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Colours Of The Rainbow
We love IPA’s, and we love challenges, so mixing the two together we have some of the best breweries in the UK to knuckle it out over who can make the best IPA inspired by a colour of the rainbow.
We asked Rowan at the Hope in Carshalton to help us out by drawing from a hat each brewer and a colour, now the task is for each of us to craft an IPA that is inspired by this colour. It doesnt have to be that colour, in fact that would be just a bit dull, so it will be fascinating to see what all these creative guys will do, especially as its a competition to be judged by you the customer.
At some point soon at a date and venue yet to be decided all our beers will be on tap for you to try. Once the brewers have had their chance to explain their inspiration/story behind the beer you then get to vote as to who has the best beer & the most creative interpretation.
As soon as we know the schedule we are working towards we will fix the date and let you all know, but in the meantime here is the list of brewers and their colour.
Red : Siren Craft Brew
Orange : Partizan – Sorry no logo in the picture just a dodgy photo of Andy on an Iphone
Yellow : Buxton Brewery
Green : Brodies Fabulous Beers
Blue : Magic Rock Brewing Company
Indigo : The Kernel
Purple : Hawkshead
We Love The Hope in Carshalton
So Rowan was one of the first guys to contact us – we think it was through James Brodies giving him the low down on this cool new brewery to open- thanks James, but Rowan has been a great customer for us since we started and is a downright decent chap.
So we are very pleased to announce that we will be heading down to The Hope in Carshalton on the 21st June and have a few beers in tow to delight anyone coming along. Here is a sneak peek
Cask : Usual motley crew with the added bonus of Sweet Dream – our NEW Chocolate Milk stout thats as big on chocolate & Vanilla as Broken Dream is on Coffee.
Also Half Mast our 2.8% Session IPA will be making its debut – this is a high flavour hop bomb that belies its strength, come along and we might tell some secrets.
But here are the real beauties:
Bourbon Barrel Broken Dream : Only the second one to be racked & it is AMAZING! How do you follow that – well that is a surprise.
On KEG Rowan will be serving Sound Wave and we will talk through the differences on cask and Keg which should be a fascinating chat.
Limoncello IPA will be the final beer to round off the night and this 9% IPA designed to mimic Limoncello with a sour mash and added lactose will surely divide the room with its detesters and lovers. This is a Siren, Mikeller, Hill Farmstead collaboration and it stretches the idea of what beer can be.
We hope to see you there
New Career?
Siren Craft Brew are a brand new brewery, though with a great pedigree and background of experience. Having kicked off brewing in February 2013 we have already embarked on projects that include an Anniversary beer, barrel aged in 7 different oak barrels to be blended, a stout that involved meal worms, exhibiting our new wares at the legendary Mikeller CBC in Copenhagen and launching a beer with inflatable horses and cowboy hats.
Not a bad start… We don’t aim to stop there and to help us we need a committed team that are focused on getting out in front of customers to help spread the word about Siren Craft Brew and be ambassadors for great beer.
Planning, cold calling, running events & tastings, developing ideas and campaigns that can take Siren forward into both the on trade & off trade will all be part of the job, with the odd brewery tour & stint on the tap room thrown in. This is a start up, so its all hands to the pump…..
What we want to see is a successful background in growing and developing a business, an interest and knowledge of beer will be rather helpful and a willingness to learn, get out there and put in a hard days work for satisfaction.
We are based out of Finchampstead near Reading, so being close would help as our local base is very important to us, however London will be where a fair part of a week be spent.
If you feel you have what it takes to take Siren further and if you are interested in working for a company that has fun but approaches everything it does professionally and feel you can add to that then contact Darron@sirencraftbrew.com
Two New Beers!
We felt that the summer must be here, really it must. So to celebrate that summery time of year when you might want more that a few thirds we set about crafting a 2.8% IPA packed with all of the flavour and body you would expect from us.
Half Mast is half the alcohol of our normal IPA, but more like a Quarter of a standard IPA, so lets call it a QIPA. Carefully created to give a great body and flavour for such a low alcohol beer, it has a doughy malt base and a hop profile that sings with the juicy citrusy notes of mango & grapefruit. It is the perfect way to start a nice summers evening.
Next up is the opposite end of the day to Broken Dream, our breakfast stout. Sweet Dream is a decadent chocolate milk stout loaded with cocoa nibs and vanilla beans with vanilla really helping to make the chocolate pop. Whereas one has all the flavours of breakfast, a chocolate milk stout is the perfect end of the day, super chocolatey & unctuous.
These are limited release beers and available from the middle of June.
We hope you enjoy
Brew Beer At Home? Live In Sweden? Join In!
Simples….
We are really excited to be part of this celebration of Swedens huge tradition of amazing home brewers.
Teaming up with Omnipollo, the winner will fly over to the UK to brew with us.
We have kept it simple – here are the rules
Brew Great Beer – no style guidelines – Send 3 bottles (inc Recipe) to Omnipollo AB, Tjärhovsgatan 6, 116 21 Stockholm by Wednesday the 31st of July 2013.
Clearly state who the brewer is & contact details, be above 20 & from Sweden.
Beers to be judged by Henok, Karl, Ryan & Darron – and their decision is final.
The winner will get to fly to the UK to brew with Ryan at our brewery.
Awesome.
If you are a homebrewer in the UK, and would like to see a UK rerun of this later in the year – let us know.
Our First New Special
Its nearly summer – honest!! Its time to start breaking out the refreshing brews, and we have just launched a repeat of a Hill Farmstead, Mikkeller collaboration with Siren which fits the bill.
Limoncello IPA is a slightly tart very citrusy IPA designed to mimic limoncello. Using Wheat, Pilnser & oats with a 24 hour sour mash, buckets of lemon zest and juice and a small amount of lactose to provide some sweetness and creaminess, to provide the IPA tag, it is hoped heavily with Simcoe, Citra and Sorachi Ace, with further lashings in dry hops.
This is a beer that divides its drinkers. You will either love it or hate it, no in between. It will be limited release and also only available on keg as this is a beer that really wants the carbonation that you just can’t get in cask.
We love it, expect it to start hitting the bars soon.
Copenhagen Beer Festival
Copenhagen Beer Festival
We were very privileged to have been invited to the Copenhagen Beer Festival, which just into its second year is already famous for its amazing array of breweries, bringing together the best from around the world including Brasil & China. The challenge for us – we were two months old – how to bring 9 different amazing beers. Our solution was to bring cask which gave us the opportunity to try some experiments in a one off way.
before the storm
Some of which worked extremely well, our gin spiced IPA was already working its way into a development stage, but now is firmly planted as something to do. The Red Rind IPA was also excellent, and the Limoncello was superb, although it definitely needed to be cooler and have carbonation, a proper keg beer.
In fact there were a few people who didn’t get the british cask thing and asked us why we were serving warm flat beer, and to be fair once you have had your palette hammered by hoppy zingy cold beers with bubbles, you are going to struggle to appreciate a cask beer. But all said and done the majority loved the beers as they were and could appreciate the experimentation that Cask could offer.
There were so many highlights to mention including the foodincluding Johns Hot Dogs, Uneka Cheese and the Chili guys were amazing. The after party was superb and Copenhagen is such a great city. If its not on your list of festivals to do – put it on now, you won’t be disappointed. Some of the beers to be had were unbelievable including Firestone Walkers Parabola and Anniversary Ale and a great selection of Sours, Barley Wines
Take a look at this video to from Evening Brews http://vimeo.com/65676789
Who Is The Pest?.
The brewing industry seems to throw up all sorts of interesting opportunities. Probably one of the more unusual opportunities happened a few months ago when we were approached by the Nordic Food Labs who were running an event on exploring the deliciousness of insects. They asked if we could make a beer that would be steeped in some form of insects and Koji. We weren’t about to turn them down, what an interesting opportunity.
We duly received some Koji (being a byproduct of a rice fungus that is used heavily in Sake and soy sauce production) in the post to taste, and then ascertain what style of beer would work well with it. The insects were to be either Meal Worms or Crickets and both have a different flavour profile, but we had to choose the style of beer before we would know which insect it was to be. We decided on an oatmeal stout at 5.6% as the base beer as the Koji imparted flavours that work well with a stout amongst them coffee.
A couple of days before we were due to brew the beer our package arrive and once we got through all the packaging and dry ice we found our bag of meal worms to add to the beer.
We broke out the homebrew gear as this was only a 50l brew, and we planned to use the wort from and imperial stout we were brewing and then adding more water to hit the gravity target. This was also the first Siren Craft Brew beers to hit bottles as Nordic wanted to serve the beers in 750ml bottles on each table.
The beer was well received and both nights were a great success. Its worth taking a look at Nordic Food Labs blog on the event, its an interesting read.
The Copenhagen List
It sounds like a secret – well to be fair it has been, until this week when CBC posted our list of beers we are taking to the festival. So here is a bit of information to go with the names
Bourbon Barrel Broken Dream – Our breakfast stout aged in Heaven Hill Bourbon barrels.
OI! Zeus! – Imperial Stout collaboration with Evil Twin. This monster of a stout at 15% packed with liqorice root and all the flavour of english fudge has been enhanced with chili, vanilla, and cinnamon.
Gin spiced Soundwave – Taking our West Coast IPA to a different level by aging over a fantastic array of botanical spices to used to make the best gin.
Chai Love You a Latte – Broken Dream – our Breakfast stout infused with Chai spices.
Limoncello IPA – This is an awesome collaboration with Mikkeller and Hillfarmstead. It will mess with your mind as an IPA designed to mimic LImoncello. A slightly sour mash, combined with Lactose for sweetness, tonnes of lemon Zest and hopped to death with Sorachi Ace and Citra.
Experiment 366 – Golden Barleywine hopped with Mosiac, simcoe, citra, cascade, and the new US hop known as Experiment 366
Red Rind Liquid Mistress – Our Liquid Mistress Red IPA packed with red grapefruit zest to amplify the citrus punch.
Liquid Mistress – Our lovely Red IPA
Black and Blue Jesus – Our base beer collaboration used in Oi Zeus with 13 shots of Nespresso Ristretto and Arpeggio (Black & Blue Colours) added to the cask.
This celebration is an ideal time to test and push the boundaries of brewing, some of these ideas and concepts are already forming into concepts for production beers for us and a place like Copenhagen is a great place to see how they are received. If you are lucky enough to have a ticket, we look forward to seeing you there.
Siren Craft Brew 