Month: July 2020

We’re super excited to have been able to have rebrewed our much acclaimed Deliverance – Sabro™, HBC 472 & HBC 692, created in collaboration with Yakima Chief Hops.

This variation of Deliverance was first released in March this year, when it returned to our range after an absence of almost TWO YEARS… and we jumped straight back in with something truly special. So special in fact, that we reckon we didn’t make enough of it, so we’ve brewed it again for even more of you to enjoy!

Our Deliverance range uses different hop varieties in carefully selected combinations, and those featured here are a little family of three, which all stem from the wild Neomexicanus species. HBC 472 and HBC 692 are both new hop varieties stemming from the amazing Sabro™ hop – which was HBC 438 until it was named.  These hops come from the same lengthy breeding process that brought you Citra, Mosaic and Ekuanot, and we’re already falling in love with Sabro™ and its family. We’re lucky to be amongst the first in the country to get our hands on these experimental hops.

Yakima Chief Hops are a 100% farmer owned hop supplier. They’re the only grower-owned network of family hop farms in the world – direct relationships with the brewers is something which establishes Yakima Chief Hops as world leaders in this field – so it was fantastic to welcome them to the brewhouse to help us create our limited edition collaborative beer.

Our new version of Deliverance (available online here!) is bursting with aromatics and incredibly juice-forward – pineapple upside down cake and mango coulis on the nose with a heady, resinous character. Masses of tropicality on the palate, with notes of dessicated coconut teaming up with bags more pineapple, peach and zesty grapefruit singing together in perfect fruity harmony. Full bodied and creamy, super smooth but with a lingering bitterness in the finish which really showcases the complexity and diversity of flavour that this chosen hop combination brings.

Here’s a little more information on those little green nuggets of aromatic joy for all the beer geeks out there! Sabro™ Brand HBC 438 is itself still a relatively new release from the Hop Breeding Company (a group of farmers and scientists dedicated to nurturing, cultivating and eventually releasing new varieties of hops for us all to enjoy, who are based in the Yakima Valley) which is supplied through YCH’s experimental hop program. Known for having a really unique complexity, it imparts distinct tangerine, coconut, tropical fruit, and stone fruit aromas, with hints of cedar, mint, and cream. Sabro’s sister and daughter, HBC 472 and 692, share many of the same fruity, citrussy characteristics – we found a very distinctive Pina Colada note in the 472!

For all hops named HBC, this means that they are a newer hop from the Hop Breeding Company’s programme. Eventually, if the hop proves itself a worthy component of that beverage that brings us all together, it is rewarded with its very own name (Mosaic was once HBC 369, and Citra was HBC 394). The whole process can take a very long time, with Sabro™ only becoming commercially available after two decades of research and trials. With hops being a natural product and so susceptible to the environment they are grown in, it’s important to make sure that not only do they have desirable aroma and flavour characteristics, but also that they can survive and grow well.

The Neomexicanus subspecies, which all three of the hops used in our new Deliverance stem from, is itself interesting. Almost all commercially available hops are of European origin and descent, even those which are now bred in the USA, but in the Sabro™ family, we are able to make use of a genetically distinct sub-species of hops that have been growing wild in the New Mexico mountains for the past million years. Groovy!

There’s still much more to come from this series, and the possibilities are ever growing, thanks to the efforts of not just our brewers, but also the hop breeders, growers, farmers and suppliers, who work tirelessly to ensure that the humulus lupulus that gives so much character to your beer is the very best it can be.

Cheers!

We’ve got a couple of new beers emerging from our mixed fermentation Funk Dungeon project over the coming weeks, so thought it was a good opportunity to tell you all more about the progression of the design for this series. The aim of the artwork is to expand on the little skeleton character found on our original Funk Dungeon branding, created by our in-house designer James Murphy.

This development began last year, and we wanted to imagine a world where our character ‘rises’ from his grave (Chapter 1 – Ryes From The Grave) and goes about having a great posthumous ‘life’ throughout the rest of the series.

Here’s where the series has taken us so far!

Chapter 2 saw our skellie friend and compatriots surprisingly take to the basketball court for our collaboration with award-winning beer and food writer Melissa Cole, ‘Slam Dunk Da Funk’, and at that stage, there was no knowing what they should choose to do next… 

In Chapter 3 – ‘Heavy Nettle’ for our collaboration with Sheffield institution Church: Temple of Fun, we saw that they had got together as cafe-racer motorcyclists at some gas station – probably up to no good!! Chapter 3’s offering was accompanied by a special sister release of a Kveik New England IPA, ‘Hop Cult Armageddon’. Whilst not officially a Funk Dungeon release, we looked to bring the characters ‘to life’ for the first and possibly only time! To honour the important Norwegian yeast addition, our characters donned brutal facepaint in homage to some of their favourite Scandinavian Black metal bands. We all have one!

Chapter 4 is due to be released very soon, and is a sour, bretted, barrel aged lager called ‘Funk In Drublic’, which sees our familiar friends back together as a 3-piece rock & roll band. Playing out hit after hit in a dingy, wreck of a club, our lead singer / guitarist is joined by a bad-ass, up-right bass player and a heavy-hitting stand-up drummer. We’d like to imagine this place would be raucous and rowdy and a Bretted Sour Lager would be the perfect beer to sink down at the front of this gig!

Chapter 5 is safely resting in barrel, patiently waiting for release – what on earth will our characters get up to next?!

Along with the bretted lager, we also have another release from our mixed fermentation project which is available right now! ‘Hop Bretta – Tradition’ sees the development of the original Funk Dungeon branding to bring it more in line with this progressive series… as the ever-growing range has evolved with the development of ideas by James and our Funk Dungeon lead brewer Jim and team, the original Brewer’s Emporium design felt a little out of place. The continuing stream of beers being released in 2020 is a perfect excuse to match up our original design and the future of the Funk Dungeon range. Our skeleton friend is still bathing in their frothing cauldron but they’re looking so much fresher!

As with all of James’ work, each concept is sketched out a number of times with pencil on newsprint to develop the perspective and depth. Once James is happy with the idea and layout, the design is hand-inked on heavyweight cartridge paper using Staedtler pigment liners.

The inked illustration is scanned in at high resolution (600 dots per inch) then coloured using Adobe Photoshop and a drawing tablet. This final coloured image (including layers of transparency if required) will now be transferred to the master can label template in Adobe Illustrator to finalise the specific beer information and details, ready for proofing.

The Funk Dungeon cans have seen our in-house designer James further develop a method of design which allows the shimmer of our aluminium cans to add emphasis to certain aspects of the image. This was initially brought to the Brewery by guest designer Lewis Ryan (Lewy) for our Sow the Seeds/Reap the Harvest duo, which allowed the drinker to overlay the two designs to complete the seasonal transition. This has been used to great effect on the Funk Dungeon range, with the metallic elements of the design glistening when reflecting light. There are also a few little “Easter egg” style inclusions that will appear across the series  – see what you can spot when you give the can design a closer look!

Mind Your Head…