Chek their profile.....Liberty in their top ten hit list.

Morning all

This week we have  been head down running toward the new future of liberty beer. We have found a fantastic new warehouse in East London that has 5,000 square foot of chilled storage already installed and ready to go, so we will have room to swing a cat again. Along with that we have a new warehouse manager starting soon, it’ll mean that everything on that side of things will be a lot better organised than it is at present with Purfleet running at absolute capacity and probably more. It’ll be our third move to larger warehousing in two years, Thank You all for your support!

There are a lot more things in the pipeline, and we’ll let you know about those as they happen, but the bottom line is that we’re able to bring in some changes now that will make our service to you a lot better, and free Steve and I up to spend more time with customers and suppliers and generally pull us out the ocean of administrative tasks and organisational headaches that have threatened to drown us as we got bigger.

Right, Parish notices over, you probably want to know about the beer yes?

Big news this week is that we have got Ilkley back on the list again. We always loved their beers and it’s about time that the hatchet was buried and we sent some your way again. Fortis and Dinner Ale are available on Keg, in cask we have Mary Jane IPA, Joshua Jane the nut brown Yorkshire bitter, and Ilkley Gold session ale with Cascade US hops and Dana the Czech Noble blended perfectly to make a really easy drinking beer. We’ll be running these guys regularly from now on, and putting ‘Siberia-gate’ behind us. we won’t mention it again. Ever. Probably.

Next up is Grain. Phil is brewing some stunning and very consistent beers up there in the wilds of East Anglia, so we are putting more of them out there in your direction. This month’s ‘Month of Hops’ beer is the American stunna ‘Summit’ so loads of lychee and tropical fruit nose to be expected. There is a very small amount of the fabulous ‘Blonde Ash’ wheat in Keg, and a full range of the core cask beers.

Want something rare and brewed by one of London’s more elusive breweries? Yeah, well there is a small batch of beers from Crate in Hackney Wick winging it’s way to us, so we can do that for you. They have started to dry hop the beers as well, so more flavour, more fragrant and slightly clouded like a good beer should be….

Moor roll on with Amoor Porter the latest release. We’ve also negotiated an emergency re-brew of ‘Confidence’ as it was so bloody good. Should be in tank next week. Justin and I are also working on a way of getting another conditioning tank into the brewery as well, so that we can do some more specials and occasionals next year, he keeps saying ‘mebbe’ when I ask for a Saison, maybe now it’ll happen.

Have an amazing weekend all, enjoy the Autumn Sun if you see it, and raise a pint. 

Shine on you crazy Diamond

Hi all.

Another weekend hoves into view after a crazy week here at Liberty, and as usual we have a line-up of great beers for you.

We have Tiny Rebel refreshing stocks of ‘Hank’ which seems to be the one that everyone wants at the moment, as well as a few other great beers. I’ve been chatting with the guys, and we are due some more new beers from the Welsh maestros soon, despite their newfound global fame with an appearance on SKY’s ‘Soccer AM’ and generally keeping their nut down (I’m sure it’s on ‘Youtube’ if you missed it, far better than ex-Presenter Lovejoy bigging up fantastic beer and food matching like ‘Fosters Gold and Black Truffle Risotto’ on the seamlessly commercial ‘Let there be Beer’)

Last week I visited Red Willow up in Macclesfield, as well as Buxton and another couple of new suppliers who will be coming in over the next month, one famous and one completely new. At Red Willow I helped Toby brew a new Wheat Beer with a little Lemon Thyme that will appear in a few weeks, but for this week we have a tidy collection of their other products for you to enjoy, including another of the ‘Faithless’ series beers.

Hardknott are back in as well,  nothing new I’m afraid but we like their beers very much  and as long as we keep Dave brewing rather than producing more content for his infamous blog, then we’ll be happy. Lux Borealis is great, and if you want a proper food matching tip rather than ‘Greene King IPA goes well with Lobster Thermidore’ then the rather lovely ‘Cool Fusion’ goes exceptionally well with Southeast Asian and North African spiced dishes, Harrisa Wings especially.

Lastly, I have a feedback request. Can those of you who had the Black Orchid beers the other week drop us a couple of lines about your feelings on them, and also anyone who is interested in Green Hop beers now that the hop harvest is in….I have one from Moor coming already, but will order some more if there is an interest. We missed out on Gadds green hop last year which was disappointing, and I’m sure I can find others if the demand is there.

Cheers

Justin and Steve. 

Are friends Electric?

Hello all.

It’s not unusual to have sudden changes of plan when dealing with small brewers, it’s all part of life’s rich tapestry when you are constantly chasing a small supply with variable demand. But it seems lately that the Gods of Electrickery are against us at every stage. First Red Willow managed to blow up or set fire to their mains supply, and now poor old Off Beat have been struck by spark demons who have savaged their electricity as well. Luckily we managed to grab the last few casks from Michelle before the inevitable shutdown and rewire. Hopefully it’ll all work well for them, and they’ll be back brewing on Monday. This week we have a few of their newest beer, a 6.5% American Brown Ale called ‘Grateful Deaf’ as well as the superb Out of Step IPA and Outlandish Pale. We also have a couple of Oddball Red and Unhinged Ginger for those who get in early.

Whilst on the subject of variable supplies, we were expecting some more beer from Tempest this week, but due to their local demand soaring, we won’t be getting that until next week now. On the other side of the same coin, we will have a more steady supply from Hand Draw Monkey from now on as we have agreed a better supply schedule that should mean that it’s on the list a lot more.  Pale, IPA and ‘What would Jephers do?’ on the list from them this week, and more monkey based shenanigans real soon.

One of the things that we are working hard to make work better is the supply of bottled product. If you are interested in some bottled beers from our brewers, then get in touch and we should now have a lot more stock than we have carried in the past, especially of Tiny Rebel and Moor bottles. We will be developing stock of other brewers products as well over the next few months, but if there is something particular you want, then we’ll as ever try to source that as well.

One of my favorites is back on this week, Buxton’s American Rye, along with the new American hopped iteration of Buxton Bitter and old favorites Moor Top and Gold. We reckon that Buxton ought to get a lot more love than they do at the moment, really well brewed beers that show loads of skills off and are a lot more hop forward and modern than some of the names and badges might suggest. Hopefully this batch will come with the new design pump clips that will raise the bar top image a lot.

Tiny Rebel have been at it again as well, ‘Hank’ just won’t stop rolling out to you lovely people and this week we have it in Keg for the first time, and  Beatbox re-appears in Cask. We also have restock of some other lines and are expecting Fubar. Urban and Hadouken bottles any minute.

Have a great weekend!

Cheers

Justin and Steve.

Our reward for winning the Ashes again.

I've had a couple of samples arrive from Moon Dog brewery near Melbourne over there in 'Stralia. We met them through the fine offices of the guys at Eco-Keg who are based down there as well, and we are looking forward to trying their beers out.

They look interesting, and due to the wonders of the Internets I can also see what else is going on over there in the Melbourne area, there are some cool looking little breweries so it would seem.

Will let you know how they drink soon enough.

The Banks might be on Holiday....

Hi Everyone.

Good week this week, a few new beers in and some extra stock of stuff that some people missed last time out.

Dancing Duck make a welcome return to the fold, with a selection of beers that should suit most tastes. Aye-up is back in, as are 22 and Nice Weather at the session-able golden end of things, whilst there are limited quantities of Dark Drake, Abduction and Seduction for those who like it stronger or darker.

Summer Wine is also on the bounce back, with Zenith that is actually Zenith this time, and another few big hoppy beers that we haven’t seen before. ‘Baron von Belicose’ has been claimed by the Yorkshiremen as their most heavily hopped beer. An absolute monster of an IPA brewed with Citra, Centennial, Mosaic, Southern Cross and Galaxy to give Citrus, Bubblegum, Blueberry, Mango, Papaya, Lemongrass and Passionfruit flavours. This is then triple dry-hopped to boost the aroma still further….7.5% abv as well, it’s certainly something to behold.

It’s joined by another ‘Devil Loves’ hopped with Chinook this time, as well as a few more kegs of Berry Big Porter, the 7.2% ‘Imperial’ version of ‘Teleporter’ with added fresh figs and blackberries, and some more ‘Devil Loves Nelson Sauvin’. I love Nelson Sauvin as well…what does that say about me?

Tiny Rebel continue to forge ahead with new launches, and this week we have ‘Loki’ which puts the last 5kg of ‘Jester’ hops from Charles Faram to good use. You will remember them as the hop used for ‘Empire Strikes Back’ at the end of last year, so a bit special. We’ve also brought forward the delivery of the next batch of ‘Hank’ to satisfy those who missed it last week, and some ‘Full Nelson’ just because.

Anarchy have also sent us something new from the North East, who is going to their ‘Mash Up’ Festival next weekend? If you can’t make that, then we have a few casks of ‘Rough Justice’ a 4.5% Amber Rye beer, and more Blonde and Citra Star, topped off with ‘Quiet Riot’ the Kiwi IPA, and ‘Grin and Bare it’ which seems appropriate for the Geordies.

Last but not least, more Wild Card from as far away as Walthamstow. Their beautiful Ruby Ale is a wonderful pint. Proper.

Have a great weekend folks

When everything is made to be broken.

Dearest fellow Zymurgists.

This week has been hectic, GBBF week always is.

On the one hand we have the fantastic news that Moor Beer ‘Revival’ won a Silver in the Bitter class, on the other it’s plain that CAMRA still haven’t got the hang of what these hateful young people with their training shoes and trousers de’Nimes are doing, and what business they have with Real Ale, what with their Colonial Hops, strange Continental stylings, and even beer in Kegs that they claim to be better than Old Throbbeer’s Peculiar Mild.

But seriously, why can you buy a German Lager on Keg at the GBBF, but not a pint of Lovibonds 69 IPA? It makes no sense. Maybe Jeff ought to invest in more rugger jerseys and jester hats, or get a marching band.

Anyway, I digress.

This week sees a debut for new signing Black Iris Brewery, they arrive at Liberty’s Purfleet training ground with a strong variety of beers ranging from a single hop Chinook pale ale, through to a Black IPA that is also single hopped with American hops. In-between there are American and Kiwi hopped Stout and Porter, a couple of interesting looking Reds, and a couple of nice hoppy session strength offerings. We hope you will all make them welcome.

We seem to be talking about Welsher scamps Tiny Rebel every week at the moment, but they are back for pre-season training (you liking this football shtick?) with a new Simcoe/Centennial Pale called ZOOL.

There is no Dana, only ZOOL.  (I thought that was Zuul, wasn’t ZOOL an old video game? That would make sense what with Hadouken as well. No wonder the beer choosing and Morris dancing division of CAMRA is confused, I’m puzzled as well.)

Whilst vaguely floating around the subject of Tiny Rebel, we have Hank back for those who missed him the other week, and loads of Galaxy in Billabong.

Red Willow are also back on the menu this week, with another selection of confusingly named beers ending in ‘ess’ or Roman numerals. You should know most of them already, but I do have a few Kegs of the latest ‘Faithless’ series, Gooseberry Saison and a hopped pale with loads of Amarillo, Chinook, Citra, Columbus  and Simcoe. At the high end of the IPA/DIPA spectrum, there are also a small number of Shameless and Sleepless in cask, and Ageless in Keg. Finally, one and only one keg of Witless III, a 7% Wheat with American hopping. Massive.

Lastly, back to the beginning. Moor Nor’Hop is in short supply for the next couple of weeks, so if you want it and particularly if you want it in a Keg (yeah, sorry old chap, it tastes magnificent under pressure.) then order NOW for the next fortnight. Yes, it won a badge at the big show, but we haven’t got any Revival apart from one lonely keg, and Illusion and Radiance are back in stock, as well as Bottles, Glassware and other goodies.

Have a splendid weekend.

Steve and Justin 

OOooh You little Tart.

Hi, Long time no see.

I do these every week, and send them out by email to our lovely customers, but it's been pointed out to me that I really ought to have some way of archiving them, so as of today I'll be posting the weekly beer blah that our customers get up on here as well. It's the one bit of the week's admin that I really enjoy doing, so I hope that people enjoy reading them as well.

As usual, feedback, abuse, corrections or free cakes like the TMS team get will all be appreciated.

Enjoy (or not, up to you really)

Greetings Beer Pickers!

Yes, it’s a little tart, but the boys at Buxton have been busy with some fabulous new beers. There aren’t many of them about, but we have some of their Black Sour which I’ve tried and is EPIC. We also have their Saison, and most excitingly the first collaboration with To Ol from Scandiwegia. These guys are some of the best brewers in Europe right now, and let me tell you that along with some re-branding, Buxton is going to be the hot name to watch over the next few months. Of course, we also have some casks as well, and in that area they have a new ultra hoppy session ale called Jacobs Ladder, which also has the benefit of donating some money to their local Mountain Rescue team for every cask sold. Good Work Charitable fellas.

On the Tart theme, we also have The Kernel’s Biere de Table this week to sit alongside the London Sour in your fridge, I’ve not had the chance to try Evin’s take on Belgian Farmhouse Ale/Saison, but I know I want to (Steve won’t, he hates sour beer….the big glass of water.) both are in classy Stella-a-like 330ml bottles for your whoopin-an-a-hollerin’ pleasure.

If you need any more persuasion on the Continental side, we found a pallet of ‘Claudia’ kegs that brewer Tom at Moor had tried to hide from us, he failed and so we have the last 10 kegs of this year’s production available to you, our lovely customers. As Jeremy Clarkson might say, “Some people say this is the best beer that Moor have ever produced, all we know is that it’s a bloody good Berliner Heffe-Weise.”

Anyway, you know I went to Manchester the other week? Well I also got my hands on some new Kegs from Summer Wine as well, so this week we have the second ‘Devil Loves’ series beer, this time it’s Chinook’s turn to do the hopping. There are two more new keg beers to come from them in the next fortnight, in the meantime we got some fresh supplies of favourites like Zenith Pale, some Diablo and for the old people, Resistance Mild. (how is Saison trendy, and Mild pensioner worthy? When they were both brewed for the workers to quench their thirst? Does drinking like a Belgian farmer really make you hip?)

I think Mild is a bit of a Black Country thing, and so is Neck Oil from Beavertown. To help the workers kill that thirst, kindly Mr Plant and his Colonial friend Mr Byron have given us a chunky discount on their fine Black Country Session Beer to pass along to you all.

Right, what else?

Oh yeah, loads of Casks from Anarchy, with some of their great new Keg recipes making the transition to cask. We have Citra-Star (name speaks for itself really, blonde and loads of Citra hops….) Crime Scene American Amber, and Quiet Riot big NZ hopped IPA in the house.

That’s about it for this week, stock has been boosted on the Tiny Rebel as well for those of you who missed out last week, so have a bog weekend and go crazy!

Fin.

Justin and Steve. 

Liberty versus food

You seen that show on TV? Man vs Food? Where the American fella travels the land eating truely ridiculous amounts of grub from some very American places?

Yeah, well, some of it is nonsense, but you can't help but envy some of the stuff that he gets to try, and what always gets me is the BBQ. The Americans have a way of smoking and cooking meat that you just don't get in the UK, big servings with a halo of smoke in the meat, a 'bark' on the outside from long slow cooking and flavours that knock your head back.

We found that, right here in London.

Dukes Brew and Que up there is Hackney.

14oz Beef Ribs, Mesquite smoked and absolutely gorgeous.

Race you there.

Straight outta Langport

You don't really expect to find an American guy turning out truely cutting edge beers all the way out here in the Somerset Levels, but that's what Justin at Moor Beer is doing.

California born and bred, Justin Hawke arrived in Somerset via LA, San Francisco, Berlin and Oxfordshire. He brought out the old Moor brewery a few years ago, updated the equipment and started to brew some really good beers. He has a strong antipathy for finings, so sends out a lot of his beers unfined. To those brought up on the British mantra of clarity equalling good beer this is a little odd, but in reality the soft haze of Moor beers adds to the flavour and mouth feel, and does nothing to detract. The Germans and Belgians of course have no problem at all with hazy beer, so why should we?

Moor also use a fantastic wooden shield as their instantly recognisable pump clip, they just change the paper insert in the centre for the different beers. It's a simple solution to the pump clip issue, and looks a lot better than many of the plastic wonders that other brewers send out.

New out this week is 'Hoppiness' a 6.5% Pale with lots of hop admittedly, but a sweet and fruity charecter that leans toward a barley wine more than anything else. It's brilliant in the 660ml 'Bombers' that Moor bottle their beer in, but even better on Keg.

Remember, Drink Moor Beer!

Smokin' beer from the Bow outback.

Another month and another blog about a new beer being added to the liberty beers list. So far so normal.

But these ones speak to us. These ones are from our heartland in East London.

We spent a day the other week visiting two new breweries out East. we saw Beavertown and Hackney Brewery, both within a couple of miles of one another and definitely and defiantly part of the new East End.

Hackney Brewery is located in traditional style in a Railway Arch, and they have a cool little brewery there that has been going for a few months now. They called us in to see if we could help them get their beer out to a few more places in London, and when they said that their current special was called 'Liberty' then we knew that they where aware what time it was. How can we turn down an obvious match like that? So this week the first deliveries of Hackney Best Bitter, Blonde, American Pale and of course Liberty are out of the door.

The Best and Blonde are fine examples of the style, with a significant hop presence, but with an equally warm malt balance, The American Pale is a bit darker than you might expect, heading off toward Amber, but has a good flavour to it with the usual mix of American aroma hops, but with a bit more malt bite than many. The Liberty is brewed with, as you might guess, Liberty hops. Liberty is a hybrid American/German hop that can be used for aroma and bittering, and gives a good blend of the new American style and a very solid traditional German lager aspect. I really liked it, even if it didn't have such a brilliant name....

Beavertown.....oh Beavertown.

Dukes Joint is a pub just off the New North Road, it's got that look of slightly shabby bohemia that is clearly very expensive to achieve, and is run by a couple of guys whose photos on their website made me think where exactly the sort of hipsters that I was going to hate. Irritatingly enough, Logan and Byron turn out to be thoroughly good blokes, and along with James, who was schooled at The Kernel, do a fine job.

Stuck in the corner of the pub, across from the open plan kitchen, is the brew kit. Yeah, there is beer, but there is also a huge monolith of a smoker in the kitchen. The smoker is full of mesquite smoked Beef ribs. I've now lost interest in beer. I love ribs, I'll tell you about the ribs later.

Oh yeah, the Beer. They where brewing 'Smog Rocket' the Smoked London Porter when we got there, and it led to an extended conversation about the level of smokiness that the smoked malt gave the beer, and how the malt they had brought had different results from bag to bag. This batch is apparently back to form after a slightly less smokey result last time, but unless you tried them back to back you wouldn't call it anything but a really good and unusual smoked beer. We'd taken Ric, the Beer Sommelier from The Old Red Cow, along with us, and he liked it. A lot. If you drop into the Old Red Cow in Smithfield this week you might catch it on the bar there, if you get there in time.

Apart from Smog Rocket, you get 8 Ball, a Rye-PA that we really rate. There is a slight vanilla sweetness mid mouth with this that more traditional malts don't give you, and as you'd expect, plenty of Hop to finish. I like the style and along with the new Rattlesnake from Binghams, expect to see a few more Rye beers appearing over the next few months. Neck Oil is their 'standard' Best Bitter and it's also bloody good. Easy drinking it isn't as pallet blitzing as some beers can be, whilst retaining a fresh and modern aspect.

There are also the Alpha and Omega ranges, artist produced labeling and more experimental brews available in strictly limited runs. We'll see what we can rescue from the Cellar for you before it all goes.

Things, they are a changing....

More updates from the Liberty Beer nerve centre.

This week sees the introduction of our new reciprocal agreement with Bath Ales down in Bristol. In simple terms it means that they will be transporting both our and their beer to the new Liberty Beer base in Ilford, and we will be distributing their products to their customers in the London area. Liberty aren't selling Bath Ales products ourselves, but we can smooth the way for any of our customers who want to try their stuff.

New base you say? Yes, Liberty now have a more permenant home just off the A12 at Ilford. We are currently rushing about like lunatics to get it all straight and ship shape, but it has an extensive chilled area to ensure anything that isn't straight onto a van from the supplier will be kept in the best possible shape whilst it stays with us. We aren't changing our policy on 'just in time' delivery, but we can streamline supply of some none temperature sensitive products like Cider so that we can supply more lines, and means that we control the temperature that our Ales are stored at.

New Beers? Obviously. We are welcoming Buxton Brewery, Marble from Manchester, Mallinsons Brewery from the Northeast, Hawkshead from The Lakes, and Revolutions from Yorkshire over the next Month, We also have Brewshed from Suffolk comming soon, and finally have a proper deal in place with the marvelous Arbor Ales in Bristol for supply of three product lines that should be available on a weekly basis from now on, increasing as they move to their new larger brew kit later in the year.

Foreign Beers? Well, maybe. Steve and I are planning to speak to some US brewers about regular supplies on Keg, and a tasting trip to Copenhagen to check out the Danish micro scene.

More news soon.

So, do you like the new website?

As you might notice looking about, we've had a little update of the website. When we first did the job we used a lot of stock images and talked about the vision that we had for the business before it became what it is today.

What we have done now is start to use more images of our own products as they are presented by our own customers, so you might well see your own Pub on the site. we have also changed up the text to better reflect our personallities and where liberty beer is going today.

If you have any feedback for us on the changes, please get in touch.

What Next?

If you haven't seen enough NEW yet, then how about Red Willow from Macclesfield and Dancing Duck from Derbyshire in the next month?

That do you?

The Brewers.

It really is all about the beer.

Since December when I last posted, a few things have changed on the supply side of Liberty as well.

First, who has gone?

Well, Brewdog never really arrived, as it became clear that their ethos was very different to ours. And Plain Ales decided that someone else would do a better job of taking their beer into London, so we wish them both all the best in the future, but don't call us......

The unpleasant bit out of the way, who has arrived?

Well, we now have not one but two great English Craft Lager makers with Calvors joining us earlier in the year. Thier Dark Lager is really very good, and as with Cotswold they do it properly, with the beer 'lagering' in the tank for at least six weeks to give it the proper depth of flavour. It's completely different to most people's understanding of what 'lager' is if you've only ever drank bland Corporate fizziness.

Following hard on their heels, a Foursome of West Country brewers. Firstly we finally convinced Justin that we'd take good enough care of his casks and got the fabulous Moor Beer on board, if you haven't tried their unique take on beer, from unfined golden beers to big hefty dark and fruity 'Old Freddy Walker' than you really should. Somerland Gold in the Keg is probably going to be the taste of my Summer now I've found a pub nearby that sells it, and then there is Arbor Ales from Bristol. Arbor have a really strong range of cask conditioned beers that are a little bit from the left field, but truely excellent to drink. Their single hop monster 'Yamkima Valley' weighs in at a respectable(!) 7.5% ABV and saved my life the other evening when I wondered exactly why it is that I put myself through our weekly 'routine'. It reminds me EXACTLY why I love this job. It's mustard.

The other two, Cornish pairing Tintagel and Harbour, well, Tintagel enticed me with two really great beers at 'The Front Bar' in Falmouth, 'Harbour Special' and 'Cornwalls Pride' convinced me enough that they where worth the long drive to Cornwall, and over at Harbour they have another graduate of the Herriott Watt school of mad brewers working on a fantastic new brewery plant, so I very much look forward to their first selection of brews when they arrive this very week. If the pre-production test brews I was treated to at the brewery where anything to go by, they should be a bit special.

And so to the Welshers. Step up messers Tiny Rebel of Newport. what can I say? Any brewery that hands me a single hop Nelson Sauvin beer as good as 'Full Nelson' is straight on the list, and for youngsters they are deffinitely doing it right. This week sees another new beer out their box of tricks, 'Cutch' which has, in the Sesame Street tradition, many hops all starting with the letter 'C'. Thats Citra, Chinook, Cascade, Columbus.......

Still not done.

Ilkley came to us with an offer of their new MJ keg range, featuring the blinding Summit IPA and equally God like Fortis stout, but we quickly twisted their arm into letting us have their casks down here as well. They danced onto the stage with two collaborations, with Pete Brown and Mellisa Cole, they then topped that by drafting in HRH Princess Anne to brew a Jubilee Beer. Now, that's skills.

Last but by no means least, Grain from Norfolk have been working with us for a while, and enjoyed their second strong rotation last week with a chance to grab hold of their 316 Extra Pale with the new stainless pump clip. These beers are awesomely good anyway, but when you have this on the pump, well you are a Don. I'm hoping that we can soon get Grain available every week for you lovely people.

It was here, and now it's gone....

We did a clever.

Well, Rob at Rebel Brewing Co in Cornwall did most of the clever bit, brewing us a little diamond of a beer after we had a conversation about colaboration beers and Belgian beer in general.

Here's what 'Podge' from Chelmsford CAMRA and 'Podge's Belgian Beer Tours' Fame had to say about it (and this fella knows a thing or two about Belgian beers....)

"Very good label design.

Drunk at room temperature with full sediment.

Certainly a darkish beer with interesting aromas including some bubblegum, phenol alcohols and a touch of acetone and light pear dropy notes which lessen quickly. It is billed as 4.9abv but seems to have more taste/body than that The label says a wheat beer but it does not show these origins and wheat is not to the fore. Not over spiced, easy drinking and has lots of gobackability, ie you could drink more than 1 and therefore could be commercially successful.

"Dark spiced belgian style wheat beer" WTFIT I'd like to say true to the style but as there is no such thing this beer is not following a style..

Pretty good beer though."

We got six casks and a few cases of bottles from Rob in early May, and the casks sold the same day, which was pleasing. If you speak nicely to Steve you might be able to get some bottles, but to be honest he's guarding them pretty jealously and hasn't actually admitted to most customers that we have them.....

Some time later that same blog.........

Somethings gonna change.......

Well Ladies and Gentlemen, it's been some time.

Last time I blogged on here, it was back before Christmas, and things where going along swimmingly.

Since then, well, it's been absolutely manic here at Liberty Towers. we've been joined by a load of new pubs, a selection of fine breweries, we fell in with a big name, and fell out again just as quickly. We have been rattling along at such a rate that it's become a weekly fight against exhaustion, vehicle gross permitted weights and common sense just to get the beers out there to all our lovely customers, but we are loving every minute of it.

As you will see elsewhere, the website has changed a bit over the last couple of days, and it'll evolve a little more over the next couple until we get it somewhere nearer to what we actually want. It was good when we started, but we've rolled with the punches and swung for the gaps so often now that the copy actually bore very little similarity to what it is we actually do now, and it was all a bit formal and stilted, so we changed it.

There are a load of other things happening as well....

We are talking to some people about giving up a few more hard earned Pound notes to finance the first major expansion of Liberty Beer since we started, it'll enable us to do more beer for more people more often, but it does mean that in the next few months it might not always be Steve or I that you see for your weekly deliveries if you have managed somehow to get used to us. It'll also mean the end of the nasty and slightly comical hire vans, to be replaced with something far more in keeping with our 'brand' (ooooh get me!)

We will be announcing the grand opening of our new chilled distribution hub in down town Essex in the next few weeks, which will make our lives a great deal easier, and also a deal with Bath Ales down here in Bristol is on the cards that will see Liberty providing porterage for their beers in London quite apart from our own continuing expansion.

And we are heading rapidly toward our Birthday, and we have something special under our hats for that as well, I won't go too much on it at the moment, but it'll be quite different to any beer festival that I've ever been to, and we will be showcasing our entire range for customers, suppliers and consumers for 3 full days toward the end of the year with masses of entertainment, food and good stuff for you to enjoy. Stay in touch to see what we are up to a bit later in the year.

I want it all, I want it now.

Busy week this week, what with Christmas comming faster than a very fast thing, we have a lot of things on our plate.

Monday has turned into accounts day, problem day and fustration day, as a problem has occured with the labels for bottled Ironworks Ale, the supplier has wound them on the wrong way so that everything is in the wrong place for the label machine......

Tommorow is looking good, but I have to make sure that everyone has their Christmas orders in, so if you want some brilliant Craft Beer for Christmas, you'd better get hold of us soon as it's going fast.

The madness begins Wednesday as I collect this week's order of Ironworks Ale and deliver it to the pubs in East London that have it on draft. It's not a huge quantity, but then we are still waiting for the people at Wetherspoons HQ to cross the T's and dot the I's on the paperwork that will see it in The Millers Well and Barking Dog as well as some other Wetherspoons pubs in East London and Essex. We expect a big increase in sales once that deal is finalised.

After that we are meeting the good people from Brewdog at their new bar in Camden Town to have a look at what they have done there. Looking forward to trying some more of their beers there.

Then it's back to the South West via our friends at Ramsbury Brewery, and I hope to have time to drop in on Devilfish and Plain Ales as well. Once back in the office it's back to the search for a good quality lager producer that can provide a short run to test market an Ironworks Lager for January.

Phew.

Liberty Beer's Latest baby.

Steve and I have been hard at work with the pencil case and crayons recently, and we are proud to announce the arrival of another new idea from the fertile minds of liberty beer.

The concept and all the artwork is by liberty beer, and we are very happy with the result. The beer is available all over E13 and in some of the better outlets in Essex, and will imminently be available by mail order for those fans who don't get to the Boleyn Ground as much as they would like.

we also offer an outsourced design and marketing service for brewers or Publicans who need a helping hand with their design work or production of merchandising materials. we also do websites.

You can learn more about Ironworks and see more of our work at www.ironworksbeer.com

Beeriodical: The Seven Stars Bristol, first monday of the month.

Last night saw liberty beer supplying their first Seven Stars Beeriodical.

As our regular readers will know, we have been out hunting London based craft brewers over the last fortnight or so, and this is the first real evidence of our efforts. Paul, the manager at the Seven Stars, asked if it was possible for us to find them 22 London beers for their monthly 'beeriodical', so we set to work.

Although there has been a major resurgence of brewing in the Capital, there where a few obstacles in our way, not least that the two largest and possibly best known brewers on that list, Camden Town Brewery and Meantime, don't actually do a lot of cask beer. Camden Town only produce cask products for their own pub estate, prefering to concerntrate their efforts in the market on their excellent keg products, and Meantime are focused on keg and bottled products, so it was a challenge to obtain something from each of those producers, although we are happy to say that we suceeded.

The other thing is that some of the brewerys that are most talked about in the beer blogs and online are actually incredibly small. For instance we would dearly have loved to have supplied some beer from the excellent Kernel brewery in South London, but at the moment they are still working off a 4BBL plant, and have sold every drop they can produce well ahead of our time frame. You'll have to wait until the new year if you want some of Kernel's beer on your bar, but once they have sorted out their new facillity it will be available from liberty.

But enough of the can't, what about the things we did do?

We put together a list of 22 fantastic ales from 9 different breweries (would have been ten, but one let us down at the very last minute.) By the horns, a brand new brewer from South West London came up with three really interesting beers for us, 'Bobby on the Wheat' is a crisp and refreshing wheat beer that has a subtle citrus edge and a good finish, whereas their Christmas Porter was a big powerfull bag of fruit with a pronounced hint of Cloves for a real nod toward the festive mulled wine. East London Brewery weighed in with three beers, including their new baby, 'Nightwatchman' a beer that until the begining of this week was only known at 'the 4.5% ruby red'. We even managed to beat them to the launch of their own beer by bringing it down to Bristol before they launch it in London this weekend.

Ha'Penny provided their excellent and very moorish 'London Stone' and the marvellously named 'Spring Heel Jack' Porter which although I didn't get the chance to try, was very popular with the other punters. But perhaps my favourite of the evening, should I allow myself the indulgence of having a favourite from such a great list, was the big hopped monster of an amber ale from Redempion, 'Big Chief'. Andy at Redemption did us proud, with a list of 5 great ales all of which flew off the bar.

Finally, a mention has to go to Paddy at Windsor and Eton. we cheated slightly and slipped outside the cordon of the M25 to bring down some of their beer, and it was definitely worth the effort. Any brewery who brews a 7.4% Black IPA like their Conqueror 1075 has to be worth including, even if it bends the rules a little. It's also on at The Gryphon up behind the Colston Hall if you are in Bristol, well worth checking out.

There we go then, December's beeriodical well underway, and we are proud to have brought so many new beers to Bristol for the locals to try. One fella told me that he had added no less than 8 beers to his 1200 beer list of 'stuff i've drunk' which made me smile.

It's all go at liberty beer.....

Oh my, it's nearly a month since I last updated....

We've been busy fellas in the last month, deliveries have started in Bath and Bristol and we have been working hard to bring the very best of the West Country's craft beers to our customers. We are really happy with the way that things have gone and look forward to expanding out of the City centres and out to more customers in the BA and BS postcodes.

As well as the West Country beers, we've also be scouring London for the best of the Capital's craft beer. We have set up supply agreements with several brewers who will be added to our list very soon, including a couple who are brand new to the market.

Talking of London, we are in talks with a pub company with a good few sites in the Capital, so will let you all know about that soon I hope.

Back in Bristol, I'll be on the train soon to go and put my head around the door at The Seven Stars near Temple Meads Station, this great little ale house puts on a monthly showcase of regional beers, and today's will feature 21 casks of London's finest, all supplied by liberty beer.

Finally, we are proud to announce that the first sales of liberty's 'Ironworks Ale' went on sale on Saturday in various locations in East London and Essex in advance of West Ham's game against Burnley. The match wasn't one that I want to reflect too much upon, but the interest in the Ale was stunning. On Saturday morning we received a Facebook message saying that despite the first ones only having been delivered on the Friday, one of our friends had already spotted 3 Ironworks Ale t-shirts in Stratford. If you want to follow news on Ironworks Ale, you can check the website at www.ironworksbeer.com or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.