The latest Iechyd Da beer column from brewer Simon Buckley
The latest Iechyd Da beer column written by Llandeilo brewer Simon Buckley in the Carmarthen Journal -
The start of the holiday and tourism season is normally the cue to write about new beers for the spring.
But the weather hasn’t been that encouraging to get us all out of doors, so that topic can wait until the end of April.
Instead, I thought I would look at the changes that are currently sweeping the market-place with the surge in demand for what the consumer perceives are American-style craft brewers.
We have seen the success of the likes of Brew Dog, and now, in Wales Tiny Rebel. So what is the message?
Simple I think. The new converts to ale drinking are looking for something different, exciting new flavours, and they want to understand what it is that makes the beers taste very different.
They want trendy branding and beers that excite. Oh dear!
What this has done is give the brewers who have no idea what they are doing in the UK the opportunity to throw together some raw materials and come up with ‘way-out’ brands that provide nothing more than an unpalatable hop bomb. It’s beer that removes the enamel on your teeth.
I was told in Cardiff last week, in a conversation in a new-style ale house pub, that anything that represented old school branding and beers was a definite ‘No’.
Well having spent the last 10 years building some award-winning brands, is this a time to worry? No - and the reason is also simple.
The American market is changing. It’s moving towards the more balanced flavours of malt and hops and is dropping the excessive levels of bitterness to focus on creating beer brands that are neither overly bitter, nor for that matter excessively strong.
What we have to do is brew exciting new beers, make sure that the beers excite and intrigue the consumer, by using new malts, new hop varieties and to change the process to make sure that the very best of each of the raw materials is gained.
You might well ask, ‘Well, is that not what we do now?’ The answer is of course, Yes.
But this new style of beer is about creating a very different type of beer to what we know now. They are not for the faint hearted. The beers, while having a balance, stray away from what we like in Wales, and provide unique differences.
The question I suppose you will be thinking is, what are we going to do to follow the trend? Well, the answer is we have no intention of following the trend!
We intend driving the new standard in this sector of the market. Clean crisp beers, based on Gold and Amber, fruity and spicy hops, and some brewing secrets.
Our answer is Rock Hopper, brewed under licence here in the UK from our American sister company.
So now we have all things for all people and very soon you will be able to come to our Llandeilo brewery for our open day and taste one of the finest ranges of beers in the UK – together with the USA’s newest beer range.
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