Adventures in Beer

Firstly a thank you to IW CAMRA for their support for our Brewery Bus Ride in October, our mini replacement for the sadly missed Beer and Buses. It was a fantastic weekend with so many people making their first visit back to the Island since 2019 Beer and Buses, which was our opening weekend. Many tales were shared and great comments on how we have developed the place and our beers. Once again our cheese boards went down a treat, they will now appear at all our beer festivals, showcasing award-winning island cheese makers. Thanks also to the bus museum for their Ryde A Bus event bringing people to Sandown. The spirit of Beer and Buses is very much alive and everyone is looking forward to 2023.

Another thank you to IW CAMRA for coming over on the branch social, great to see so many members, we’ll do it again soon.

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In September we hosted 40 visitors from Norway. We took them through our 6 beers we had on tap, which included our apprentice Harri’s first beer “Merry Berry” and he talked to the audience about his process – his first ever public speaking – well done Harri!

We also did our first collaboration with a mainland brewery, Hand Brew Co from Worthing. Kate Hyde is the Head brewer and she and owner Jen Left brewed a thiol pale ale recipe (see last Wightwash edition) called Fritter My Wig. The beer will be available on draft in December at Boojum.

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Josh Davies, Harri Jones-Evans and Kate Hyde

Bob Simpson and I were invited to talk at Hullabaloo Arts and Science Festival in October, about our collaboration and how we tie our work into place-making. Such a pleasure to talk about but we only had 15 mins. Not nearly long enough to talk about beer!

Our next event is STOUTMAS our dark Beer Festival – 16th, 17th, and 18th December. Currently brewing some delicious darkness right now including a 10% imperial version of Raven Holiday our liquorice chocolate stout. Waiting in the cellar we have Abstract Orchestra 9.5% from Vibrant Forest. We’ll have some entertainment laid on in the evenings, including local folk instrumentalist Ben Allman on Sunday with a special festive set.

We are closing in January partly due to the cost of putting the heating on (our electricity bill has trebled) and partly to get a few jobs done and some downtime, it’s been a busy year! And we have made it into the 2023 Good Beer Guide!

We have had a short break, a trip to The Hague and we managed a visit to Bruges – Beer Heaven! What a delight this place is, I could have easily stayed week but only had 24 hours. The brewery tour of Huisbrouwerij De Halve Maan (Half Moon Brewery) was fascinating and I saw my first koelschip, no longer in use but a copper beauty nonetheless. It’s right in the centre of the mediaeval city which has strict delivery times for the business located there. This caused an issue for bottling the beer so an ingenious solution was arrived at, they constructed a 3.5km pipeline to transport the beer to a dedicated bottling plant outside the city. Tourism is essential to the survival of the business, tours and restaurant sales are critical revenue sources so the brewery had to stay in the city. We were going to go around the beer museum but opted to visit the oldest bar in Bruges, Vlissinghe, which opened in 1515, what a wonderful place and we enjoyed a couple of glasses of Karmeliet Tripel 8% before our coach home. Definitely going to visit again.

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Mikich sisters and Julie

Finally, I took a trip to Stroud Brewery which is a fantastic venue, with values very much aligned to ours. They brew using organic recipes and are really dialled into their place. Holding knit-n-natter sessions, yoga classes and you can even get married there! I brought some beer back so you can try some from our bottle shop (big fridge lol).

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Julie and master brewer Tim O’Rourke

Do keep a look on our Facebook page as we always have something on, fortnightly Sunday afternoon quizzes (beer is the prize and free entry compiled by the most excellent Mark Voller), Silent Discos and other events.

Looking forward to seeing you soon

Julie