Unexpectedly, gradually over time the yeast converted the extra, harder-to-ferment sugars in the beer also, leading to overcarbonated and unpourable beer. For these problems, we are very sorry and we faced the difficult decision to stop brewing Little Things That Kill.

However, we love the brand so much and couldn't let it go. How could we really?! Not only does it have a cool skull logo, it happens to be named after a song by a, maybe-not-so-classic, British band that head brewer Bryan loves. We can understand that people may shy away from giving it another try, but we have made changes.

We took a step back: came at the beer from a totally different angle and have breathed new life into the Little Things That Kill brand. We still mash high, but not nearly as high. We still approach it as a stout, by adding ingredients you normally find in darker beers. This time around we used generous amounts of wheat, oats and lactose to give a silky, fuller mouthfeel with better head retention. We appreciate these changes affect some people: those with wheat or lactose intolerances and vegans. We are sorry for this but we want Little Things That Kill to live. We have not compromised on hops though. The first of this new batch is stuffed full of Mosaic, Amarillo and Cascade in both the boil and dry hop stages. The result? We have a full bodied hoppy monster of a beer at a sub 4% ABV, making it the perfect session beer.

We may continue to tweak the recipe though the batches, along with our usual changing up of the hops each time, so please do let us know what you think. We ask you to give it one more chance.

Bottle Shop Pop-Up 7th February

Yes, it's that time again for us to announce our Bottle Shop Pop-Up Bar is back on the 7th February. However this is the last of our monthly popups there. Before you get too upset,  we will be returning every other month and will be back in April and so on...



On that note, make sure you come down to this event because you won't be seeing us next month and we're making sure we're bringing our A* game to make up for our absence. Not only that but we're bringing our celebrations for the 2nd anniversary of our first ever brew to the Bottle Shop! The super special beers we will be serving are to be announced shortly here. Keep your eyes peeled for other updates on Facebook and Twitter.

Bryan's back for this popup which means our awesome Weird Beard Fruit Machine will be there to play. He'll be joined by Natasha on our bar upstairs where we will have 4 of our beers on draft. Bottle Shop Ben has also requested Natasha's beer truffles and since we cant keep her out of the kitchen when she's not in the brewery, they will be there. The rest of the Bottle Shop team will be serving other beer on draft and in bottle and cans downstairs, so you won't be out of tasty choices. Trust us, there is so much good stuff to drink...always. 

We will have merchandise on sale, which includes our t-shirts at £15 and our branded, stemmed glassware at £3. Another piece of useful info, is that we now accept card payments.

See you at the party!

Bottle Shop Pop-Up 3rd January

It may be a new year but we're still promising you our first Saturday of the month pop up bar at the Bottle Shop this coming weekend. Please don't be making any resolutions that'll stop you from a) having great beer and b) having beer-baked carrot cake. Yes you heard us right, THERE WILL BE CAKE!

This time around, Gregg and Natasha will be seeing to your beery needs upstairs. As always, there's plenty of beer by yours truly on our bar as well as the Bottle Shop team's downstairs. We will be serving K*ntish Town Beard, Sorachi Faceplant and the ludicrously tasty, The Hanging Bat collaboration brew: Rye Smile.

Read more about the tap-list from our "what's on the bar?" blog.

We will also have some t-shirts for sale at £15 and limited stock of our beautifully branded glassware at £3. The holidays may be coming to an end but we sure don't want you feeling blue about it.


Looking forward to seeing you there!

Winter Open Days Round-Up

10 days ago, we officially opened the doors of our brewery, inviting people to come see the Weird Beard setup and drink our beers on the grounds where they are made. This had been long overdue since we've been based in Hanwell from the start, almost 2 years running. At the same time, the idea of getting people to venture here, off the beaten track of Craft Beer in London, seemed like a stretch. With Christmas around the corner and an otherwise uneventful weekend in the diary, we decided to do it and boy are we glad we did!

On the Friday, Gregg rigged up the shutter to the Boston Business Park warehouse where we've hidden ourselves and on the dot of opening friends, beer geeks and beer enthusiasts poured into the brewery. On the Sunday we expected a quieter affair; instead the brewery was full to the brim with locals, CAMRA members and tradespeople, as well as a similarly wonderful crowd to the previous day. Bryan, the brewer in that night, and the rest of our team were relentless in efforts to keep the beer pouring for those who eagerly and repeatedly queued into the road outside. Seriously though, thank you for bearing with us if you did. We're still amazed at the turn out and flattered by the feedback and reviews for both Friday and Sunday. Indeed, we've been asked when are our next Open Days and we promise they'll be a regular fixture in the new year.

If you missed out on it all: the beers (bottle, draft or truffle form), chatting with the brewers, seeing our newly expanded kit and partaking in the fun pay more attention here next time! At least we have some snaps (some ours and some from attendees) for you that capture the vibe of the events. Sadly these photos do not capture, if we can say so ourselves, the epic punk or rock'n'roll playlists we had on and the magnanimous enjoyment shared. Particularly with more locals stopping down on the Sunday, we deemed the event a success in community-building. We also managed to raise over £200 in Charity Pours and donations for Alice's Youth Music Memorial Fund. For who anyone remotely knows us, we value music as much as we value great beer. Knowing our Open Days and brewery's taproom debut could contribute to a project that brings music to young people, is an added perk to what was an amazing time.

Many thanks to all those who helped spread the word, those who trekked over to us, came and drank, came and danced and to everyone who added to the fun. Here's to very happy holidays!

Weird Beard Winter Open Days

As the holidays are fast approaching, we here at Weird Beard Brew Co wanted to throw a little party since it is the season for it. Nothing fancy since we're just a couple of brewers but the brewery doors will be open to the public and beer will be flowing from the taps on the afternoons of the 12th and 14th December.

This is our first official take on Open Days so we are very excited for the events. With a choice of two days to make it over, there is plenty of opportunity to come on down. Do come meet and greet both the brewers and the team, ogle at our new fermentation vessels, sample some of our brews and be craft beer merry! We will have draught and bottled beer for sale, with 50p of all draught sales going towards the Youth Music Memorial Fund for Alice Gross. We hope these events not only give people an opportunity to see where we work and what we do, but to also better establish us and all that is craft beer within our local community.

There will be food and there will be beer to be bought and consumed on site. We have ordered the most delicious, home-made Scotch eggs and sausage rolls from Pig & Hay including veggie options for the occasion. Even if we look forward to drinking with you for the entire afternoon, we will have bottles available for take-away purchases. Watch this space for updates on the beer line-up, no doubt we have some new and limited brews reserved for the dates!

Stumped for Christmas presents? We'll have a selection of merchandise including t-shirts, hoodies, glassware and gift-packs available for sale. Oh, and we're pretty into our music here so expect decent tunes and generally an awesome time to be had all round.

Bottle Shop Pop-Up Bar 6th December

It's nearing the first Saturday of the month again but we say that without monotony. We will be back at the Bottle Shop to make sure you have your beer fixes before the year is out. Come say "Hey!" to Head Brewer Bryan and our new(ish) Event Coordinator, Natasha. They will be serving beers upstairs whilst the Bottle Shop team will have a couple of our brews on draught downstairs. Adding to that, the Bottle Shop has amazing stuff for you to buy as holiday gifts and we'll be bringing along t-shirts for sale so you can drink beer whilst getting some Christmas shopping done. If that isn't tempting enough (seriously, what is wrong with you?!?!) we have lined-up our favourite and latest brews for the occasion.


It's really going to be a treat, but don't take our word for it, read more about the special tap-list from our "what's on the bar?" blog.

Bottle Shop Residency number 1 - 1st November 2014

As hinted in previous posts we now have a residency at the Bottle shop on the first Saturday of every month. We will be upstairs serving from 4 taps, always (we hope) with some kind of rarity for you to be interested in. So come find us at

The bottle Shop

128 Druid St

London

SE1 2HH

Between 12noon and 6pm.

Saturday 1st November between 12:00 and 18:00 we will be serving

Dark Hopfler                                 2.6%   - Hoppy Dark Milk ale (#1 ratebeer Low alcohol beer)
Mariana Trench                             5.1%  - Transpacific Pale ale
Out of Office                                 7.0%   - IPA with Coffee
Something Something Darkside      9.4% - A strong black beery thing...

Halloween Tap Takeover

This coming weekend is Halloween, and we love Halloween, what with all the skulls and such. So to celebrate, we have teamed up with the guys at Craft Beer Co. Covent Garden for a one night extravaganza. We collected together pretty much every beer we had, and shipped them down to the West End. There is enough to keep everyone happy here, with many of the beers being served on both casks and keg, making it the perfect time try them side by side. Many of our occasional and season beers will also be available, along with a couple of one off versions of a classic.

We encourage you to embrace the holiday, and come in fancy dress. We will even be offering up prizes for the best costume.

Both Gregg and Bryan from the brewery will be heading down. See if you can spot them in their costumes.

The full list of beers on offer can be found below. We will be announcing the full list over the coming week.

Cask

1   Mariana Trench - Pale Ale - 5.1%

2   K*ntish Town Beard - American Wheat Ale - 5.9%

3   Hit The Lights - IPA - 5.9%

4   Five O'Clock Shadow - IPA - 7%

5   Black Perle - Milk Coffee Stout - 3.8%

6   Decadence (chilli) - Stout - 5.6%

7   Out Of Office - Coffee IPA - 7%

8   Hive Mind - Honey Red - 5.4%

9   Dark Hopfler - 2.5%

10 Decadence (vanilla) - Stout - 5.6%

Keg

11   Mariana Trench - Pale Ale - 5.1%

12   K*ntish Town Beard - American Wheat Ale - 5.9%

13   Hit The Lights - IPA - 5.9%

14   Five O'clock Shadow - IPA - 7%

15   Black Perle - Coffee Milk Stout - 3.8%

16   Decadence - Stout - 5.6%

17   Fade To Black Black - Black IPA - 6.5%

18   Hacienda - Black Saison with orange - 6.9%

19   Heaven & Hell batch 4 - BA-DIPA - 9.6%

20   Holy Hoppin' Hell batch 5 - DIPA - 9.2%

21   Heaven & Hell batch 5 - BA-DIPA - 9.2%

22   Sadako - Imperial Stout - 9.2%

23   Sadako Heaven Hill - BA  Imperial Stout - 9.2%
24   Sadako Ardbeg - BA Imperial Stout - 9.2%

25   Out Of Office - Coffee IPA - 7%

26   Bearded Nurse Ardbeg - BA Barley Wine - 10.2%

27   Something Something Darkside - Black IPA -9.4%

28   Something Something Barrel Aged - BA Black IPA -9.4%

29   Hive MInd - Honey Red - 5.4%

30   Little Things That Kill batch 9 - Hoppy Session - 3.7%

Bonus Keg line will be our collaboration with Northern Monk

31  Blue Habit - Blueberry Saison - 6%

Out Of Office Coffee IPA

Guest post from our brewery assistant Andrew Drinkwater:

For the past six weeks I've been learning firsthand about the differences between homebrewing and the world of commercial beer as a brewery assistant at Weird Beard. It's been extremely hard work but also very rewarding - the bruises, scaldings, thermal burns, chemical burns, cuts, grazes and acid swallowing was all worth it when drinking a cask of something I'd been involved in from brew to packaging.

One of the privileges of the past few weeks has been to design and brew a new beer with my fellow brewery assistant, Chris Taylor. Together with his partner Emma, Chris is one of the country's most talented homebrewers, and has been working part-time at Weird Beard for the past few months in addition to his full-time job. We've homebrewed together a few times, but it's been a lot more fun working with a kit 72 times bigger!

Out of Office Lu'pin - inspired by Chris!

The idea for our beer came from my previous job. My old team drank a lot of fantastic coffee from the roasters at Hasbean - in particular, their blueberry-packed Yirgacheffe Naturals from Ethiopia. I brought my last pack of beans into the brewery on my first day, and while drinking it with Chris, we came up with the idea of brewing a Coffee IPA in the mould of Kernel's long-lost Suke Quto IPA. 

Chris came up with a killer mix of Chinook and Amarillo hops to provide tropical fruit and some complexity, and Mosaic hops, both as a steep and dry hop, to complement the blueberry notes from the coffee. We wanted to aim for a very pale, clean and dry beer to let the hops and coffee sing, so the malt bill is very simple, with 95% pale with a little bit of wheat.

We added the coffee in three different ways - crushed in the underback, fresh French Press coffee added directly to the wort, and several kilos added to the fermenter along with the dry hops. We did almost manage to completely ruin an FV with the amount of hops and coffee beans we threw into it - but we think it was worth it. In lieu of a grinder, here I am smacking it up ready for the underback:

We're really proud of the final beer - it's 7% ABV, very pale, and has all the bitterness of an IPA but with the aroma and flavour profile of a good cup of coffee made from a freshly roasted delivery from Hasbean. We've called our beer Out of Office, to reflect our 'part-time' nature and to indemnify the guys at Weird Beard if you don't like it! 

The first keg of Out of Office is going to be on the bar at my leaving party at Brewdog Shepherds Bush on Saturday 18th October, along with a couple of other Weird Beard rarities like Hive Mind (which has been reformulated for 2014) and the much-vaunted low-alcohol Dark Hopfler. Hope to see you there!