Brewski: Issue Two

BREWSKI IS SUE T WO

FYNE FEST FYNE FEST: Brewski goes camping • Mil Stricevic • Monolith • REVIEWS

CONTENTS AN APOLOGY FOR LATENESS

3

MONOLITH

4

Mil Stricevic

6

FYNE FEST

10

GOSE

14

A SLICE OF ORANGE

16

REVIEWS

18

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An apology for

LATENESS Bands have years - sometimes decades - to write their first collection of songs. When they get a deal, they record an album’s worth of the best tracks, release a record and tour it within an inch of its life.

Then it’s time to write that tricky second album.

We’re not overly musical down at Brewski HQ but we’ve become very familiar with the curse of the sophomore album. If we’re honest, Issue One had no real timescale. It was started some time last year and published this April.

Countless features came and went, and that was fine because no one knew Brewski was a thing.

Now things are different. We’ve got a well-received issue behind us and subscribers on our mailing list, which is still a little surreal.

We tried our hardest to make the late-June deadline but come the 1st July our website was still conspicuously blank.

These last two weeks have been a sprint to try and catch up. So this is my personal apology for lateness and a public promise to keep to our two-month frequency.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you again in the autumn.

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monolith Brewski catches up with chris hoss of monolith to talk New Zealand, Drygate and teeny tiny gypsies Monolith is one of a new breed of Glaswegian breweries - small, inventive and lacking any brewing equipment of their own. A lack of brewing equipment, however, is hardly holding them back.

Monolith is only a little over a year old but to really understand them we have to go back a little further.

“Monolith as a concepted started when I was living in New Zealand, working in the Hashigo Zake - one of their most respected beer bars,” says Chris Hoss, one of Monolith’s three founding members Callum Macleod and Sean Brown complete the trio. “I fell in love with craft beer and

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had the chance to meet a lot of amazing brewers from all over the world. I brewed a couple of batches of Funk Estate with Shigeo Takagi and learned a lot from him before heading home a changed man.”

When Chris arrived home, he got straight back to brewing. Working with his future business partner Callum Mcleod, Chris dove into homebrewing, learning the tricks of the trade by getting his hands hoppy.

“Our first few batches were pretty crap,” admits Chris. “But once we got a hang of the process we brewed our first drinkable beer - an APA called On Strings.”

With a lot of fledgling breweries the learning curve presents a massive financial problem. You’ve got to brew to get better but you can’t keep churning through valuable resources with no return.

Monolith, however, seem to have nailed the learning process: Get good at homebrewing and then branch out commercially.

When Monolith finally had a beer they were proud of, they went in search of a commercial setup and found exactly what they were looking for in the newly

opened Drygate.

“After perfecting some recipes, we started using the two-and-a-half barrel brew kit in the Drygate to brew up our first commercial beer - Bellwether IPA.” The studio brew kit was exactly what Monolith needed - it was large enough to be commercially viable but small enough to be affordable. It allowed them the flexibility to test their process, tweak their recipe and get Bellwether ready for mass production.

Having smelled the piercing resin and tasted the sharp citrus, the work they’ve put in is abundantly clear. And with one hit beer under their belt there’s a lingering question I had to put to Chris: are there plans for a brewery of their own?

“We’d love to and it’s definitely in a plan for the future. I’m always day dreaming about it and looking into how to make it a reality.”

For the meantime then it’s back to the gypsy lifestyle. However, on the scale that Monolith brew, it feels like we need a new term. I suggest the term microgypsy?

“I like that,” laughs Chris. “I think it sums the movement up perfectly.”

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Mil Stricevic

brewski talks to the man behind the artwork at williams brothers brewing co Where did your relationship with Williams Brothers begin?

I have known Scott and Bruce Williams as friends since the early 1990s - I was playing music and they were both learning the ropes of beer-production so I witnessed the launch of their first beer Fraoch, watching from a short distance as the business evolved.

When I enrolled at the Glasgow School of Art as a mature student to study product design I even used to pick heather for them during summer holidays!

It was only after several years of gentle persuasion (i.e. persistent hectoring) that they finally allowed me the opportunity to put some ideas forward for a new range of beers that would help them extend their market outwith the historic ale sector.

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In collaboration with my friend and colleague Bob McCaffrey, our most significant design proposal at that time was to suggest a new name for the company, which we believed would help them reach a new audience. Inspired by companies such as Ben & Jerry’s, we suggested a shift from Fraoch Heather Ale - hard to pronounce, confusing and a bit esoteric - to Williams Brothers Brewing Co, which would place the brothers at the centre of the story. We even put their faces on every product.

This was around 2002, before the whole ‘craft beer’ boom of recent years, but Scott came up with a great strapline for the business that definitely saw it coming - Microbrewed for Maximum Flavour!

We wanted to launch the name with a small family of beers that would establish the new name so we created Williams Red, Gold and Black as a means of getting people to actually say it every time they ordered one.

The big question - does every design start life with a beer tasting?

I wish! One of the reasons I think we have a good design relationship is because I really am a big fan of Williams’ beers, and have developed an appreciation for what they do. There is a real passion and pioneering spirit underpinning the way they create new products and Scott usually lets me know early on if something interesting is developing at the brewery.

What tends to happen is that Scott and I will have a conversation about the overall style and flavour profile. Then I try to establish is ‘the moment’. Whats the occasion? Who am I with? What’s the soundtrack? My job is to create a kind of visual mood for each product, which hopefully makes this attractive at the point of sale, both in its own right and as it sits within the bigger family of Williams products.

What’s next in the design process?

Usually I will start by trying out the name and background in a few colour palette combinations and lay up some found or quickly sketched graphic elements to establish the overall graphic feel. Only then do I start casting about for elements that might help.

I work in Adobe Illustrator and layout concepts on large multi-page documents where I can chuck down everything I come across.

It’s a bit like building a little visual library right on the page. I can say that in my experience the worst place to look for inspiration is other beer labels, but otherwise I have pretty Catholic taste in terms of what I like and collect as inspiration or reference.

Once you are looking for inspiration on a particular theme, it’s funny how things seem to pop up.

One of the main things I am thinking about throughout is the transition from design concept to the finished label

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applied to the product as it will appear on the shelf of the supermarket. I also have to keep in mind how each new design might transfer from paper label to pump clip for the switch from bottle to keg delivery, which has worked very well for us in the on-trade environment.

side, running up the height of the bottle.

When Scott pointed out that you had to twist your neck to read it, I went to the other side of the bar and lifted the bottle to take a sip, whereupon the product’s identity could be clearly read as I drank from the bottle.

The most important thing to remember is that these are designed to wrap around a brown glass bottle on a shelf. In most cases they will have a lot of competition so it’s really useful to print out your ideas and stick them on a bottle early on.

I like the idea of the customer’s interaction with the product somehow completing the design and I am drawn to the notion of good design as part of the user experience, not just as a static piece of graphic work.

There is no point falling in love with a concept - and labouring over it for hours on end - if it doesn’t actually work in the real world.

What about a favourite beer?

Can you pick a favourite label?

My favourite labels tend to be those with a simple idea behind them. I remember arranging to meet Scott Williams in a bar to show him an idea I’d developed for a redesign of Williams Red, Gold and Black.

It involved a very simple graphical device of setting the product name on its

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Although they aren’t my everyday choice, I’m a big fan of the more unusually flavoured Scottish historic ales - Ebulum, Alba, Nollaig and especially Kelpie. In terms of a favourite everyday beer, Caesar Augustus is one of those great fusion style beers at which the Williams Bros excel. A crisp and flavoursome IPAlager hybrid, which we are going to revisit in terms of presentation in the near future so watch this space!

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On a deceptively sunny afternoon in mid-June, busloads of beer drinkers were delivered to Glen Fyne for three days of funky music, great food and - of course - cracking beer.

Now into its fifth year, the festival isn’t bigger than the last year, but with a beer list stretching to over 150, it’s certainly better.

The beers rotated in and out of a 40-tap main bar, offering punters a continually fresh selection. Every available beer was displayed up on handwritten wooden signs, hoisted up to pegs above the bars by large poles.

The domestic beers from England, Scotland and Wales were sensational, but it was the foreign contingent that stole the show. There was an oyster gose from Germany, a Russian imperial stout from the Netherlands, a brown ale from Spain and several unbelievably bitter IPAs from New Zealand. It was amazing to see styles flowing so effortlessly across borders.

We couldn’t try everything - although we gave it our best try - so we’ve rounded up four of Fyne Fest’s finest to give you a little taste of the weekend.

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fyne & de molen atom Mills and Hills

Phobos and Deimos

Mills and Hills is Fyne Ales collaboration brew with the Netherlands’ Brouwerij de Molen. It’s the first bottled beer out of their brand spanking new brewery so it has a lot to live up to. Thankfully, it does.

A lovely burned base complements a delicate chocolatey sweetness and it finishes with a fantastically bitter flourish.

And it’s as thick as treacle - definitely a beer to nurse beside the fire.

Atom’s IPA - named after the two sons of the Greek god of war Ares - was a quietly impressive beer - one that you only realise you enjoyed a few hours after you’ve emptied your glass. A solid biscuity malt lays the perfect foundation for beautiful bursts of floral bitterness.

At the end there’s really nice prickles of pineapple and grapefruit too.

Siren

Rooie Dop

There’s something a little odd about drinking Liquid Mistress without the sultry label design staring back at you. It feels somehow less dirty. Anyhow, Liquid Mistress actually fares particularly well from its cask residency. The fruit notes are sweeter, the toffee richer and the citrus sharper. There’s a really nice blood orange flavour on the nose and it follows you all the way to the finish.

The folk at Rooie Dop know how to brew an American IPA. They’ve amassed an ungodly hop profile packed with Amarillo, Cascade, Chinook and Columbus to give this beer one hell of bitter arse. It’s like taking a mouthful of water, throwing in some hops and chewing until your cheeks disintegrate. Don’t think it’s all brawn though - there’s some finesse too with gentle notes of pine resin and citrus drifting in and out of the maelstrom.

Liquid Mistress

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Chica Americana

“ the much missed sun from Friday returned�

Come Sunday morning, tent zippers were pulled down and groggy heads hesitantly poked out into the mid-morning haze.

Some in the Brewski contingent wondered whether their fourth imperial stout was a good idea and others wondered the same of their homeward bound poke of chips.

As the morning crawled on, the clouds parted and the much missed sun from Friday returned. As the tents came down so did the collective hangover and the question turned to what everyone was going to have for their final goodbye half pint.

I opted for the Cumbrian 5 Hop from Hawkshead, a brew I had had my eye on all weekend. A smooth golden ale hopped with - you guessed it - five different hops, it was sharp enough to jolt some alertness back into the grey matter and mentally prepare you for the trip back along the Rest and be Thankful.

And with that Fyne Fest drew to a close.

We will definitely see you next year.

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g o s e / G O H - Z U H /

Gose beers originally come from Germany Goslar to be precise. They’re top-fermented with half the malt bill being malted wheat. Despite smashing Germany’s beer purity laws into little pieces, gose beers were permitted because they were a regional speciality. Who said the Germans aren’t really a bunch of softies?

An utter maelstroms of sour, salty and herby flavours, gose beers are monstrosities that’ll blow your face off no matter how prepared you are.

When Wild Beer Co decided they wanted to brew a beer in homage to Thailand’s hot and sour speciality Tom Yum, it was no surprise they opted for a gose.

While gose had basically faded from existence, the launch of Tom Yum Gose marked the start of the syle’s resurgence. Now every beer festival worth its salt has a full contingent of gose brews daring brave punters to sample their funky flavours.

They’re well worth a try. Just don’t say we didn’t warn you.

we print stuff.

The Print Box 1174-1176 Argyle Street Glasgow t: 0141 561 8061 e: info@theprintbox.net

e g n a r O a slic e of

One of the first beers I drank that wasn’t an American-style lager was Blue Moon - a Belgian style wheat ale brewed by Blue Moon Brewing Co. I thought I looked pretty cool sipping some trendy beer handcrafted by some artisanal brewery out in the States.

Some of you are laughing right now and it’s for good reasons.

Blue Moon Brewing Co is owned by Tenth and Blake Beer Company which is itself an arm of MillerCoors - the second largest beer brewing company in the world.

You’d be forgiven if you weren’t aware of of Blue Moon’s intricate family tree. The label doesn’t mention it at all and instead talks about how it’s artfully crafted. Careful wording that evokes a feeling of craft beer without explicitly stating it.

One man felt so deceived by Tenth and

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Blake’s marketing efforts that he’s actually taking their parent company - MillerCoors - to court, claiming he was tricked into believing it was a craft beer.

This gent can do this because he’s in America and like a civilised bunch of craft beer drinkers they’ve defined what a craft brewer is.

According to the Brewers Association - which represents over 2,300 American breweries and 43,000 members of the American homebrewers - a craft brewery is: Small - it has an annual production of 6 million barrels of beer or less; Independent - it’s less than 25 percent owned by an alcoholic beverage industry member that is not a craft brewer; and Traditional - the majority of its total beverage alcohol volume is in beers whose flavor derives from traditional or innovative brewing ingredients and their fermentation

Back in Blighty we have no such definition. Tennent’s could repackage their glorious amber nectar as a glorious craft lager and it would instantly become Scotland’s best selling craft beer.

Craft is a word with both so much and so little meaning.

When I asked Karen Moore of Kelburn Brewing Co whether they identified with the whole craft movement, she drily replied: “Not particularly. We don’t really feel there’s any real meaning behind the term craft beer.”

While I don’t entirely agree with Karen, I think she definitely has a point. We label anything as craft so long as it isn’t yellow, pale and fizzy and with such a broad application it quickly loses its meaning.

Six°North’s Belgian-style ale brewed with heather honey?

Yep, that’s craft. Innis & Gunn’s Toasted Oak IPA brewed down in Wellpark? Yep, that’s craft beer too. Brewmeister’s mixture of beer and pure alcohol? Well, maybe not. We’ve got to draw the line somewhere.

I think we all agree that craft is definitely something. It’s that nice communal feeling at beer festivals and it’s the passion you see in the brewer’s faces. It’s genuinely exciting and experimental flavours. It’s spending a tenner on a half pint and not giving it a second thought.

It’s all of that and so much more.

But a vague gesture towards craft isn’t good enough for us. We want a definitive definition. And that’s where you come in.

We want you to tell us what craft is to you. Tell us what you drink and why you drink it. Tell us about your favourite breweries and most memorable beer-fueled escapades. We want to hear everything.

Type it up and send it into whatiscraft@thebrewski.co.uk and we’ll publish your views en masse in the Brewski Craft Manifesto next issue.

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reviews A round-up of all the latest beer from around scotland - and some oldies just for good measure.

Gladeye IPA - 5.5% - Drygate If you can get past the unnerving, mustachioed cyclops, Gladeye IPA is an absolutely brilliant beer.

brilliant combination of flavours with pineapple and grapefruit fighting their way to the fore.

Gladeye pours a bright, crystal clear copper topped by a creamy white head. The nose is defined by an onslaught of floral hops.

Centennial, Nelson Sauvin and Cascade are used during the early brewing stages and Cascade is used again during dry hopping. It’s a

The taste is equally as sharp. The fruits are joined by floral notes and they combine to produce a brilliantly complex taste. There’s a subtle sweetness too which provides some much needed balance to the beer.

Island Bere - 4.2% - Valhalla Brewery From a wee corner of Shetland comes the enticing Island Bere.

Brewed with bere - a six-row barley grown pretty much exclusively in the Outer Hebrides - Island Bere has a peculiar taste. It’s slightly metallic and really quite earthy. It tastes like they’ve somehow imbued the beer with the smell of a farmstead. It’s musky and oily and lingers just a hair too long.

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Underneath the musk there’s a strange mix of spice. Cinnamon floats about between the tractors and hints of orange are dotted about the barn. At the end it fades to a dry sourness with the briefest hint of smoke.

Island Bere is definitely one to buy again - if only to try and pick apart the confusing mix of flavours.

Sanda Blonde - 5.5% - Fyne Ales Sanda Blonde is a heavily hopped IPA from Fyne Ales that’s made its way from cask to bottle. Part of Fyne’s IPA project it was initially only going to be released in cask but after a red hot reception they opted to bottle it for year round availability.

As soon as the bottle cap comes off, notes of gooseberry and grapefruit start to drift upwards.

When it’s properly poured, the nose intensifies and notes of grass and orange join the fray.

The journey from cask to glass has been kind to Sanda Blonde and the sharp crackle from the carbonation compliments the prickly New Zealand hops perfectly. The perfect beer to cut through the richness of a barbecue or sweetness desert.

Elemental - 5.1% - Tempest Tempest have a habit of producing sensational beers that fly well under the radar. Maybe it’s the slightly samey branding or their laidback approach but they somehow avoid all the credit they’re due. Elemental is a case in point. It’s a fabulous beer but no one has heard of it.

It pours a dark, syrupy brown and has a brilliant nose packed full of roasted nuts, cocoa and

gentle smokiness. The taste is unbelievably rich too. A brilliant chocolate base forms the perfect foundation for sweet earthy notes to flutter up above.

Elemental fades to a slightly chalky finish with lingering chocolaty sweetness. Definitely a beer to sip, sample and enjoy after a meal.

Bitter & Twisted - 4.2% - Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted pours a clear amber with a fragile white head.

There’s an interesting nose of grass and floral notes, and beneath that is a potent bitterness hinting at what’s to come.

Celeia, Perle and Bobek produces a powerful bitter blast backed up by a gently oaky malt and caramel sweetness. The finish is quick with the beer fading to a slightly floral bitterness.

The first sip is where Bitter & Twisted really comes into its own.

A brilliant hop profile of Hersbruker,

While it’s probably never going to go down as a classic, it’s a solic choice for most occassions.

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BREWSKI ISSUE THREE

FRINGE SPECIAL

THE FRINGE: Brewski DOES CULTURE • NOVICE TASTINGS • MY BAR MY HOME • REVIEWS Brewski | Issue Two | 20