On Friday of this week I popped over to the old Truman Brewery to check out Craft Beer Rising – a particularly Shoreditch twist on a beer festival, this rather more intimate event showcased some of the best small breweries (and one or two larger ones!) as well as artisan food producers from London and elsewhere.
Wandering its warren of rather cold spaces (it was snowing outside!), there were brewers represented from across the world – Duvel was showing off one of it’s latest ideas, its Belgian golden ale presented in a can, while the guys responsible for importing the Barbadian 10 Saints beer were looking flash in colourful palm-covered shirts.
Surprisingly, there was only one dedicated London brewer in attendance, the much-feted Meantime Brewery who are now capable of producing over seventeen million pints of beer from their facility down on the Greenwich Peninsula – not that their capacity diminishes their ability to produce some of the country’s very finest ales.
I did manage to find three other brewers at Craft Beer Rising with London connections, including the chaps from Signature Brew who have a very interesting story. They make their living by travelling around the country’s breweries with their favourite bands and musicians, and work together to cook up unique batches at each stop – one of their current brews, Mammoth, was made with Stratford-based group Dry The River using the facilities at the London Fields Brewery, for example.
Also present were the hipsters’ favourite – the cheeky Brew Dog brand. Of course you’ll find their beers across the capital these days, but what you might not know is that they opened their second London bar in October of last year. Based out of the old Mason & Taylor premises on Bethnal Green Road, Brew Dog Shoreditch is apparently one of the places to see and be seen in 2013.
Admittedly this represents a rather more tenuous connection but Daniel Thwaites, the Lancashire brewery, currently have a seasonal beer on their roster called Big Ben. Available until March 2013, this is a ‘strong dark ale with balanced bitter sweet flavours‘.
On the food front, I had the opportunity to chat to the gentlemen from Little Jack Horners, who make artisan pies and sausage rolls using the finest British ingredients. Based out of Park Royal in Acton, their products include a black pudding and apple roll, a pork and chilli roll and exotic pies with ingredients such as pheasant, pumpkin and (apparently) squirrel. I tried a traditional pork and sage sausage roll, and I must say it was probably the best example of the type that I’ve ever tasted – check them out here.
Alongside the beer and food the Craft Beer Rising Festival also took the opportunity to put on some events that I suspect wouldn’t have gone down particularly well with the CAMRA crowd – I’m thinking specifically of Friday afternoon’s ‘beer cocktail’ masterclass with Mr Lyan (who is otherwise known as Ryan Chetiyawardana). Visitors got some very unusual cocktail ideas from the session, including a ‘Dead Pony’, which consists of 30ml of Beefeater Gin, 2 slices of orange, a slice of grapefruit, 15ml of rhubarb syrup and a good dash of Brew Dog’s Dead Pony beer.
On balance I thought that Craft Beer Rising made a nice change from the usual sweaty scrum of a beer festival – they’re certainly great experiences but this had a little more style and class, particularly as there were DJs and dancing on both nights – the thought of that at one of your regular festivals rather boggles the mind! I hope Craft Beer Rising becomes a regular feature of the Shoreditch calendar in future…
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