We’ve been a little bit slow to post our collaboration progress here, mainly because the last few weeks have been very busy indeed. So, to recap, we went to Liverpool, to visit our friends at Mad Hatter Brewing Co in late August. We brewed a beer that we’re calling Manchester Tart, a slightly sour beer with fruit additions of raspberry and coconut, and dry hopped with Sorachi Ace — a beery homage to the lovely and delicious dessert. Should be a treat!

August also saw us visit Leeds and our beery brothers at Northern Monk. We teamed up with Tom Bolland and Hali Santamas from the superb Grove Inn in Huddersfield, as well as our wonderful IndyMan volunteers Amanda and Peter Gaunt. The result of the brew day is a Kiwi Saison, aged in white wine barrels Woody and Buzz! We had a sneaky little non-barrel aged preview at Leeds International Beer Festival — very subtle kiwi flavour that complimented the spicy saison yeast.

Continuing our tour of Yorkshire, we also brewed at Summer Wine Brewery in Holmfirth. Twiggy, an all English-hopped IPA was born and by all accounts the Burton yeast is giving the beer a hugely jammy character. It’ll be dry hopped with East Kent Goldings to give that extra little homegrown kick.

We returned to Manchester, more precisely Salford, to team up with Rik Garner at First Chop. We’ve brewed a small, dark beer with figs and molasses — a nice little palate cleanser. It’s been a full couple of weeks, and now there’s less than four weeks till the main event!

Here are a few snaps from the brew days…