Hi Folks,
Welcome to the first ever Black Iris Brewery Blog Post! With these posts, we are
looking to informally bring some Black Iris news to our readers each month, with the
idea of keeping people up to date with all the goings on at Black Iris Brewery. These
blogs will be coming out at the end of the month and will mainly focus on new beers,
collaborations, upcoming events and general news that we think you’ll enjoy. So,
without further ado, let’s proceed.
February has been a surprisingly busy month here at Black Iris HQ. The general
consensus is that this time of year means quieter sales and a time to regroup but not
here at the moment. This month has seen two extremely important collab beers, the
first in the form of our first international band collab with Swedish desert rock icons
Domkraft and the second in the form of a collab with Manchester based brewery
titans, Cloudwater, working on a historical beer style.
★ ★ ★ ★
BAND COLLAB - DOMKRAFT
When we found out that Domkraft were headlining the Masters Of The Riff festival in
London, we knew we had to jump at the chance to work with a band I’ve loved for a
long time. When they replied to our original enquiry, we were frankly amazed when
they wanted to brew up a traditional rich bitter. So we went with a super traditional
recipe, which focused on a mix of malts to create a nut brown colour and flavour
profile. Pioneer and Progress hops in the boil added a traditional spicy, citrus tinged
bitterness with US hop Amarillo at flame out bringing an orange peel/marmalade
vibe.
The Big Chill is a 4.6% Best Bitter, perfect for this time of year.
★ ★ ★ ★
BREWERY COLLAB - CLOUDWATER
When we first approached Cloudwater about a collab, we knew in our minds eye we
were keen to keep things traditional, with a focus on allowing a beer full expression
in various packaging formats. For this beer, we used a proportion of Chevallier malt,
a traditional barley variety that would have been used in many Victorian ales.
However, the most interesting aspect of this brew is the yeast.
We decided to combine to distinct brewing traditions by co-pitching JW Lees yeast and Hardy and Hanson yeast, which has brought an interesting mix to the table. JW Lees yeast hasbeen used on various occasions by Cloudwater and we wanted to encapsulate a
traditional Manchester element into this beer and Hardy and Hanson yeast has been
used extensively by our Head Brewer Danny who used it many times while working
for Castle Rock, who still use this strain to this day.
The Black Iris Brewery Boys, featuring Keir from Cloudwater.
Gentleman’s Agreement will be a 5.8% Ruby Victorian Mild available in our March Seasonals, featuring some pretty sick art work by our resident artist Kev Grey!
★ ★ ★ ★
BLACK IRIS' FIRST INTERNATIONAL BEER FESTIVAL
Finally, we have been asked to attend our first international beer festival at Sudden
Death’s Brewed Festival in Lubeck Germany and we couldn’t be more excited about
heading over there and taking some damn tasty beers with us! But more on that nearer the time.
We have plenty more news in the pipeline but for now I’ll sign off and I’m looking
forward to telling you all our news in the next blog post.
Cheers
Alex Wilson
Black Iris Brewery