Ironbridge Brewery

A special beer we brewed (several times) just for The Maverick Drinking House in Stourbridge has received such high acclaim at beer festivals this Autumn that we’re going to make it one of our regular beers. Hickok Gold is named after Wild Bill Hickok of Wild West fame as the Maverick has a western theme. Hickok benefits from very late hopping with Cluster and Crystal American hops and has a very pleasant hop flavour that lingers on the roof of your mouth. It’s definitely worth seeking out and will be widely available from next week.

Had some good news this evening. Ironbridge Pale Ale has won this year’s Shropshire Brewers Challenge Cup organised by Shrewsbury CAMRA. Yaaahoo!! Thank heavens I managed to find some more Brewers Gold hops this week! We should have enough now to see us through to this year’s harvest (fingers crossed).

I’m going to have to take the online shop down whilst we resolve a few issues. Sorry about this but if you live in Telford then please either pop down to the brewery shop or give us a call on 433910 and I’ll deliver the beer in person! If you live a bit further away please watch this space for future announcements.

We’ve just returned from the GBBF trade day at Earls Court. I’ll confess that after all the build up and hype I was disappointed. Several of the beers I bought were warm and hazy and totally and completely flat. Thankfully the ISB was as clear as a bell and had some condition but it wasn’t presented in its best light either. If a brewer wants his/her beer to be served with a sparkler on the tap then CAMRA should take this into account. I understand that Southerners expect their beer to be flat as a mill pond but we like head up here!

I would have hoped that CAMRA would take more pride in the quality of the beers being served at the GBBF but I had to chuck one that was so warm and cloudy it was undrinkable. For me to say it was undrinkable it must have been bad! Two others I bought were less than great and certainly couldn’t be described as clear. They were also warm and there’s nothing worse in my book than warm beer.

Another gripe was the price of it! I had to pay £3 a pint for ISB that we sold to the distributor at a rock bottom price. Who’s making a killing here? It certainly isn’t me!

The hall looked half empty and grubby/tatty. There weren’t enough seats or tables and the toilets were a mess. This was just trade day so I hate to think how bad it’ll get when the massed public are allowed in.

On a more positive note I got to experience the commute to London again. It’s been more than a year since I chucked in a lucrative career in I.T. to pursue my own mad dream. I used to make the trip to London regularly and in the course of the past year I’d totally forgotten what a crap place London is. It’s a dirty, smelly, noisy, grubby, tatty dump. I’d also forgotten how totally crap and smelly Virgin trains were. I sat there this morning and it all came flooding back to me. Why do those trains all smell of toilet? It’s horrible. The smell can only be described as “that of old toilet”. It must be a fact that when you use the trains every week you get desensitised to the sheer awful stench but both trains today absolutely stank. They were also hot and uncomfortable and in typical style the on board shop closed up about two thirds of the way through the journey too.

In a way then today was a good day. I got to remember that I’ve made the right choice in chucking in the high life. I got back to the brewery tonight to pick up the van and stood outside the brewery door and stopped and breathed in. No more smell of Virgin trains. Instead the sweet aroma of Shropshire countryside. No din either, just the sound of the river slipping past and a couple of buzzards getting harassed by some magpies. Do I miss the old life? I miss the money, that’s for sure, but I sure as hell don’t miss all that London crap.

Now that our shop is open and we’ve got a makeshift bar in operation we’re able to run mini brewery tours with the obligatory tastings of course. Provided I’m not mid brew I can give visitors a quick whizz round but if you’re coming with a group and would like a more leisurely tour with questions and me making up answers then please call ahead to check that I’ll be able to accommodate you.

We’re also still booking corporate/private parties so if you’re interested in organising a p*** up in a brewery then please give me a call. We normally run these on a Thursday or Friday night.

Our ISB is on at the CAMRA Great British Beer Festival at Earls Court in August. We’re on the Bar Nouveau. Not too sure why they choose to use a French word in the name of the bar featuring new British breweries but hey – they’re CAMRA and they can call it what they want I guess.

Our real physical shop is now open for business. We’ve got the full range of our own beers and also a few from other micros around the country. In the coming weeks and months we’re going to be sourcing beers from lots of other micros and also some ciders and perrys too. We’ll be adding to our range of souvenirs and clothing too.
We aim to always have one of our beers available on draught at very reasonable prices, provided Dave the gardener hasn’t snaffled it all. We will also have some experimental brews on tap occassionally if you fancy being a guinea pig.

Shop opening hours are Monday to Saturday 12:00 – 18:00, Sunday 12:00 to 16:00.

Sign up to get the smoking ban amended here http://www.amendthesmokingban.com/

I’m not a smoker (I kicked the habit years ago) but I do believe that the smoking ban has been instrumental in killing off our pubs. Join this campaign to get the smoking ban reformed when it gets reviewed in 2010.

Following the launch of our on-line shop we’ve had teething troubles with couriers. We’re due to trial a fifth company later this week. Sorry if you’ve been inconvenienced by the sheer inability of these guys to do what they claim they can do. We do the hard bit and produce the beer and get it bottled and all they’ve got to do is safely move it from here to our customer.
If you order beer from our shop in the next week be aware that there will be so much packaging around the bottles that it’ll require a 7 tonne truck to deliver it. Hopefully you’ll be able to help the driver off load the huuuuge parcel.

Did you see the Gerry Robinson program the other night? I couldn’t believe the attitude of that brewer from Itchen Valley. I hope for their sake they’ve sacked him by now.