Bristol Road Trip

One of the exciting things we’ve had to do when getting the shop ready is buy beer. We’ve had to be quite disciplined in choosing the right proportion of different styles, and also thinking about how far specific beers have travelled. For IPAs and Pales we wanted to focus on UK breweries as much as possible – firstly because they’re very good at making them, and secondly because as a small independent shop we have greater control on getting them fresh compared to imports.

However, we’re also both massively into our dark and European style beers, so we knew we’d always want to offer our customers a varied range from around the world. It also means that a number of the beers we will stock are styles that will age and mature over time giving you different flavours.

In the South West we are fortunate to have a number of great breweries making beers that we want to stock. One area that has the biggest concentration of those breweries is Bristol. So we decided to have a road trip to pick up the beer and have a chat with the brewers.

Our first brewery of the day was Wild Beer Co, based in Shepton Mallet. Wild as the name suggests are particularly interested in using natural fermentation, aging beers in barrels and blending different beers together to make some very interesting and tasty beers. We’ve enjoyed their beers from their inception in 2012, and can still recall the first time we tried Modus Operandi – their first beer, which is an old English ale aged in oak barrels. It reminded us of some classic Belgian beers from Flanders that have an almost balsamic vinegar sourness to them. We picked up a decent range from them, including big sharing bottles of Ninkasi, Shnoodlepip, Summer Blend and a couple of kegs.

The second brewery of the day was Wiper and True – this was due to be the youngest brewery on our visit (more about this later). Their distinctive artwork makes them easy to spot in a bar or shop, and we always know the beer will be quality. We got a range of bottles including Winter Palace, their new 9.1% Imperial Stout, and Mosiac IPA on keg.

We then travelled down the road to Arbor, a brewery we’ve enjoyed over the years for producing great hoppy beers. We picked up a few of their pint sized bottles, including Oz Bomb – a 4.7% Australian hopped pale ale. We also couldn’t resist the 330ml bottles of a 9.6% Imperial IPA called Super Yakima – a bigger brother of their IPA, named after the famous hop growing valley in the North West USA.

This was followed by a short trip to our next brewery, Moor. The last time we visited Bristol we had a really enjoyable session in their brewery tap room, and as a result, spent far longer there than planned. Moor are the first brewery to have their cans of beer recognised by CAMRA as being “real ale”. They are also brewers who have for a long time been extolling the virtues of not using finings in their beer, which means their beers are naturally hazy, tastier and also vegan friendly. Here’s a link to their website to explain: http://moorbeer.co.uk/why-is-it-better/ . We picked up a number of their cans as well as their classic Old Freddy Walker – a rich old ale to be shared in 660ml bottles.

We then made it to Lost and Grounded, the newest brewery on our trip, and one that has generated a lot of excitement in the beer world due to the pedigree of the people involved and the scale of the set up. This visit was pure chance, as when we initially planned the trip, Lost and Grounded hadn’t yet put any of their beers in bottle. However the day before the trip we saw a tweet advertising a temporary bottling job at the brewery. We thought we’d ask if we could get any bottles and fortunately we managed to get one of the first cases off the production line. This beer is called Running with Sceptres, and is lager with a big dose of hops.

The last stop of this trip was Bristol Beer Factory, another we’ve enjoyed over the years. A good way to finish our trip as it included a nice walk through the brewery, where we enjoyed the smell of sweet malt. We picked up their classic IPA Southville Hop, and their Christmas special Bristletoe, along with a couple of others.

In total we collected 31 different beers on this trip, and we are really excited to have them as part of our opening line up.