We’ve had an exciting few weeks here at Castle Rock!
We welcomed three brilliant breweries and brewed a grand total of five magnificent beers, which we can’t wait to launch at this year’s Robin Hood Beer and Cider Festival!
Collaborations are always fun. They’re a fantastic chance for brewers to experiment and inspire each other.
Independent breweries have lots in common, and they’re where you’ll find agreeable, creative folk who are passionate about their craft and, perhaps surprisingly to outsiders, eager to share ideas.
Brewing is both a science and an art, and the creative part of the brewing process benefits massively from collaboration with others. Swapping recipes and techniques is inspiring, and the resulting brews are pretty much always innovative, experimental, and a chance to do something a bit out of the ordinary.
Brew day one:
To kick this season off, we welcomed Luke from Salopian for a return collab. He arrived fresh from a Salopian tap takeover the previous evening at Stratford Haven and was keen to get brewing. It was going to be a busy day with two brews planned! Luckily, Tom from Stratford Haven popped along to help.
Together, Luke and our own brewer Matt had concocted a mouth-watering recipe for a special coffee stout inspired by Spanish lattes quaffed on carefree holidays. Think condensed milk, cream, and roasted coffee (mmmm…). Once that was mashed in, it was straight over to the pilot kit to get started on a truly tremendous cocktail sour with raspberry, thyme, lime, and smoked malt. Sounds dreamy! We can’t wait to taste both of these!
Brew day two:
Sadly, we had to get brewing underway without Jake from Siren Craft Brew. It sounds like an outlandish excuse, but his arrival really WAS delayed by a herd of escaped cattle rampaging on the train tracks between Reading and Nottingham!
Fortunately, we had reinforcements in the form of Paddy, Andy, and Daisy from Canalhouse. Today’s brew was a lovely pale using newly named Krush hops and Vienna malt. We rounded off the day with a few scoops in the Vat and Fiddle. It was lovely to hear Jake say “it’s really nice coming into a pub and drinking really good cask beer”. We couldn’t agree more!
Brew day three:
Round three and another double-brew day! Brewers Nick and Laura from Thornbridge, were itching to get started on another two beautiful brews. They were joined by Gaz, Rachel, and Jake from the Embankment (who are hosting a Thornbridge tap-takeover featuring an amazing array of both cask and keg beers, from the 9th October), On the main kit a tasty red rye pale was brewed. This is definitely one for fans of West Coast piney bitter deliciousness, and on the pilot kit something at the opposite end of the taste spectrum, a chocolate and pistachio Imperial stout – oh yes!
All these beers (and more!) will be available at the Robin Hood Beer and Cider Festival, which runs from the 9th to the 12th of October. We hope to see you there!
Cheers!
Team CRB x
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