Beer is Trending

Over the past few years the craft beer world has developed a way of expressing itself in the here & now, it has taken to creating trends & then seeing them explored by brewers UK & worldwide. There is a top layer of brewing in the UK & US at the moment which is bubbling away with creative & innovative brewing.

No drink in the world comes close to offering the diversity beer does, something for everyone!

Where the next big thing comes from is a mystery, sometimes an iconic beer spawns others in it's image & style as I think Brewdogs Bashah Black IPA did a few years ago, in the resultant few years brewers throughout the UK have explored the Black IPA phenomena with a heavy hand, we ourselves can be included in this bracket with our 'Heretic Black Imperial IPA & our extremely popular single hopped Black IPA series 'Nerotype'.

I think we are coming to the end of exploring this interesting style & some high quality permanently brewed lines have appeared in the UK like The Kernel Black IPA, Buxton Black Rocks, Thornbridge Raven & Windsor & Eton Conqueror, but the market is now inevitably moving onto other styles & ideas. Other ideas we have explored are hoppy red ales with 'Red-Eye' & 'Rouge -Hop', another that comes to mind is Thornbridge 'Colorado Red' however I think this style has still got legs yet.

The Periodic Table of Beer Styles, there's space for a few new hybrids yet...

We announced our 'Summer of Saison' last month our plan to brew four naturally flavoured Saisons, it will be interesting to see if we'll see other brewers trying their hand at Saison, Dark Star have been producing a Saison for a couple of years & it seems to have a cult following when available, so it may be a style that has legs under the 'a la mode' heading over the next year.

In the coming six months we are planning a Milk Stout & a Cranberry Wheat beer, amongst others.

The beauty of brewing is that there are so many styles to explore, not to mention the grey areas in between which can be the most fun!

There are ever present styles that will always attract the masses in particular 'IPA's' seem to be THE style that shows no sign of going away, thankfully. IPA is a style we love to brew here, in fact our flagship beer 'Diablo' is an IPA & our recently brewed '7C's IPA' has also proven popular.

Where are we destined for next on the beer atlas?

Sometimes hops come along & cause a style wave all of their very own like 'Nelson Sauvin' hops did a few years back, this year the heady 'Citra' hop variety which has created a smorgasbord of new 'pale ales' in the UK.

What styles would you like to see explored this year? I use the word 'styles' in the loosest sense as I'm not one for working to set style guidelines, some of the best ideas are cross pollinated from each other...

If you have seen the 'I am a Craft Brewer' video you will know there is a line in the video saying 'We don't don't follow trends, we create them!' This adage has never held more water in the craft beer scene as it does today.

Who knows what styles are about to take the limelight, I all can say is we'll be there riding the crest of the wave...