Preferred Pronouns, 4.2%

Preferred Pronouns, a Sour New England Pale Ale, is our latest collaboration brewed with The Queer Brewing Project. It’s also the official beer of London Craft Beer Festival, which kicks off this Friday 9th August.

A Sour New England Pale Ale, this is a beer for fans of hazy, juicy pales and fans of tart, fruity sours. Using a brewing technique called back-souring, by separately brewing a New England Pale Ale and base kettle sour, and then blending them together we have had complete control over the level of acidity and overall balance of the beer. It’s heavy with tropical fruitiness and extremely refreshing from the slight tartness to lift the juiciness and add a bit of bite. At 4.2% it’s the ultimate tangy, fruity refreshment needed for the summer beer festival!

Preferred Pronouns also showcases a hop called Strata. Straight from Oregon, US; it brings layered notes of tropical fruit including; mango, passion fruit, fresh berry, and some citrus in the form of grapefruit. Along with this comes a dank herbal note. A fairly new hop into the market, we’re very excited to be the first brewery in the UK to commercially use the hop in a beer. The Strata hops are complemented and supported by Vic Secret and Citra which add to the dank and citrus notes.

Launch Event

We will be launching and pouring Preferred Pronouns for the first time this Wednesday 7th August at Mother Kelly’s Bethnal Green. We will be joining Lily in an evening of enjoying the beer, giving away some cans and merchandise, as well as a free tasting of the beer at 6pm with Lily and our Head Brewer, Pete. We will also be welcoming a representative from Galop, who will talk a bit more about the charity and the incredible work they do across the UK. Check out the Facebook event for the beer launch here.

From the name and artwork, to the final outcome of the beer every element of Preferred Pronouns has been a true collaboration of people, ideas and talents. Below is a contribution from Lily, founder of The Queer Brewing Project, which explains this further.

A word from Lily…

I was incredibly honoured to be asked by Greg, co-founder, of the London Craft Beer Festival, to brew the official beer of this year’s festival. Having already been in conversation with the lovely Brick Brewery, it made complete sense to bring them into this three-way collaboration. 

Preferred Pronouns is already a beer that means a lot to me. From the reason it was brewed, to the vital work that it supports—Galop are the UK’s largest LGBTQ anti-violence charity, to the beer itself, it’s a beer heaped with meaning.

We asked our followers on social media to help us name the beer, and though we loved the frankly vast number of puns in the suggestions, one in particular stood out: Preferred Pronouns. Pronouns, whilst oft overlooked by many people outside of the LGBTQ community, are incredibly important, especially to those whose gender isn’t the same as assigned at birth, trans and non-binary people. Whether they use he, she, they, or other pronouns, asking someone their preferred pronouns is an important sign of respect and consideration, especially when using the wrong one can cause so much harm. The Queer Brewing Project is as much a conversation-starter as it is a fund-raiser, so using a beer that will have a wide reach, as well as a platform at the country’s leading craft beer festival, to raise the topic of pronouns, is a wonderful thing. 

Given that pronouns exist in both binary and non-binary formats (see those listed above), the artwork for this beer is a jumbled mix of the two. The label artwork comes from a digital painting I did whilst at art school (in nearby Camberwell), and comes from a period in my creative practice when I was exploring what gender meant to me through visual art. Originally in pink and blue, I tweaked the colours of the piece to fit with the tropical flavours of Preferred Pronouns, resulting in the summery blast of colour you see on the can. The label represents the beer, too: two distinct entities meeting and blurring together in an explosive, expressive manner; tropical, juicy NE Pale, and zingy kettle sour, merging to become something new.

Preferred Pronouns will be pouring across every session on our bar at London Craft Beer Festival… come say hi!
The 330ml cans will be available from our webshop later this week.

 

The newest addition to our Framing Range of beers, Peckham Session is back in stock this week after the first release flew out back in May. A 4.2% Session IPA, we wanted to create a light and easy-going IPA and just the beer we want to sessionably drink after a long, hot day in the brewery or cracking open on Peckham Rye. Talking a bit more about the beer is our Lead Brewer, Tom, as we continue to refine and improve on each release of Peckham Session…

“With Peckham Session we wanted to brew something heady yet balanced, showcasing new season Simcoe. With our hop allocation for this year we have split all of our varietals between Cryo and T-90 pellets. In this beer we use both to bring out maximum fruit as well as the classic necessary savoury dankness. Backed-up by Citra in the whirl; we’re aiming for a classic, resinous US hop character.

Besides the hop-focus, our yeast for Peckham Session is unique. We decided to bring in a second house ale strain that ferments thoroughly at a leisurely rate whilst kicking out massive pineapple esters. We like to give this beer an extended maturation to ensure all of those intense aromatics are stabile in the right places. This should leave you with a huge whack of fruit bowl deliciousness and a clean finish.” – Tom

We’re really happy with the second brew of Peckham Session (packaged last week and out now) and after a few more tweaks on the water profile batch three is bubbling away.”

Get Peckham Session from our online shop here.

After months of planning, training and travelling up and down the country to breweries tucked away in hills of Wales, Lake District and Scotland, we are so excited to announce the launch of our 3 Peaks Challenge Collaboration project.

Born from our love of escaping South East London for the countryside and fresh air whenever we can, pushing boundaries and collaborating with like-minded breweries… we have collaborated with 3 breweries all located within close proximity to the 3 highest peaks in Scotland (Ben Nevis), England (Scafell Pike) and Wales (Snowdon). Those 3 breweries are Fallen Brewing , Hawkshead Brewery and Wild Horse Brewing Co. Ian said about the conception of the collaboration: “We love the areas in which the challenge takes place, and have long admired the work of some of the local breweries there. It was a no-brainer to team up with like-minded beer folk and concoct this series, inspired by the three peaks.”

Staying true to form with all our special releases, we have worked with local artists from around each Peak to create 3 stunning label designs that relate back to each Peak and the beer inside. Released in 440ml cans, a percentage of each sale will be donated to the breweries’ chosen charities. Allow us to introduce each beer…

Starting on Heaven, Session Helles 3.8%

Brewed in collaboration with Fallen Brewing. Inspired by that first blissful sip of a pint straight after a long hike, safe in the shelter of a warm and cosy pub, we’ve created a light and crisp Session Helles with Fallen Brewing. Super light, sessionable and approachable German-style Helles lager using Weyermann malt, its refreshing body has an added depth of citrus flavour from dry-hopping with Mandarina Bavaria and Idaho 7. Named ‘Starting on Heaven’ as our challenge begins at Ben Nevis, Gaelic translation: Mountain of Heaven. Artwork by Zain Kapasi and LemonTop Creative.

A percentage of proceeds from the sale of these cans will go to Start Up Stirling, a charity project focussed on relieving poverty, suffering and distress of people on crisis across Stirlingshire.

Scroggin’, Imperial Stout 10.0%

Brewed in collaboration with Hawkshead Brewery. Inspired by ‘scroggin’; a mixture of dried fruit, nuts, and other food eaten as a snack by hikers and typically known as scroggin in New Zealand, we used these elements and ingredients of the snack to create a deep and rich Imperial Stout. Flavours of chocolate, nuts, raisin will be apparent from fruity crystal malt, cacao nibs, pecans and peanuts with the addition of lactose to create a decadent and creamy mouthfeel to complement the high ABV and rich ingredients. Artwork by Bethan Thorsby.

A percentage of the proceeds from the sale of these cans will go to Fix the Fells, a Lake District maintenance and preservation charity looking after the area’s mountain paths and landscape.

Summit Fever, East Coast IPA 6.7%

Brewed in collaboration with Wild Horse Brewing Co. The perfect beer to kick back and celebrate after conquering Wales’ highest peak, we headed to Llandudno to brew an East Coast IPA. The punchiness of Mosaic and El Dorado hops were combined with the heavily citrus and wine-like characteristics of Motueka and Nelson Sauvin, perfectly balanced by the soft fruit esters of London Ale III yeast. Artwork by Lee Owen and More Than Equal Studio.

A percentage of the proceeds from the sale of these cans will go to Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue Organisation, operating to assist those in difficulty in the area surrounding Ogwen Valley, Snowdonia, Wales and are completely volunteer-led.

The 3 Peaks Challenge

Not stopping there, we’ve taken the collaboration one step further and will be undertaking the 3 Peaks Challenge itself next Saturday 13th July! Starting at Ben Nevis and ending at Snowdon, we’ll be attempting to climb all 3 peaks in 24 hours. We’ve been training hard, and are very much looking forward to celebrating each summit with cracking open each beer to enjoy (especially the Scroggin’ Imperial Stout at the top of Scafell Pike on Saturday evening!). We’ve had so much fun collaborating to create 3 very special beers, travelling to new places and generally being inspired by the stunning surroundings these breweries are situated.

We will, of course, be heavily documenting our challenge across our social media from Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon so please tune in and keep us going!

Launch Events

We will be officially launching these beers at our Taproom on Saturday 13th July… whilst we are halfway through our challenge, gasping for a beer and rest in a cosy pub, you can enjoy all 3 beers pouring at the Taproom from 12pm. We will also be holding 2 FREE tasting sessions throughout the day at 3pm and 5pm where you can try all 3 beers in a tasting session and Q&A led by one of our brewers. Find out more about each beer’s journey and get a generous tasting measure of each.

No rest for the wicked, straight after we finish at Snowdon on Sunday morning a bunch of the challenge team will be heading to Jack in the Box at Mackie Mayor, Manchester for a well-deserved few beers and Tap Takeover. Brick, Wild Horse, Hawkshead and Fallen will be taking over their keg and cask lines and will include a keg of each of the collaboration beers. We will be there from 2pm so please come along, chat to the brewers and share a drink with us as we celebrate our achievement!

More details to come soon on where you can get hold of the cans where you are!