Above: Left to right: Sean, and Bryan from Arbor with our brewer Danny
It was great to see Sean and Bryan, from Bristol-based brewery Arbor again, this time at our brewery, for another day of collaboration and good conversation.
We first brewed with Arbor in May 2025 – we created Trifecta – a delicious 4.8% Session IPA, so named (funnily enough!) as it was brewed with a trifecta of hops.
This time we settled on something a little more trad.
FROM BRISTOL TO NOTTINGHAM
For this collaboration we decided to go down the ESB (extra special bitter) route, it’s a style with robust character showcasing malt as well as hops. We named it after the areas in our respective cities with Arbor being part of the East Bristol brewing scene in Easton and Castle Rock being based in the Meadows area of Nottingham.
BACK TOGETHER AGAIN
There’s something lovely about a return collaboration. You’ve already got some shared history and are familiar with the people you’re brewing with meaning conversation flows freely making it easy to throw ideas into the ring.
Sean and Bryan made the trip up from Bristol the night before the brew day and, never having been to Nottingham before, were treated to a tour of Castle Rock pubs by our head brewer Jon and Duke from our sales team.
Bright of eye and bushy of tail the following day (kind of!) they were led by our brewer Danny and brewed up a properly tasty ESB. They got stuck in helping with the digging out of the spent grain and the pouring in of the hops.
Once the beer was safely in tank, we headed off to our brewery tap – the Vat and Fiddle, for a celebratory pint with the brew team to see them off on their long journey back to Bristol.
From Trifecta to Easton Meadows, it’s been brilliant to work with the Arbor team again – we’re really looking forward to trying it.
It will make it’s debut on our bar at the Nottingham Beer and Cider Festival at Trent bridge from 7th to 10th October. We’d love to see you there and can’t wait to hear what you think of it.
Cheers!
Team CRB
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