Beavertown Extravaganza, Three Beer Report
As I walked through the door, all the stereotype boxes were immediately ticked: jolly chubby chaps with beards everywhere; more than one pair of sandals; that one lad who came with his step-brothers mates and can’t believe there’s not one “normal” Lager on tap; lanky guys with ironic moustaches loudly explaining how “Rick Astley is actually criminally underrated and… shit bro, have you even tried this blueberry muffin Saison?”… etc. I feel at home.
The ticket price includes unlimited free pours of any and all beers, a lot of which are shipped specially for the festival, some of which our shores would never normally see. I know, why would you let your morals get in the way of that???
As is tradition (I’ve done it once before), I will chat through three beers, keeping it snappy rather than droning on about every beer I tried on the night. I
must say first that every beer I had was excellent, the general standard of the event is – of course – extremely high. A second bit worth mentioning is that my top three beverages of the evening came from Superstition Meadery; an absolute revelation, they are amazing! But in the interest of diversity, I have reserved a full article just for Superstition and will talk about my next three favourites instead.
Brouwerij De Molen, Binkie Claws Almond BA
When I first met Menno Olivier at BeaverEx 2017 (that’s what the cool people call it), he was very upset when he though I suggested De Molen were new to the scene. He made it very clear to me, in no uncertain terms, that he and Mikkel of Mikkeller were the first guys in Europe to be making craft beer! What I had in fact said was that his baby, the hugely influential Brouwerij De Molen was new to me… to which I suppose his reaction was still justified. I should really have known more about De Molen before speaking to him.
A year and a fair few bottles of De Molen later, I know: Founded in 2004, De Molen was indeed one of the first craft breweries in Europe. Of course, both the definition of craft beer and who did it first are matters of contention, but it’s safe to say Menno was there pretty much at the genesis of what would become the bane of beery multinationals (speaking of contention…*ahem*). He was also one of the first to experiment with the Whisky method of ageing in barrels previously used for other alcohols which brings me neatly to the beer I had at the event.
The Binkie Claws Almond BA. A Barley Wine aged with almonds in Woodford Reserve Bourbon barrels made in collaboration with Hair of the Dog Brewery. It spent twenty seven months in barrels and you can tell! At first you’re hit with an assault of malty potency but as that fades, the bitterness and sweetness from the almonds tentatively show themselves… then the rich Whiskey flavours batter them out of the way before apologising and inviting the almond flavours back to harmoniously finish with an elegant blend of malt, bitterness and intense sweetness. It was excellent and only solidified my thoughts that De Molen are one of the best dark beer brewers in the world.
Garage Project, Yuzu Rising Sun
If any of you saw any photos from this year’s BeaverEx, there’s a good chance you saw this. A ridiculously photogenic beer with a yellow bottom fading into red and finishing with a thick white head. On top of being good looking it was ludicrously tasty. Remember rhubarb and custard sweets? It looks and tastes like those but with an added yuzu tang.
The Yuzu Rising Sun is a creation by Garage Project. Three mates… well two brothers and one mate who ambitiously decided to transform their shit hole garage into a brewery in order to embark on their first self-imposed challenge of making twenty four beers in as many weeks. This whirlwind start landed them on the craft beer map as one of New Zealand’s most revered breweries.
Another reason I like Garage Project is that, as of last year, they have started producing natural wine. Whilst I have yet to taste one (not exported yet), the guys’ unstoppable boozy enthusiasm coupled with their very impressive beery track record can only result in one thing, and that’s quality.
Mango Milk Power Breakfast IIPA (there are a ton of emojis in the name too but I can’t be bothered learning how to do that on Word… sorry.)
When Omnipollo and Beavertown announce their first ever collaboration, we of course all wet ourselves in anticipation. What’s more, they made it especially for BeaverEx!
For those who don’t know, Omnipollo are Henok Fentie and Karl Grandin, everyone’s favourite Swedish nutters pushing the boundaries of what one can do with the humble beer. They’ve been known to chuck such things as burgers and fries in beer, as well as serving drinks in soft serve form. The latter making for quite long queues at the Beavertown festival.
Beavertown are London’s biggest and most successful craft brewery founded and (now partly) owned by Logan Plant who is to UK beer what his dad was to general guitar music.
The Mango Milk Power Breakfast IIPA is a double IPA inspired by a protein smoothie. It’s chock full of mango, coconut, vanilla and emojis (ref. Beavertown website). I expected this to be a classic murky juicy fruity hop bomb IPA, but it wasn’t! On the nose, it’s pure mango, no surprise there. On the palate however, you’re initially hit with the mango punch but it very quickly fades and a surprising freshness starts to shine through, then some hops, some mineral notes, a tiny touch of bitterness… is that… no… surely not… is that complexity? It’s brilliant! The flavours shine harmoniously through the senses, playing together, each taking a moment to surprise and glisten before floating back into the chorus, then, together, they gently land and end in a gentle sweet vanilla cuddle. Bloody Heineken! Ruining the fun for everyone!
The 2018 Beavertown Extravaganza was an excellent experience. I didn’t get to try Trillium and Other Half beers like last year but I did get to spend more time chatting to less rushed brewers and volunteers helping out on the night. I did get to try more beers as there was a lot less queueing which also allowed me to attend a couple of symposiums organised by Good Beer Hunting, one very enlightening one in particular addressing the issue of diversity (or lack thereof) in the beer trade.
The festival was not a failure by any stretch of the imagination but one must question whether or not it can last on such a big scale with so many detractors. Will it attract a wider crowd of non-craft beer enthusiasts? Will the craft-beer enthusiasts jump back on board eventually? Will BeaverEx scale down? All I can say is that I hope not, I hope it stays the size it is. Whilst I have mixed feelings about the Heineken shaped spanner in the craft beer works, I cannot deny that Beavertown have done – and continue to do – huge amounts for the London, UK, and global craft beer scenes. My respect for Mr. Plant and his crew runs far deeper than Heineken’s crookedness.
*Hi there, I hear that you don’t know what’s been going down in the London beer scene… no worries, I can help. You know Heineken? Lager behemoths who also own Affligem, Amstel, Pelforth and Murphy’s to name a few of the big’ns. Well, they bought a bit of Brixton Brewery. A few people kicked off at this, but generally, the vibe was tame. Then, in an unprecedented move, Heineken bought a little bit of Beavertown. Two London craft beer breweries in the same year! Suddenly, everyone was up in arms!
Those are the brief facts. I will now provide you with the two internet based articles that helped me understand the situation:
On the day of the public announcement, Logan Plant, founder of Beavertown, released the following post on the Beavertown website explaining his decision. https://www.beavertownbrewery.co.uk/brave-new-world-beaverworld/
Following the news of the buy-up, Paul Jones, founder of Cloudwater, announced that Cloudwater were pulling out of the Beavertown Extravaganza line-up. He published the following article on the Cloudwater website explaining his decision. http://cloudwaterbrew.co/blog/tough-calls-and-a-bigger-picture
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