I’m back from a whirlwind trip to England, and the concern over breweries closing there was definitely not overblown. Among the stops on my trip:
Two breweries that had announced “temporary long-term closures” just prior to my visit
One brewery that was still operating its taproom but had permanently ceased brewing in favor of a contract brewing structure
One brewery that was still listed as open, but was closed and had no social media posts or Untappd check-ins since mid-December
So yeah, it’s kind of bleak out there. There was a bit of doom and gloom among some of the beer folks I talked to, though you wouldn’t know it from the packed taprooms I visited in places like Cheltenham, Bristol, and London. The crowds were especially promising in the sense that it was the second weekend of January — a time when breweries are trying to claw people back into taprooms while so much messaging around Dry January is out there discouraging them. Plenty of the breweries I visited were serving non-alcoholic beer, even if they weren’t making it themselves. And one unique spot I visited in London exclusively makes beer in the 2% ABV range — a great point for moderation… a damp January, if you will.
In last week’s newsletter, I mentioned that the historic brewery in Trowbridge, the hometown of my great-great-grandparents, had closed in 2000 and sold off their brewhouse to the North Koreans. When I visited the local museum there, plenty of Ushers of Trowbridge artifacts were on display, including a narrative about the infamous sale:
And since I feel a strange connection to this brewery that I never had a drop of beer from, here are a few other photos — first of the brewery itself, and of some artifacts.
Morsels of NYC Beer News
Okay, enough about the country we declared our independence from. Here’s a few quick newsworthy beer items for you New York beer drinkers.
Keg & Lantern Southside to open this weekend
Keg & Lantern Brewing’s third location in Brooklyn starts their soft opening this weekend in Williamsburg. It’s at 104 South 4th Street, in the former Randolph Beer that closed last year. Gone are the self-serve taps, but you’ll recognize a good deal of the space’s layout in the new location, with some familiar Keg & Lantern touches, including a wall of vintage beer cans. We’ll keep you updated on permanent hours and other details in the coming weeks. And a dreadful reminder for those in North Brooklyn: the L train is not running this weekend between 8th Av and Myrtle-Wyckoff Avs.
Threes celebrates 8th anniversary
Brooklyn’s Threes Brewing is celebrating eight years in business this month, and unsurprisingly, there’s lager out for the occasion. From Now On is a Northern German Pilsner, a bright, crisp, lemony lager with noble hops. Their anniversary party is tonight at their Gowanus location, while you can sip this beer to the sounds of a live DJ and bask in a some very special cellar pours to celebrate the occasion.
Opening Bash brewers announced
Last week, we mentioned that tickets are on sale for this year’s NYC Beer Week Opening Bash — the biggest celebration of the year for our city’s beer scene. This week, the NYC Brewers Guild announced the brewers that will be in attendance for the event, which allows guild members to invite a visiting brewery from outside the city to the festival. Here’s the rundown of who will be there:
NYC Guild Member Breweries
18th Ward, Alewife, Back Home, Big aLICe, Bridge and Tunnel, Bronx Brewery, Brooklyn Brewery, Circa Brewing, Coney Island, DaleView, Dyke Beer, Ebbs, Endless Life, Evil Twin, Fifth Hammer, Finback, Five Boroughs, Flagship, Greenpoint, Grimm, Gun Hill, Harlem Brewing Co, ICONYC, Interboro, Keg & Lantern, Kills Boro, KCBC (Kings County Brewers Collective), LIC Beer Project, Other Half, Randolph Beer, Rockaway, Singlecut, Sixpoint, Strong Rope, TaLea, Threes, Torch & Crown, Transmitter, Wild East
Guest Breweries
Arkane Aleworks, Barrier, Bottle Logic Brewing, Catskill, DUBCO, Eighth State Brewing, Ever Grain, Fidens, Forrest & Main, Homage Brewing, Human Robot, J. Wakefield Brewing, Kings Brewery, Mast Landing, Mortalis Brewing Company, North Park Beer Co, Ology, Phase Three, Resident Culture, Root & Branch, Salud Cerveceria, Schilling, Timber Ales, Tripping Animals, Vitamin Sea, Voodoo Brewery
The fest will be held on the afternoon of Saturday, February 25th, at a venue to be announced in Brooklyn. Tickets start at $75 and are available now.
Brewery Tracker
Total brewery count: 2,907
Total breweries visited in 2023: 12
Total breweries visited in the United Kingdom: 161
Brewery Visit of the Week
Brewery #2898, Kettlesmith Brewing Company, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, England, UK (Visited 13-Jan-2023)
While there aren’t any breweries in my ancestral homeland of Trowbridge these days, the next town over on the train does have one — one that’s about a fifteen minute walk down a muddy canal towpath from the train station. Apparently I was the only one who wasn’t prepared for the muddy trek — everyone in the brewery at the time I walked in was wearing waders. Except the dogs, of course, greeted me before the other patrons had even looked up from their beers. It didn’t take long before my fellow drinkers and I were talking — about the beers here, the beer scene here and abroad, and about life in general. Kettlesmith was clearly a local draw on Friday afternoons, even with an early 6pm closing time. A parade of local residents and workers at the adjoining car repair shops walked in over the course of the late afternoon, all encouraging me to try their favorite beers here.
As for those beers, they ran the gamut from lagers cold-fermented using California Common yeast, a stellar Belgian-style Tripel, and a snappy, citrusy West Coast-inspired Pale Ale — the founder spent time in the Bay Area, in case it wasn’t obvious. It wasn’t just the beers that made me feel at home, though — everyone I came across here welcomed me despite my funny accent. I know I’ll be back in Wiltshire again to do more family research, and when I do, I’ll be back at Kettlesmith, for sure.
Long Read of the Week
There was a time when New Belgium’s flagship beer, Fat Tire, was the first beer I’d drink on every trip to Colorado, without fail. I kept a steady supply in my fridge when they finally launched in New York in 2016, but my appetite for the beer since then apparently isn’t the only one to go flat, and now the brewery is reformulating the beer. At Good Beer Hunting, Kate Bernot has the details of the change, which could prop up sales for the Kirin-owned brewery — or doom New Fat Tire to be the New Coke of beer.
One Last Thing
On Sunday night, I wandered into a pub in a suburban part of London to wait out a train that was delayed by a half-hour. A cat walked in the door with me, jumped up on the couch and just chilled like he owned the place. I was worried I had done something wrong, but bartender said it was cool. After he poured me the half-pint I ordered, he brought the cat a bowl of milk. This little guy gets the award for my favorite pub customer of all time:
Cheers,
Chris
I just listened to a podcast on the FT recipe change and the rebrand here--https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/can-a-total-rebrand-save-this-iconic-colorado-beer/id1557798162?i=1000595434926. The writer/narrator hadn't yet drunk the new recipe b/c he too is practicing Dry January which I found amusing. I've been told it tastes like cereal. Hmmm.. The roll out is spotty as my local Whole Foods still had lots of 6 packs of the OG Fat Tire. So, the brewery closing thing in England, is that economic or saturation, or both? I just learned that Wah Gwaan is closing after maybe a year or so in operation. They seem to have been caught by the perfect storm of high rent and high prices in a competitive market. But as one door closes, another opens.