A Very Happy New Year

It's the very first day of 2016 and we can't help but be excited for what this year will bring nor can we hesitate to reflect on the year just gone. 2015 has been jam-packed, exciting, prosperous and important for us. 

Photo by Matt Curtis

We've grown in more ways than one. For starters, we installed 2 new 20 barrel fermenters, we then installed new Hot and Cold Liquor Tanks and we've massively upped our production. We've also built up our ever-growing team and are currently a happy, beery family of 8 going onto 9. We had welcomed Jonny as a new lead-brewer, who offered insight, some change, new recipes and also afforded time for headbrewer Bryan to make changes to the brewhouse and its management. Due to unfortunate circumstances concerning Jonny's family, we saw him go but we then welcomed another awesome guy, Ryan. It's only been a couple of months, but you can bet on seeing some cool new beers from him soon. 

Photo by Matt Curtis

 

With our growth, we've put more beer out. As a result we've battled with our hop contracts but even then we made a positive out of a tricky situation. Gregg has written a great blog about it all and you will get more of his musings about the "Spreadsheet Ninja side of Brewing" this year. Even though he's not often brewing, Gregg continues to develop some of our recipes. Both him and Bryan are carefully considering our beer range and have re-defined what is "core". We laid "Hit the Lights" to rest to make room for new and more "Weird Beard" brews over the year, which we felt we've definitely achieved.

2015 saw us also develop our skills through the many collaborations we did. Collabs, when done well, are both fun and constructive for everyone involved and here's a list of the fine folk we've had the pleasure to work with last year:

Pig & Porter

Lervig and IndyManBeerCon

Northern Monk

La Débauche

Bexar County Brewery

Kew Brewery

Photo of The Frog Is Fired from IMBC

Aside from brewers, we've also worked with a few other great people, including:

•  Greg Dillon from Great Drams for a thoroughly enjoyable beer-whisky pairing during London Beer City. You can expect more of the same in 2016!
• Kumar Kolar from Karkli. Together we came up with a perfectly beer-matched flavour of his deliciously moreish snacks.

Photo of Karkli Beer Pairing at IMBC

• Hayley from Pig & Hay, who cooked with our beers to make super tasty speciality Scotch Eggs and Sausage Rolls for our AGM and Meet the Brewer event at BrewDog Camden. 
• The team at BrewDog Shepherds Bush to make a beer for BrewDog's annuary Collabfest; we brewed "Safe Word". 
• The Duke's Head Highgate and Matt Curtis for specifically developing and brewing "Duke of Dank" together for a "Cask Is Important" event they hosted.  
• Chris Walker and Josh Smith are two guys we will never fail to appreciate as they are the maestros behind our branding. Of course we're biased but there is truth in the fact that our labels ROCK!

Over the past year we've held and partaken in some really awesome events in and outside London. We've also jetted about the globe to Copenhagen, Athens, Tuscany, Barcelona, Antwerp and Orlando. From tutored tastings, tap-takeovers, meet the brewers, live brews, beer festivals and open days, we really have satisfied our social calendars. We are pretty proud that our open days continue to be well attended and enjoyed, so we'll have more of the same this year for sure. To safeguard against missing out on what we will be getting up to, keep an eye on our blog and Facebook events. We've got plenty lined up already.

 

Photo by Dom Hemy

Hopefully, we've been able to show and share that 2015 has been a great year for us in our beers and antics. Now we've kicked off 2016, we'd want to up the ante and make it a better year than the last. So here's to doing just that.

Cheers and Happy New Year from all of us at Weird Beard!