Hop Forward: Getting You Ahead in the Brewing and Beer Business – Details, episodes & analysis

This episode marks a turning point for the Hop Forward Podcast as it will be the last episode of the show before we go on hiatus (or a 'hop rest' as we prefer to call it) for a while.  In this episode, Nick shares his reasons why he's taking some time away from the show.

Following this introspection, he dives into a compelling beer conversation with Cameron Brown, the co-founder of Turning Point Brew Co. Together, they explore the brewery's growth journey, navigating the challenges of the pandemic, and the exciting transition into Rooster's former brewery.

THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF THE HOP FORWARD PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY CHARLES FARAM.
Charles Faram have been sellers of hops since 1865 and hop-growers for even longer.

They stock nitrogen-flushed leaf hops, T90 and T45 pellets, and, to ensure their hops remain in optimum condition, they have state-of-the-art cold stores at their sites in Worcestershire and Yakima in the USA.

At charlesfaram.com brewers can shop by pay-as-you-go or using agreed credit terms for yeast, malt, fruit purees and other brewing products.  In addition to leading varieties from across the world, the Faram’s Family range brings to you Archer®, Emperor®, Godiva™, Harlequin®, Jester®, Most™, Mystic™, Olicana®, and Opus® from their Hop Development Programme right here in the UK.

If you would like more information or expert advice visit the brewer’s resources and FAQ pages of the website or contact their technical advisors for different uses, applications and recipes. They’re always really happy to help.

Visit www.charlesfarm.co.uk to find out more.

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On the podcast this week, Nick is joined by Chris Terry from 86 Carbon to talk about the impacts of climate change on the brewing and hospitality industry and explore ways to make your business more sustainable and eco-friendly.

86 Carbon specialise in Accredited Carbon Literacy training, which leads to an understanding of how climate change will affect individuals and the industry around them.  They help those in the brewing sector acquire the skills and knowledge to lower their carbon footprint by as much as 15%, and certification from the Carbon Literacy Project is recognised internationally.

Chris and the company support businesses in the brewing and hospitality sector find a pathway to net zero so they can save money, gain customers and protect the planet.

In addition, we're joined by Will and Peter from Charles Faram to discuss sustainability on the hop farm and how climate change is and could potentially impact the industry as a whole, including asking the question, 'Will climate change be the end of Citra hops...?!'.

THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF THE HOP FORWARD PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY CHARLES FARAM.
Charles Faram have been sellers of hops since 1865 and hop-growers for even longer.

They stock nitrogen-flushed leaf hops, T90 and T45 pellets, and, to ensure their hops remain in optimum condition, they have state-of-the-art cold stores at their sites in Worcestershire and Yakima in the USA.

At charlesfaram.com brewers can shop by pay-as-you-go or using agreed credit terms for yeast, malt, fruit purees and other brewing products.  In addition to leading varieties from across the world, the Faram’s Family range brings to you Archer®, Emperor®, Godiva™, Harlequin®, Jester®, Most™, Mystic™, Olicana®, and Opus® from their Hop Development Programme right here in the UK.

If you would like more information or expert advice visit the brewer’s resources and FAQ pages of the website or contact their technical advisors for different uses, applications and recipes. They’re always really happy to help.

Visit www.charlesfarm.co.uk to find out more.

Follow Hop Forward:
hopforward.beer | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram

On 1st August 2023, the United Kingdom will implement a new system for alcohol taxation in a 'radical simplification' (Rishi Sunak' of the system, moving from a percentage-based discount to a cash discount basis.  In addition, various reliefs - including 'draught relief' designed to encourage people back into the pub - have been included in the changes.

However, it has already been reported that a global brewer has informed publicans that one of its flagship lager brands is to reduce its ABV from 3.8% to 3.4%, creating an annual cost saving of around £15m.

To the frustration of alcoholic beverage producers, the specific details were only published by HMRC at the start of July, only weeks away from the new system going live.  With an expansive amount of changes afoot and little time to fully understand them, it's little wonder that brewers and licensees are feeling confused, having been left in the dark for so long.

On the podcast this week, we're joined by SIBA's Head of Public Affairs and Policy, Barry Watts, as he explains the changes and their impacts on the sector.

Given the complex nature of the changes, we have included the following resources for you to help digest the information we discuss in this episode:

• https://toolbox-siba.co.uk - SIBA members can gain access to a variety of tools, including a calculator to help work out their duty cash discount.
• Email Barry Watts - Barry has invited anyone - SIBA member or otherwise - to contact him if you have any questions
• Steve Dunkley at Beer Nouveau has written extensively on the subject of the reforms and offers a variety of tools.
• Official info from HMRC - also includes a calculator

In this week’s episode of the Hop Forward Podcast we talk to Jack Hobday, co-founder of London’s Anspach & Hobday about the proposed beer duty reform and how it will affect small independent craft breweries, hindering growth rather than promoting it.

The first in a two part series looking at SBR, we are on a mission to give an overview of the reforms, presenting arguments from both sides (those in favour and those opposed. While this week’s episode investigates the vantage point from breweries that fall under the 5000HL annual output mark, next week we’ll be talking to Timothy Taylor’s Chief Executive, Tim Dewey, about their stance on SBR and the blog post that cause a stir in the brewing community.

Nick gives a brief history and overview of the beer duty system here in the United Kingdom and samples the Ordinary Best Bitter from the brewery.

If you’re in favour reversing the changes to SBR, then make sure you sign the petition which can be found at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/334066 (link in the show notes) and make your voice heard in Whitehall.

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Find out more from Hop Forward and our partners…

• Follow is on Social Media: Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / LinkedIn


• Visit hopforward.beer for more insights and a range of branding, marketing and business development services to help you and your beer business get ahead.


• Join our Facebook Community to connect with other industry professionals from across the globe


• Check out brewing-jobs.com for all the latest jobs and careers across the brewing and beverage industry

On the Hop Forward Podcast this week we talk with Greg Avola, CEO of the popular beer check-in app, Untappd, which celebrates its 10th birthday this week, discussing everything from big data, review culture and why 4pm is officially Beer O’Clock.

Twelve years ago, my wife and I started a list that we stuck to our fridge called ‘Beers We Have Known and Loved’.

The idea was simple: for every beer we’d purchased from The Dram Shop, a small independent retailer of microbrewed beers, fine wines and world whiskies, we’d write down the name of the beer, a comment and rate the beer out of 10.

Needless to say, that piece of paper has long disappeared but the memory of one particular German beer remains etched on my mind over a decade on.

Simply called Beer Rauchen, or ‘Smoke Beer’ in English, this black liquid did not have the sublime subtle smoked-sausage-meets-breakfast-ceral taste often associated with the style, but rather - as my scathing review testified - ‘tastes like fag ash!’ 0/10.

You could argue that this humble lined-sheet of A4 was a precursor to websites such as RateBeer or apps such as Untappd.

The idea of keeping a log of things you love - or, in this case, loathe - isn’t new. Beer tickers throughout the years have journal after journal entries containing reviews of the latest guest ale down the local, beers revered at festivals and casual comments from evenings in by the fire on a cold winter’s night with a bottle of something dark and heartwarming.

In the privacy of, to keep such a record of my personal opinions is neither here nor there. But how does that translate in the digital age where reviews are open to interpretation, public for all to see, and grant direct access and dialog to the producers themselves?

These are questions Greg Avola, CEO of Untappd, has had to wrestle with for the last ten years.

Untappd is an app that allows users to keep track of their beers and allows for open conversations surrounding those check-ins, familiar to most brewers and beer fans alike for a variety of reasons.

I’ve yet to meet a brewer who hasn’t felt the eurphic hit as a shot of dopamine pulses through their veins due to a string of positive reviews, and then - in the next instance - has been hit in the gut by a punchy offhand comment that seems unjustified on every level.

Whatever your relationship with Untappd, there’s no denying that it does what it does very well and is collecting vast amounts of data regarding worldwide beer trends, which will prove invaluable over the coming months and years.

And who hasn’t enjoyed reading some of the worst reviews from keyboard warriors and armchair detectives as featured on the Worst Beer Blog.

In honour of Untappd turning 10, we’ve introduced a little feature we think you’ll enjoy…!

Stay tuned.

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Find out more from Hop Forward and our partners…

• Follow is on Social Media: Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / LinkedIn


• Visit hopforward.beer for more insights and a range of branding, marketing and business development services to help you and your beer business get ahead.


• Join our Facebook Community to connect with other industry professionals from across the globe


• Check out brewing-jobs.com for all the latest jobs and careers across the brewing and beverage industry

This week's episode features Alan Mahon, founder of Brewgooder and Work In Progress.

Work In Progress is an open to all breweries that aspire to build a more inclusive and representative beer industry.

The breweries involved - including everyone from London’s Mondo Brewing Company, Liverpool’s Neptune Brewery, Bristol’s Left Handed Giant and many more, are committed to taking action in their businesses, forging links with communities to increase opportunities and promote collaboration between brewers and under-represented groups in our society.

As a non-profit, decentralised movement driven by the members, Work In Progress is establishing a steering committee of trusted industry and non-industry voices to help guide and unify the collective voices and actions to create greater inclusivity in the beer and wider drinks industry.

A few months back, I caught up with Alan to discuss Work In Progress and what breweries can do to create a more diverse, unified workforce and industry that covers the entire colour spectrum, in both the physical. cultural and metaphorical sense.

We caught up with Alan to talk about the new initiative, discuss some of the issues that still plague the beer industry, and what we can do to combat those issues.

If you’d like to sign up then I’d highly encourage you to head over to workinprogress.beer where you can find out more information and become a member.

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Find out more from Hop Forward and our partners…

• Follow is on Social Media: Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / LinkedIn


• Visit hopforward.beer for more insights and a range of branding, marketing and business development services to help you and your beer business get ahead.


• Join our Facebook Community to connect with other industry professionals from across the globe


• Check out brewing-jobs.com for all the latest jobs and careers across the brewing and beverage industry

On the Hop Forward Podcast this week, we are talking all about business with Kelly Sidgwick from Bristol based brewery Good Chemistry Brewing.

Unfortunately, many business owners have had a rough ride throughout 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. While it’s usually enough in and of itself to deal with the myriad of issues that arise on a daily basis while running a business, the national lockdowns and resulting economic impacts have caused wave after wave of anxiety and fear.

Somehow, we’ve all muddled through, and each of us has our own story to tell.

The story this week comes from Kelly Sidgwick - director and co-founder of Bristol based brewery Good Chemistry Brewing.

Good Chemistry Brewing turned 5 this August past and have had to negotiate many difficult decisions due to COVID-19, one of which was the internal battle surrounding whether it was ethical to press on with mobile canning or not in order to stem the spread of the virus.

Difficult decisions to say the least.

In this episode, Kelly and I discuss all things business, everything from hiring staff, keeping them motivated, how to grow your business, vision and values, wages and attitudes towards money and so much more… all to the backdrop of a global pandemic.

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Find out more from Hop Forward and our partners…

• Follow is on Social Media: Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / LinkedIn


• Visit hopforward.beer for more insights and a range of branding, marketing and business development services to help you and your beer business get ahead.


• Join our Facebook Community to connect with other industry professionals from across the globe


• Check out brewing-jobs.com for all the latest jobs and careers across the brewing and beverage industry

On the Hop Forward Podcast this week, we catch up with Jason Bayliffe: founder of Wiltshire's Broadtown Brewery.

A railway engineer by trade, Jason took his passion for home brewing to the next level by converting an old, derelict coach house from the 1830’s, which once held the dray horses of the old Hart ‘Brewing Family’ of Broad Town and Royal Wootton Bassett, bought not one, but two 500L German engineered Braumiesters - the only two in the UK, might I add, and started Broadtown Brewery.

Jason now employs a small team of people to help run the brewery, including a full time brewer Nathan Beet, formerly senior brewer at Cotswold Brewery and Head Brewer at the White Horse Brewery in Oxford, to help produce and develop the core range and speciality beers.

Recently, Jason hosted a socially distanced beer festival called Alpaca Fields, which drew a significant following of locals into the family grounds for beers, bands and artisan food.

It’s easy to think beer is all about the latest hipster brewery in some urban area smashing out hazy IPAs, when - in fact - Broadtown Brewery have huge appeal from locals in an area just outside of Swindon that you wouldn’t really associate with beer at all.

So much so, that Jason and the team are working on The Hop Chapel; the Broadtown Brewery tap room with reclaimed stained glass windows, pipe organ and wooden chapel doors.

In this conversation, we talk about what it’s like coming into the brewing scene relatively late the party and just before coronavirus; how having a different background in a different industry has shaped the brewery, and how the growth of the brewery has largely been fuelled by local people wanting local beer.

Find out more from Hop Forward and our partners…

• Follow is on Social Media: Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / LinkedIn


• Visit hopforward.beer for more insights and a range of branding, marketing and business development services to help you and your beer business get ahead.


• Join our Facebook Community to connect with other industry professionals from across the globe


• Check out brewing-jobs.com for all the latest jobs and careers across the brewing and beverage industry

On this week’s almighty yeast of a show we are talking all things fermentation and dried yeast with Lallemand Brewing’s Technical Sales Manager for the UK and Scandinavia, Andrew Paterson.

I doubt there is a topic that genuinely gets brewers out of bed more than yeast.

Just ask them a question like, ‘How does chronically depleted oxygen resources affect fermentation across yeast generations?’, or better still, get them to recall anecdotally a particular problem they had with their yeast that they finally resolved after sleepless nights churning it over in their mind or pouring through text books troubleshooting... and watch their eyes light up in wild excitement.

Many brewers, even some large ones, rely on the variety of dried yeast available for both consistency and to add to their palet and repertoire.

And what a day and age to live in as a brewer where we have access to dried yeast varieties that are able to produce moderate amounts of lactic acid in addition to ethanol in one simple fermentation step, or provide prominent notes of apricot and undertones of tropical fruit and citrus that merge seamlessly with hop aromas perfect for big, juicy IPAs.

Brewing better beer ultimately comes down to how well you’re able to control your fermentation profile.

A beer may have IBUs might be in endless harmony with a perfectly malty backbone like a classic Beach Boys, but underpitch, overpitch, don’t oxygenate enough at the start, introduce oxygenate later on, crash too early, raise the temperature too late; cap the beer with CO2 too early towards the end of fermentation, and just about anything else yeast cells don’t like and a whole myriad of problems is enough to keep any brewer awake at night.

We hope you get a lot out of this week’s episode with Andrew; we certainly did... and with good reason. Having cut his teeth at BrewDog he went on to become the Head Brewer for West Sussex’s Dark Star for 6 years before moving into technical sales with Lallemand.

THIS WEEK'S EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY...

Lallemand Brewing’s presence in the brewing industry dates from the early 1970s when the company started producing dried pure culture brewing yeasts for beer kit manufacturers in Canada. In subsequent years, this activity was expanded to the production of other specific ale and lager beer yeast strains for different clients in the United States, Europe and Australia and Asia.

Supported by decades of long-standing industry experience, an extensive support network and strong technical expertise, Lallemand Brewing is positioned to help your brewery achieve its growth and quality goals. Beyond an unparalleled global technical support and expertise, we offer an extensive range of products, services and education.

Whether you are a startup, a global leader in beer production or anywhere in between, we have something for you.

At Lallemand Brewing… WE Brew with you! Visit www.lallemandbrewing.com for more info.

BREWERY SHOUTOUTS

Truth Hurts Brew Co are a great little brewery based in South Leeds with a cool little independent bottle shop and tap room called Beer Thirty. I’ve had the privilege of designing their recent cans and clips and wanted to introduce to you a collaboration of intergalactic proportions with ”>C84 Brew Co.

Head over to beer30.selz.com and pick up some straight-talking beer from the North along with a whole host of other great craft breweries from the region and across the country.

Find out more from Hop Forward and our partners…

• Follow is on Social Media: Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / LinkedIn


• Visit hopforward.beer for more insights and a range of branding, marketing and business development services to help you and your beer business get ahead.


• Join our Facebook Community to connect with other industry professionals from across the globe


• Check out brewing-jobs.com for all the latest jobs and careers across the brewing and beverage industry

In this week’s episode, we’re talking all about brewing IPAs with Pipeline Brewing Co’s Jonny Cooper.

There’s not a shadow of a doubt that the craft beer revolution owes much of its success and prominence due to the humble India Pale Ale.

As we all know through historians and beer writers, the passage to India back in the 18th century was a lengthy excursion, giving the beer ample opportunity to change in its qualities while stored in wood for prolonged periods.

But there’s no denying that the humble IPA has long since been on an equally unparalleled voyage ever since.

Rescued from closure in the 1960’s, Anchor Brewery - arguably one of American’s first craft breweries of the modern era - released Liberty Ale in 1975 and was the archetype for the modern day IPA.

America’s love of extravagant flavours and hop-bills of biblical proportions counteracted the myriad of bland lagers offered from the same handful of multinational drinks corporations.

Taking inspiration from English brewers such as Fullers, Smith & Turner breweries such as Sierra Nevada, Goose Island and Stone drove the IPA craze to dizzy new heights, showing us Brits what brewers could really do when unleashed with hops flowers and pellets.

Whereas we gave the USA the template for the IPA, our Stateside cousins gave us Cascade, Chinook and the revered Citra.

In an Atlantic rivalry that can only be matched by The Beatles and The Beach Boys, it wasn’t long before British brewers were taking American hops and smashing out punchy IPAs such as Jaipur, Gamma Ray, Cannonball and Punk IPA.

And thus the cycle continues.

When juicy, hazy IPAs came onto the scene several years back, Manchester’s Cloudwater Brew Co rode the crest of the wave producing bigger, bolder, fruiter IPAs - setting a new precedent for the capabilities of hop infused beers in this country.

Most contemporary breweries of notoriety have largely gained their success off the back of a flagship IPA. (I’ve yet to meet a brewer who does not have several variations in their core range and plenty more in their back catalogue).

The types of IPA are endless… check out this article by Matthew Curtis written for Mash Marketing about IPA styles and how a Session IPA is an oxymoron:

https://www.mash.marketing/ipa

IPAs sound easier to brew than they actually are… the good ones at least!

One brewer who is making waves in the world of IPAs right now is Cornwall based brewery, Pipeline Brewing Co. Should their beers be placed in a blind tasting lineup with the usual suspects, it would be hard to tell the real Keyser Soze apart: they’re that good.

There’s lots to be learned from Jonny - a passionate brewer with an insatiable thirst for juicy IPAs. I would highly recommend getting hold of his beers to taste and see for yourself that he certainly knows his stuff when it comes to brewing.

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BREWERY SHOUTOUTS

Fierce & Noble are based a Bristol based brewery defined by independence, committed to brewing modern, seasonal beer, with a fierce intuition that makes them unemployable anywhere else.

Though they never sought to be traditional, they still respect the nobility of craft. In fact, tradition is part of the adventure, helping them explore what great brewing means today.

Fierce & Nobel look to discover the extraordinary, to make beer that stimulates creativity and makes us all smile. Their path is their own, but you are welcome to join them on their journey and pick up from beer from fierceandnoble.com

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