Ian Burgess and Nigel Lambe are delighted to announce that they have purchased WJ King, the Sussex based brewery from Bill King who is retiring.

Ian is renowned as one of the best brewers in the country having spent the past 19 years as number 2 Brewer in Harvey’s of Lewes where he created and produced a cabinet full of award winning beers.

Prior to Harvey’s, Ian began his brewing career in the world famous Truman Brewery in Brick Lane in London in 1976.

Commenting on his move Ian said “Having been a number 2 brewer at such an amazing institution as Harvey’s has taught me all I could every need to know about making fantastic quality and very consistent beer. Now having the opportunity to team up with an experienced businessman such as Nigel to buy our own Brewery was a once in a life time chance that was too good to miss”.

We will retain all of the best aspects of the business Bill King created including all of our fantastic staff and we will look for ways to increase the range of award winning beers that we offer our customers and very loyal drinkers.

On a practical basis, you should see no immediate changes, but please feel free to call if we can be of any assistance.

UK-based brewery exploits booze void left by decades of civil war and sharia law

To view the full article go to:  The Guardian

Ascot Ales was awarded ‘LocAle of the Festival’ after a blind judging of more than 120 beers brewed within a 30 mile radius of Reading.

‘Anastasia’s Imperial Stout’ 8.0%, which was brewed specially for the festival last year, has already won a number of awards since last May including a Silver in the National Beer Competition held by the Society of Independent Brewers. Chris Gill, head brewer and owner said ‘this award is very special as we came so close last year picking up Silver overall. We then won champion beer at Woking Beer Festival in November and I think we’ve had our fingers crossed ever since!’ He adds ‘we have such great support from the pubs and the local CAMRA Reading branch that it makes it all the more precious’.

Ascot Ales is a four barrel micro-brewery based in leafy Surrey. This family run business started brewing in June 2007 and has really gone from strength to strength earning a reputation for creating full of flavour, award-winning ales.

Anastasia’s Imperial Stout not only wowed the judges but festival goers alike with extra stock being called in to meet demand. Chris says ‘It’s certainly a stout to savour – dangerously smooth with lush coffee and chocolate notes.’ The Imperial Stout picked up Gold in it’s category of ‘Speciality Beer’ and their Anastasia’s Exile Stout at 5% picked up a Bronze in the Stouts, Porters and Old Ales Category. So 3 awards from one of the largest beer festivals in the country is quite a haul.

Mill Green’s own barley is being malted, and they’ll be making beer out of it very soon!

Mill Green Brewery has a 14 acre field about 3 miles from the brewery, and late last summer they harvested their first crop of malting barley.

Warminster Maltings have malted the barley and although they are not the local maltsters, Mill Green say they have used them because their size made it possible to malt small batches, and they also have a good commitment to producing Organic Malt.

Mill Green Brewery will get over 10t of pale malt. For a small brewery (4.5 Barrel plant) that should keep them going for a while.

John Norton (brewery owner and grain trader) said, “‘Our 14t of Organic Westminster spring barley was a very good sample in both analysis and size.”

“The as grown sample tested 1.24% N2 and 94.5% over the 2.5mm screen/1.6% thru the 2.2mm screen.
Organic farming doesn’t force grow using artificial fertilisers so tends to produce a better sample.
It is now being malted at Warminster floor maltings, one of the few floor maltings left in the UK.
We will be using it in our Organic beers during 2010 so expect some superb beers!.”

On the same field Green Mill also have 200 hop plants (8 varieties) that should yield their first harvest later this summer, these are all organically certified.

Christine Cryne and Liz Brodie in the Coffee House Soho

Brodie’s, the East London brewery, is brewing up a Brainwave! Expert brewers, brother and sister Jamie and Liz Brodie, have decided to brew a beer and give all the profits to children’s charity, Brainwave.

The beer, named after the Charity, is 3.1% alcohol content and is described by Jamie as “easy drinking, super light, hoppy beer flavored with lots of Columbus hops, which gives it a fruity aroma”.

Brainwave, established in 1982, works with families to deliver individual, home based therapy and exercises for children with disabilities and Development Delay to reach their full potential. This can be anything from walking to recognising numbers. The charity looks after a whole range of children with conditions including Cerebral Palsy, Down’s syndrome and Autism. Families from all over London visit its Centre in Witham, Essex, about 50 minutes out of Liverpool Street.

Christine Cryne, Brainwave’s Chief Executive Officer, said “Enquiries to Brainwave about our services have been growing at 30% a year and we have almost doubled the number of families on our Programmes in five years. We receive no funding from Government and so donations like this are invaluable to us. We are really grateful to Brodie’s for thinking of us and as a CAMRA member myself, I’m really looking forward to trying it. We hope too that this will help raise our awareness in London to get to the families who need our help”.

The beer will be available at the King Charles I, Northdown Street, N1, Wenlock, Wenlock Road, N1, Old Fountain, Baldwin Street EC1, Cross Keys in Covent Garden, the Old Coffee House in Soho, and, of course, their brewery tap, The William IV in Leyton; see www.brodiesbeers.co.uk.

Jamie and Liz Brodie and Christine Cryne are available for radio interviews.

Chris Gill hardly has space to move when he brews his award-winning real ales.

His Ascot Ales brewery, a small unit on an anonymous industrial estate in Camberley, Surrey, is about the same size as a double garage.

With his brewing tanks beside one wall, and barrels on the floor, there isn’t much room to turn around.

Add the piled up sacks of malted barley and bags of pungent hops, and you really do have to watch your step.

Thankfully small seems to be beautiful for the 40-year-old’s growing band of customers.

Made entirely by hand, his range of real ales use only four natural ingredients – water, barley malt, hops and yeast.

To view the full article go to:  BBC news

By Will Smale

Barnsley, South Yorkshire, December 8th, 2009 – InteliTap Limited today announced they would be the new contractor to Keg Watch Limited for the South East of England.

The service recovers ‘at risk’ kegs, casks and beer gas cylinders that have fallen outside of the owner’s distribution network and which are unlikely to return through the traditional returns route.  These containers are deemed to be ‘at risk’ of theft or misappropriation.   Over recent years, the on trade beer market has been hit hard by outside influences that have resulted in unparalleled levels of pub closures and significant increases in alternative routes to market. In turn, this has lead to increases in instances where containers fail to find a natural return to their beneficial owners and a need to further enhance the services provided to the Industry by Keg Watch. The containers are brought safely back to their rightful owners, who pay a small fee in return.

InteliTap are brewing supply chain experts. Their VisibiliTy container asset tracking solution, combined with deep domain expertise, is already helping clients such as Coors, Heineken and Sharps to understand their asset fleets, using information based on factors such as accurate population, cycle times, and losses, which helps them to support their business decisions that apply directly to the bottom line.

InteliTap will now manage the actual physical repatriation of lost, misappropriated or simply abandoned beer kegs and casks in the South East of the UK, working on behalf of the Brewing and Gas Supply Industries as a contractor to Keg Watch. This can offer brewers enhanced value and even deeper supply chain information if required, since containers are tracked and managed as they are received inbound.  In addition, this segment of the contract will offer a revolutionary business model, currently unavailable anywhere else in the UK.  

Speaking about the model, Andy Dorr, InteliTap’s General Manager told us: “I am delighted that Keg Watch have selected us for this contract. After many years experience of working with Keg Watch and dealing with these ongoing issues, it became a natural progression and a firm fit within our organization to extend our Supply Chain Security Services to include these elements.  I previously worked for Carlsberg, and the service was very valuable to us indeed.  At InteliTap, because we already have a very in-depth picture of the brewing supply chain, we believe we can offer a completely transparent service with a new commercial model, which is designed to save the industry money as a whole. A fundamental part of our VisibiliTy offering is traceability, and we’re combining this with a commercial structure that allows Keg Watch the transparency to understand and justify costs to their membership. We have stripped out unnecessary costs, and reduced risk. Our previous experience of asset ownership means we are easily able to do that, and any excess profit that is made will be distributed back to the brewers. This isn’t just a service, it is part of a blueprint for a complete industry solution.

Dave Hopwood, Chairman of Keg Watch said: “I am delighted at this decision to move forward with the agreement. We have always had a good relationship with InteliTap and we feel that they are ideal for this role as they have the industry pedigree and ethics to back it up. They know what the plague of the brewing industry is, and they know how they can make that less painful. Their ethos is to help the industry as a whole and this is already obvious through their other work.”

 Jon Quinn, InteliTap’s Chief Commercial Officer told us: “This venture fits perfectly as part of our overall strategy. One of our key skills is listening and responding directly to client needs on an individual basis, and blending this with knowledge and data to offer real value. This benefits industry as a whole, especially since we’re dealing with assets, which can be considered an industry commodity. The result is that everyone wins. We’ve applied this once again, and the result I am sure will be received positively by the marketplace. ”

Taken from:  http://www.pressport.co.uk/pressrelease/Beer-Keg-Cask-Tracking-and-Management-Leader-Taps-into-Repatriation-Business-8574.aspx

Independent reviewers of real ales, beers and lagers from around the world, including reviews of beer, breweries, watering holes and real ale events

Kent

Click here to see great reviews on the following SIBA member beers

- Westerham Brewery’s Little Scotney IPA (4%)
- Hopdaemon Brewery’s Skrimshander IPA (4.5%)
- Whitstable Brewery’s Raspberry Wheat (5.2%)

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