The second Craft Beer Rising festival was also held inside the Old Truman Brewery building, Brick Lane, London.
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| TRUM letters visible on the original Truman brewery chimney |
Franciscan Well
The original Truman brewery chimney could be seen through the window behind the Franciscan Well Brewery stand which was where Steve Kelly and I continued our tour on Saturday 22 February, 2014.
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| Franciscan Well Brewery - Friar Weisse |
Wheat beers are a favourite of mine so it was nice to be offered a taste of Friar Weisse (4.7%) 'a German style unfiltered wheat beer with citrus notes on the palate and powerful aroma of clove and banana imparted by a unique yeast strain'. Steve rated the Shandon Stout highly on
Untappd and found it 'smooth'.
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| Paudie Scully (brewer) - Franciscan Well Brewery |
Paudie Scully, the brewer was on hand to give us information about
Franciscan Well Brewery. The brewery was founded in 1998 on the site of a 13th century Franciscan monastery on the North Mall in Cork City, Ireland. There is a brew pub with a beer garden next door. The brewery has recently been purchased by Molson Coors and a bigger brewery will be built in Cork's docklands. Friar Weisse and Rebel Red are available in 330ml bottles from the larger Tesco Extra stores.
Celt Experience / Tap East
The Celt Experience / Tap East stall included pipework and a barrel behind the bar.
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| Celt Experience / Tap East stall |
The
Celt Experience beers use hops from the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Europe. The brewery is based in Caerphilly. Their website mentions that the 'brewery is held on the earth by its desire to reflect Beer and Art as one, reflecting on urban culture and paranormal spirit ...'. Steve liked the Brigid Fire (6.3% ABV) smoked rye IPA, a new core beer launched in 2014 to replace Bronze Age. There were also beers from
Tap East, the specialist beer bar and microbrewery at the Westfield Stratford City Mall in East London. Sour Saxon, a 4.3% ABV sour Berliner Weiss collaborative beer brewed by Tom Newman (Celt Experience) and Jim Wilson (Tap East) was also available.
Ilkley Brewery
The Ilkley brewery stand was one that I could not pass without trying a beer from as I like the brewery's hoppy style found in beers like
Mary Jane. Sensibly, I chose
Dinner Ale with a low ABV (3.3%). This Victorian Pale Ale was brewed with a recipe from 1884 found in the archives of the original brewery in Ilkley. Stella (Australian) and Calypso (American) hops give the pale ale a modern slant. Steve rated his glass of
The Chief, a 7% ABV American Double IPA, highly and described it as 'HOPPY'!
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| Christa Sandquist, brewer, Ilkley Brewery with 'Ullage' magazine |
After talking to
Christa Sandquist, it soon became obvious from her accent that she was not originally from Yorkshire. She explained that she was from Washington State, USA, and had been brewing at Harviestoun brewery for two years before moving to Ilkley Brewery in 2013. Christa accepted a copy of '
Ullage', the
West Berkshire CAMRA magazine, as seen on the counter in the photo above.
Nene Valley Brewery
The Big Bang Theory beer at the Nene Valley Brewery stand caught astrophysicist Steve's eye!
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| Paul Woodcock - Nene Valley Brewery |
Nene Valley Brewery is based at Oundle Wharf, by the North Bridge into Oundle, Northamptonshire and reintroduced brewing to the town in September 2012 after an absence of exactly fifty years.
Steve had to have a Big Bang Theory (5.3% ABV) which he rated highly and described as 'Lovely, hoppy not bitter'.My choice was Australian Pale (OZP in the brewery's three letter code system - 4.4% ABV) a golden ale with citrus and tropical fruit flavours. Paul, a Nene Valley brewer with a Master's degree in Brewing and Distilling from Heriot-Watt university, advised that the hops used include Mosaic in Big Bang Theory and Galaxy in Australian Pale. Steve noticed the black Big Bang Theory t-shirt that Paul was wearing and treated himself to one from the stock for sale.
WEST Brewery
Rachel greeted us at the
West Brewery stand and explained that the Glasgow Green based brewery and beer hall was started in 2006 by Petra Wetzel from Bavaria.
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| Rachel MacKay (Sales) & Petra M. Wetzel (Founder) - WEST Brewery |
At WEST Brewery, wheat beers and lagers are brewed according to the Reinheitsgebot, the German Purity Law dating back to 1516. We appreciated samples of Hefeweizen (5.2% ABV) a classic Bavarian style wheat beer and G.P.A. (5.2% ABV) made with both malted barley and wheat, strongly hopped with American Chinook and Hallertau Mittelfrueh hops. A tall fridge held 33cl bottles of St Mungo, WEST's flagship lager named after Glasgow's patron saint. St Mungo (4.9% ABV) 'pure heavenly' lager is available from Waitrose stores and we were each able to take a bottle away from the stand to enjoy later.
Part 3 - to follow ..............
