Well, what a year 2023 was! We settled into our new home on Sheffield Street, massively expanded our barrel capacity, released some of our best beers to date, poured at some amazing festivals and opened our very own Taproom! But what can you expect from us in 2024?
The Taproom
2024 will be the year of the Taproom. Having opened in August last year, we’ve already seen a huge number of people come through the taproom doors; from those lost souls searching for Sureshot who get lured in and hooked on the tantalising Saison de Maison, to a host of regulars that bring wonderful stories, share themselves and occasionally even share their home grown produce with us! We look forward to growing our little community even more in 2024.
With that in mind, we’re going to be doing a couple of things to become a space where more people can come and enjoy a beer with us. Firstly, we are now offering six product lines on the bar. We’ll always have our own beers on as well as some of the UK’s most exciting mixed fermentation offerings, but we’ll also have rotating guest lager and pale taps too!
The second thing we’re going to be doing is expanding the taprooms opening hours. From the first week in March, we’ll be opening up from Thursday to Sunday every week. This will bring much more opportunity to pop in and enjoy a beer and we’ll also be bringing a calendar of regular events to keep things interesting. These events will range from gallery nights, our monthly vinyl night, talks, supper clubs, homebrew club meets and many more! Keep an eye out for these throughout the year.
More Beer, experimentation and collaboration
With our fleet of 110 barrels and beautiful foeder, we’ve got so much more volume than ever before to draw from. Last year saw us fill the foeder and the majority of these barrels with several different base beers ranging from table saisons to rye heavy, golden ales, all pitched with our developing house culture. This year, those beers will be coming through the pipeline in a variety of guises; from light and aromatic herbal beers to intensely fruited, funky wild ales and everything in between and beyond!
With more beer comes much more scope to experiment in many ways. We’ve always had a soft spot for the experimental side when it comes to flavours in our beers, whether that’s mushrooms, foraged herbs, acorns or blending beer with cider. Our ideas book is full to the brim and we want to bring some of those ideas to you in 2024.
Foraging featured in a few of our releases last year and we’re going to bring you even more beers that utilise the abundant, local and wild produce available to us. We’ll be on the hunt for the likes of blackberries, elderflower and rowan berries to the more unusual; dandelion root, nettles and wild horseradish anyone…?
We want to expand our knowledge in 2024 and learn as much as we can so we’re going to be collaborating far and wide wherever we can, to share knowledge, experience and skills with likeminded people – that goes for brewers, chefs, foragers, laboratory researchers, winemakers and way beyond. We will always try to express what we’ve learned through beer and with our ability to produce small batches we can truly experiment and then share the results with you.
Cider
One more thing that we’re adding to our repertoire in 2024 will be our own cider! We received 1200L of apple juice from North Down Farm in Somerset late last year and we’ll be looking to release these products later this year. We’re experimenting, as per usual, with techniques, barrels and blending to bring multiple different takes on a traditional cider. We’re very excited for this project, especially to share the results with you all.
As with all of our events, collabs and experiments you can keep up to date on our socials and through our website which we’ll update as and when. We look forward to seeing you along the journey this year and if you’re in the neighbourhood, please do pop in for a schooner of Saison de Maison and a chinwag.
Cheers,
Will