Hopped Up

From making their own to collaborating with local breweries, how are hotels going the extra mile to ensure that beer is given the star treatment it deserves?

Words: Millie Milliken

Ahotel bar is many things to many people: a destination for worldclass cocktails, a chance to pop some bubbles for a celebration, or a place to feel at home when far away from it. Yet, while the backbar and wine cellar may be thoughtfully stocked, there is often one drinks category that falls behind: beer.

Sure, the household names are there: Peroni, Stella – Camden Hells at a push. And while an increasing number of lifestyle hotels are helping to pave the way for more inventive brews on the menu, ultimately when it comes to curation and craft, beer offerings in hotels can often feel lacklustre.

“Beer is probably the beverage area that has been the most neglected and faced the most reluctance to update,” says Rashid Ghuloom, Food & Beverage Manager at Gleneagles in Scotland. “This was in part likely due to snobbery – beer isn’t necessarily the first thing you associate with a five-star hotel.”

A number of hotels are improving their beer offering both in-house and through partnerships with local breweries

“For us, it’s all about attention to detail. When you put so much effort into a cocktail programme, by not doing the same with beer you’re losing that well-roundedness.”

PIETRO COLLINA

There are, however, some hotels that are keen to change this – from making their own in-house to stocking local produce or collaborating with brands to make special brews. One such hotel is the brand new NoMad London. Opened in May 2021 to much fanfare, the drinks programme and the team behind it set industry tongues wagging. One member of that team is Pietro Collina, Bar Director and a man with plenty of pedigree having been behind the stick at NoMad New York, and more recently at Davies & Brook at Claridge’s. When he began work on the London project, he enlisted the help of King’s Cross-based brewery Two Tribes to create the house Mexican Sour, served on draught in the hotel’s main restaurant as well as its bar, Side Hustle. “I used Two Tribes as one of our development partners because they are known to do collaborations and have a great history of doing one off beers and seasonal beers,” says Collina of the beginning of the partnership. “When I went to them, I knew I really wanted to have a sour beer and we’re a Mexican bar so we finished it with calamansi lime peel, margaritastyle, instead of just adding hops.”

Collina is also using Two Tribes in Side Hustle’s cocktails, including Michelada – a spicy Mexican beer-based cocktail – and Joy Ride, combining it with Aperol, lemon, agave and cucumber. Other beers include La Poulet, a beer created for NoMad New York by Brooklyn Brewery and now made for the London branch at London Fields Brewery, as well as Guinness for an added touch of comfort. For Collina, having a well-thought-out beer offering is testament to a strong and well-rounded beverage identity: “For us, it’s all about attention to detail. When you put so much effort into a cocktail programme, by not doing the same with beer you’re losing that well-roundedness.”

Ghuloom agrees: “In the luxury sector, I don’t believe it is possible nowadays to ever sit back and think you’ve done enough with any of your offering. The standards are always rising and with it, the expectations of our guests.” While Gleneagles has always had a respectable beer offering, it wasn’t until a few years ago that it embarked on developing its own. When award-winning local brewery Harviestoun approached former Food & Beverage Director and now Managing Director Conor O’Leary with the offer, he jumped at the chance and these days, guests can order a pint of Auchterarder 70 made especially for the hotel just a few miles down the road. “We love Schiehallion from Harviestoun and the way it uses a high level of wheat malt to balance the barley malt and provide a lovely aroma,” explains Ghuloom. “However, we wanted a slightly lower level of hoppiness and ABV percentage.” Using six hops – Challenger, H.Herbrucker, Magnum, Celeia, Aurora, Sorachi Ace – and sitting at 4.5%, the beer is complex, yet also soft and accessible.

This sense of locality is something that Adam Bursik, Bar and Beverage Manager at ShangriLa Hotel Singapore was keen to employ when it came to creating the beer offering at the hotel’s Origin Bar. Having tried a few of Trouble Brewing’s products, Bursik got in touch with the team in 2020 to see what the scope of creating a sessionable house beer would be – they came back with Origin lager and he loved it. Served from the bottle in a stainless-steel pewter (a malleable metal alloy), the lager is a blend of malt and hops, resulting in a medium body beer with effervescence and refreshing notes. “We always carried craft beers since opening but it was mainly American and European brands,” explains Bursik. “We wanted to create a programme tied to our concept, which is about Singapore.” Now, 90% of Origin’s beers are Singapore-brewed.

Another hotel group, Edition, rolled out a craft beer programme in 2019 with each hotel collaborating with a local brewery to create a beer to represent the hotel. The Miami Edition partnered with Biscayne Bay Brewing Company from Doral in Florida to create Iguanita, a lager blending classic German flavours with light, fruity and floral notes from Hallertaur hops.

Closer to home, it doesn’t get much more local than at the new Kingsland Locke in East London’s Dalston neighbourhood, the recent opening of which brought with it its own inhouse micro-brewery. Part of the hotel’s Kraft Dalston food and drink offering – made up of German Kraft Brewing, Jim and Tonic Distillery and Le Bab – the micro-brewery has been working hard over lockdown to create new styles for thirsty guests, and beers are served from tanks that stand proudly behind the bar. “When people come to us they know they’re going to have a German-style beer, but you do have the odd person who expects their bigbrand lager,” says Helen Busch, German Kraft’s Beer Sommelier. “When I give them our lager to try for the first time, they always say how fresh it tastes because it hasn’t had to travel

“Beer is part of any beverage offering. It is as important as any other spirits or cocktail you have on your beverage list –I can’t imagine a bar without beer. ”

ADAM BURSIK

far – I have people convinced that it’s now their favourite lager.”

Other styles of beer at the micro-brewery include a wheat beer, a pilsner (one of the newer creations) and a pale ale. For Busch, beer can work in any style of hotel with guest curiosity at a current high: “People are definitely open to suggestions when it comes to beer if you offer it to people, they will take it,” she adds.

And beer isn’t just for drinking. At Coworth Park in Ascot, April saw the arrival of the Barn Beer IPA and lager, made by Gorgeous Brewing and used in the batter for its fish and chips served in The Barn restaurant. Having been regular visitors of the Dorchester Collection hotel, the family behind Gorgeous Brewing approached the Coworth team about creating their own beers. Director of Food & Beverage Johnny Ellson jumped at the chance, and now, the two beers are served by the bottle – complete with stag iconography – while the team has installed a draught system to dispense the beer for using in the kitchen. A simple and effective touch.

However, there are challenges when it comes to implementing a sustainable beer offering in hotel bars – namely, financial ones: “You’re not going to see immediate financial benefits,” explains Ghuloom. “It’s much easier to sell some high-end wine and offer a high-margin mass-market lager than taking a hit to offer a more expensive craft product that by virtue of being more distinctive, is also more divisive.”

Nevertheless, with consumers more interested in brand story, provenance and accessibility, not giving the beer menu due diligence in 2021 is simply no longer an option. For Bursik, it is a matter of equal importance: “Beer is part of any beverage offering and everyone should be taking it seriously. It is as important as any other spirits or cocktail you have on your beverage list – I can’t imagine a bar without beer.”