Henry Kirk

Nobody leaves Prize Old Ale in the corner...

I'm delighted to share our very first episode with a guest who tells the incredible story of how - with a passion for historic beers, the support of others and a good deal of chance - a batch of Gale's Prize Old Ale which had been last brewed in 2006 was safeguarded, blended, brewed and released again in 2022.

Today we sit down and chat with Henry Kirk; a much-celebrated brewer and a big proponent of well-brewed beers rooted in history.

Henry's brewed at Fuller’s Brewery and Dark Star Brewing Co. amongst others and is now setting up his own brewery project, SUNKEN KNAVE, And brewing at Hand Brew Co.

So join us as we discuss Henry's journey into beer, the importance of time, drinking in dressing gowns, securing Gale’s Prize Old Ale and future plans with Sunken Knave.

Bottles of this year's release of Prize Old Ale are available to buy currently on the Dark Star Brewing Co. WEBSITE: https://www.darkstarbrewing.co.uk/products/prize-old-ale

Timestamps:

• Getting into beer 2:34

• Brewing at Fuller’s 13:23

• Return to Dark Star 28:01

• Brewing philosophy and approach 40:00

• Discovering and brewing Gale’s Prize Old Ale 49:04

• Onto pastures new 1:13:50

• Brewing at Hand Brew Co and Sunken Knave 1:14:13

Sunken Knave Brewery:

• Website

• X/Twitter

• Instagram

Links and resources:

• Joseph Holt

• Harvey’s

• Laine Brew Co

• Fuller’s Brewery

• Dark Star Brewing Co

• Hand Brew Co

• The Prince Albert, Brighton

• Evening Star, Brighton

• The Harp, Covent Garden, London

• Worthing Pubs website

• Martyn Cornell’s article in Good Beer Hunting on the history and re-re-rebirth of Gales Prize Old Ale (November 2023)

• Indie Beer Feast at Sheffield Beer Week

Transcript

Please note this is an automated transcript (so contains errors and mistranslations but should give you a good gist of the conversation):

Henry: You know what I mean? Henry: I'm just seeing the same type of beers over and over again. Henry: I'm drowning in 4% pale ales and I can understand why that's the market, because they're runner beers and people like hops. Henry: But for me personally, that's sort of the last thing want to do. Henry: And if I'm able, with sunken nave to create my own beers, I don't want to compromise on that, even if it means that only produce about three or four beers a year to begin with. Rob (Host): Hello and welcome to we are beer people, a podcast all about the many different people who help us enjoy beer. Rob (Host): I'm your host, Rob Cadwell, and I reckon if you're listening to this, then there's a good chance that you are one of the beer people too. Rob (Host): You might be involved in the world of beer. Rob (Host): You may want to find out more about the industry, or perhaps you simply enjoy drinking the stuff. Rob (Host): So join me now as I have a chat with one of the beer people. Rob (Host): As a nation of drinkers, we're a bit like a seagull eyeing up a bag of chips as we're tempted again and again by the plethora of pale ales, ipas and lagers. Rob (Host): And you only need to look at the range of beers on the shelf or the lineup at a bar to see the popularity of these. Rob (Host): But there's something to be said for a more understated, quietly confident beer. Rob (Host): Beer that draws upon a long thread of local and british brewing history. Rob (Host): And today's guest is a big proponent of well brewed beers rooted in history. Rob (Host): I travelled to Worthing, a town on the south coast of England on a rainy winter's day, to have a conversation with Henry Kirk. Rob (Host): Henry is a much celebrated brewer that's been at Joseph Holtz, Harvey's, Lane, Fuller's and Hambrew Co. Rob (Host): As well as being the head brewer at Darkstar. Rob (Host): And we'll hear all about how he's setting up his own brewery, Project Sunken Nave. Rob (Host): We had a great chat. Rob (Host): We talked for hours and could have talked for hours more. Rob (Host): So join us as we discuss Henry's journey into beer, the importance of time drinking in dressing gowns, how he secured Gale's prize old ale and his future plans with sunken nave. Rob (Host): Please note this episode includes some atmospheric, creaky chairs. Rob (Host): And we started by asking Henry why beer and what brought him here. Henry: I think, like a lot of people, I got into sort of like real ale and things like that, very sort of later in life, you know, I think in my sort of clubbing days. Henry: It was a lot of Smirnoff ice, it was a lot of red stripe. Henry: There was a lot of drinking just to get drunk, I'm ashamed to say now. Henry: But as I grew older, I sort of developed. Henry: I'm talking early twenty s. Henry: A big moment for me was I was living in Brighton, round the corner from the train station, and you got the Prince Albert pub there, which is an amazing pub under the. Henry: On Trafalgar street, and it had dark star beers in it. Henry: And so the home of Dark Star is the evening star, of course, which is about a five minute walk up the road. Henry: But at that time, they didn't really want 21, 22 year old idiots like myself in there. Henry: It was a little bit frosty, shall we say. Rob (Host): You weren't their client market, exactly. Henry: Whereas the Prince Albert, it's this big old pub, it's really huge for its music. Henry: And it was basically my living room. Henry: And that was the point at which I discovered hops and all that sort of funky stuff and the beautiful sort of dark London underground label. Henry: And that sort of started me down that road. Henry: And then fast forward a few years and I'm managing a shop in Chelsea and I'm at a house party of a colleague in Putney, of all places. Henry: And anyway, her flatmate was from Melbourne and he was telling me how. Henry: So this is all 2006, 2007, so only at the sort of very earliest murmurings of the craft beer revolution in the UK. Henry: And anyway, he's saying how in Melbourne, there were all these incredible brew pubs everywhere, and they all had really strange names and strange beers, and they sounded like a real mix of like a speakeasy. Henry: One of them was accessed down this little alleyway, and you knocked on the door and then this fire escape opened and you went in and I was like, oh, my God, London needs this. Henry: In the sort of idiotic, ambitious, foolhardy way that you can only decide when you're 25 and you have no idea of the difficulty that is involved in brewing beer and stuff like that. Henry: So off the back of that, I decided to go to Harriet Watt University. Henry: So I studied brewing and distilling. Henry: Had a wonderful time at Harriet Watt. Henry: In the summers there, I worked at Harvey's brewery, which is near us here in St Louis, and then also Joseph Holt's Brewery, and got a real feel for the ales and the family brewers and things like that. Henry: Yeah. Henry: So it was all down to that meeting of that one guy, that one flatmate. Henry: I can't even remember his name, but thank God for him, because that sent me down the road and here we are 16 years later. Rob (Host): It's amazing, isn't it? Rob (Host): Those sort of moments where you can dictate a lot after that. Henry: Yeah, exactly. Henry: It's sort of astonishing now, looking back on it. Henry: But, yeah, somehow I went for it. Henry: And thank God I did, really, because I think joining Harriet Watt is a bit like joining the mafia. Henry: There's a lot of people in the industry who went there. Henry: So even if you're not particularly good or you didn't get a particularly great degree, the doors will open. Henry: It's like a lot of courses, there's big networks, whatever you do. Rob (Host): Yeah, I guess with a lot of these things, it's knowing people and being able to knock on someone's door and say, can I help out? Rob (Host): Or do you need a role? Rob (Host): Or something like that? Henry: Yeah, well, exactly. Henry: I mean, after I finished at Harriet Watts, this is 2012 13 or something, I came back to London and by this point, the craft beer movement was in full swing. Henry: And I moved in with my girlfriend, now wife Rosie, and she lived in Hackney Wick in the peanut factory. Henry: And literally down the road, straight down the road, you had the Beavertown brewery. Henry: So I walked in there and I was like, give me a know, what's his name? Henry: Logan. Henry: And he to. Henry: So then I got a job at Lane's Brew Co. Henry: And they had these brew pubs. Henry: And so I was there for a year and then through LinkedIn, fullers found me. Henry: And so when I went for an interview there, three of the four people that interviewed me had been at, you know, that was a big help. Henry: And so then I started there. Rob (Host): Did you learn different things then at those different breweries where you started out? Henry: Yeah, absolutely. Henry: I mean, when I was in Scotland, I ran a bottling line for a brewery called Stewart's for a year. Henry: And a. Henry: And so I got to see how the small breweries work. Henry: And most craft breweries are in these sort of little industrial units, and the first thing you have to do when you arrive is take everything out. Henry: So you've got to take about 18 pallets worth of stuff out. Henry: And then we had to assemble the packaging line. Henry: And also, because I wasn't there on the Friday, we were relying on the fact that the brewers had carbonated the beer properly, that the beer was at the right temperature and all this sort of stuff. Henry: If they hadn't done that, we were in for a dreadful time. Henry: So I learned a lot from that, from that side of things. Henry: Also from Harvey's and Holtz, just a lot of old classic equipment. Henry: Harvey's is fascinating because they've got all sorts of things. Henry: They've got the two mash tons, two coppers. Henry: But rather than having an underback, they have this thing called valentines. Henry: I don't know if you've heard of them. Henry: They're like. Henry: I mean, this is incredible. Henry: So basically, it's a tube within a tube. Henry: So you've got an inner tube where basically, once you start, you've got this beautiful big brass key that you've got to open up the outlet from the mash ton into this valentine. Henry: And basically what happens is that the work goes up and out, so it's clear plastic around it, so it looks like some sort of. Henry: What's the word? Henry: Like some sort of lighthouse. Henry: And basically, the ingenious thing about it is. Henry: So it goes up and out and then into some what's called work receivers, which are basically like these open stainless steel baths, which kind of separate. Henry: Which kind of receive and hold the work while it's waiting to go into the boiler. Henry: Into the kettle, I should say. Henry: No, not even kettle. Henry: It's copper. Henry: It's really made out of copper there. Henry: Incredible. Henry: And then the fun thing about these valentines is that in a tube, you can lower it. Henry: So basically, as the work sort of starts draining out or whatever, or starts getting slower, you can just wheel it down and lower it. Henry: And so you can control the flow into the work receiver that, you know, you've got all that. Henry: And then, of course, at Harvey's, they've got open fermentation. Henry: So they've got the open squares, which is very exciting. Henry: And it was the same at Joseph Holtz. Henry: So, yeah, you got that side of things. Henry: And then at lanes, I was basically running two little brew pubs. Henry: One at the people's park tavern, it was on Victoria park, and then another one in Acton, which burned down. Henry: Nothing to do with me. Henry: I think they rebuilt it, but without the brew kit in it. Henry: So I was doing little five barrel kits where I was completely on my own, just brewing it, racking. Henry: Know, I'd come back on a Monday and hope some of it had sold. Henry: I've got to do some weird stuff towards the end there. Henry: I did my first ever sour beer. Rob (Host): Oh, wow. Henry: Where I went to Marks and Spencer's in Stratford and bought myself some lovely tights. Rob (Host): This is the usual brewer recommended way to do it. Henry: Well, it was back then, because it's amazing how quickly all this stuff has changed. Henry: Yeah. Henry: So this way of doing it is called the Ryan Mary Hugh method. Henry: He was the first head brewer at Siren american guy. Henry: So basically what you do is get your tights, don't wear them first. Henry: You got to have them fresh, unless you really want it. Henry: And then you put crushed malted barley in it, tie it up, and then just simply put it into your sterilized works that you boiled for 15 minutes and then cooled down through your heat exchanger back to about 40 degrees, and then leave it over the weekend. Henry: So when I came back in on the Monday or whenever it was, and you pull this thing out, oh, my God, the ph has dipped. Henry: But there's so much lactic acid, bacteria and stuff on the huskus of the barley that when I pulled it out, it was like some sort of sea creature. Henry: There was just this white gelatinous mass all over this, like, guy Fawkes type thing. Henry: And it did work. Henry: It was pretty crazy. Henry: But you sort of think, and then you. Henry: And then you boil the work again and to sterilize it again, I got to do some silly stuff there. Henry: My first commercial black ipa. Rob (Host): What year was that? Henry: So this is 2012, 2013. Henry: So I got to do stuff like that. Henry: And then I was at Fuller. Henry: So I went from working for myself to being in charge of a team of five or six people, brewers operators, ordering 120 tons of malt a week, doing the brewing book. Henry: We were doing 32 brews a week there. Henry: Or 32 guiles. Henry: Yeah. Henry: Crazy. Henry: I felt like the biggest impostor who had ever lived. Rob (Host): You obviously went from, I guess, smaller brewers like that. Rob (Host): You'd been at a family brewer at Harvey's. Rob (Host): What was it like then, going to a brewer like Fuller's? Rob (Host): And what did that bring in for your brewing journey? Henry: I think what's interesting about all this stuff is that when you're starting out, especially as I did in brewing later in life, so when I was at Herit, what, I was pretty much eight, nine, even ten years older than a lot of my fellow students. Henry: You sort of feel like you need to catch up pretty quick. Henry: So then when I got the job offer from Fullers, I was absolutely astonished. Henry: It's a bit like the game of life. Henry: You feel like you've done the lucky roll of the dice or the spin, and you've gone, know, literally brewing five barrels in the middle of nowhere to going into Fuller's. Henry: So that was a huge thrill. Henry: Obviously, the reality was very different from that. Henry: It was pretty intimidating. Henry: I think the interesting thing about family brewers is that they're very, very hierarchical in a way that other breweries just are especially craft breweries just aren't so there was quite a big class divide, should we say? Henry: I very quickly realized that you had to make friends and keep on side with the guys who had come up from the operator level and made their way up from there. Henry: What I used to call the ncos, the non commissioned officers because they were the ones who really knew how everything worked. Henry: And they were usually pretty grumpy and felt pretty unloved. Henry: But they were the ones, and still are actually the ones that keep the whole place running. Henry: But yes, as you can imagine, in a place where there's a family, it's a bit strange. Henry: It's a bit strange. Henry: There was definitely. Henry: Yes, it was odd. Henry: I think if you didn't talk proper you weren't going to get anywhere higher than where you were. Henry: And that's a real shame. Henry: But that's kind of how it was. Henry: I mean these breweries aren't quite as bad as they used to. Henry: To remember. Henry: My first ever beer of work experience was at know you'd call the family members Mr. Henry: Edward or Mr. Henry: Robert or Mr. Henry: Henry, you know, kind of weird, sort of deferential thing. Henry: So that side of it wasn't fun. Henry: But it was still an amazing time. Henry: We still had a great time on the whole. Henry: There were some grim moments. Henry: I mean I did make some hilarious mistakes. Henry: Well they weren't very hilarious at the time, but it's a big old kit. Henry: You're going from brewing five barrels so that's eight hex, 800 liters to like 1000 hectiliters. Henry: I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Rob (Host): Yeah, but they always say they're the learning experiences. Rob (Host): I guess when you do those and you probably don't forget them. Henry: My colleagues then would probably say that I kept making those mistakes, but at least used to. Henry: I still lived in Hackney for a while before I moved to Worthing. Henry: And yeah, when I was, I was doing early shifts for a year. Henry: Early and late shifts. Henry: So that's starting at 05:00 in the morning till one and then twelve till eight is the late shift. Henry: And to begin with, the first couple of months I was cycling in. Henry: So I was cycling from Hackney to Chiswick and it was the most incredible cycle. Henry: I was just cycling all the way along through east London, past St. Henry: Paul's, put down Fleet street, past Buckingham palace. Henry: It was kind of incredible, but it took me an hour and a half to 2 hours depending on how hungover I was. Henry: And I really hit the wall on Palmal. Henry: That was ridges, that long straight road, that's going nowhere. Henry: But then, fortunately for me, Uber launched in 2014. Henry: So it was fun doing it. Henry: I sort of did it in the summer, so I started in the 19 May 2014. Henry: I did it over the summer. Henry: But then, yeah, as soon as it started raining and stuff, I was just like, now I'm going to let Uber take the strain. Henry: Yeah. Rob (Host): Cycling is less fun at that point, isn't it? Henry: It is. Henry: Especially as my old boss, Georgina Young, who I owe so much to, she was, oh, it takes you an hour and a half. Henry: That's not very fast. Henry: Thanks, Joe. Henry: George. Rob (Host): I'm doing my best. Henry: Yeah, that's great. Rob (Host): And so what were you brewing at Fuller's when you started? Henry: Well, this is it. Henry: The first ever solo brew I did on my own was a strong mild. Henry: A strong x mild from 2000, from 1914. Henry: Wow. Henry: So that was done in August 2014. Henry: So that was released to commemorate the start of the first world War. Rob (Host): That feels like a very true to character Henry Brew. Henry: Yeah, well, just. Henry: What luck. Henry: Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. Henry: What luck. Henry: It's huge. Henry: Good fortune. Henry: Really tremendous. Henry: And yes, that was a. Henry: Oh, my God, I can't even remember what the ABV was now. Henry: It's been a long time since I've tried some, but, yeah, I think it was about seven and a half percent, sort of strong, pale, mild. Henry: So it was pale ale, malt, a lot of invert sugar, whole ibcs, thousand liters worth, pumped in loads of goldings. Henry: Yeah. Henry: And it was bottle condition, so it was a tremendous beer, really. Henry: And that was part of the brewers reserve sort of series that fullers were doing at the time. Henry: Another real slice of luck that John Keeling, the head brewer at that time, was a know, he was a real advocate for bringing back beers from the Fullers archives. Henry: So they employed Ron Pattinson, who's this famous beer blogger and a hero of mine, to decipher the old brewing books. Henry: So you imagine they keep at Fuller's back then, underneath what I used to call the queen mother's living room, which was this huge long room where the family used to entertain people. Henry: Underneath there you had the cellars. Henry: So in amongst all these jeroboams of champagne and all this sort of stuff, there would be all these brewing books. Henry: So you dig them out, usually they'd be covered in brick dust or whatever, and you'd open them up. Henry: As you can imagine, the further back you go in time, the more indecipherable the recipes come in and Ron would go in and go, especially with hops and things, there would be something, because back in the sort of victorian times they didn't have. Henry: Everyone will be shocked to hear they didn't have all these huge variety of different hops. Henry: They did have hops from America, they did use hops from Europe, they did use hops from the UK, obviously. Henry: So they've always been. Henry: In the victorian times, they had this huge market. Henry: New York hops were very popular in the UK, but it wasn't citra, it wasn't mosaic, it was like cluster or something like that. Rob (Host): And they're probably using them in the same way that we use english hops now. Rob (Host): So bittering to balance and maybe a little bit of aroma. Henry: No, you're exactly right. Henry: The vast majority of it would be at the start of boil and they would dry hop in the cask, in the hog's heads. Henry: But someone like Ron Patterson would sit down and he would look, because for us, there would be the farmers. Henry: They'd write down the names of. Henry: Not the hops themselves, it would be the farmers. Henry: And he would go, okay, yes, so there's that guy, that guy's name. Henry: Oh, and look, there's MK there. Henry: Yes. Henry: That means mid Kent. Henry: So if it was mid Kent, that means it would have been a fuggles rather than a golding. Henry: Say, apologies to Ron, if I'm getting this wrong, but it was that sort of thing. Henry: So this is electrifying stuff, seeing him do all this, working out with this know. Henry: So to be around that and be involved, I mean, they did a double stout that was really great, which was really popular, actually. Henry: They brewed it again. Henry: They all Burton extra, which was an incredible beer. Henry: I personally did a 19 nine pale ale, which was 9% and loads of invert sugar, just pale malt, golding, stuff like that. Henry: It was the brewers reserves and past masters. Henry: So the past masters was the main sort of bringing back resurrecting of old recipes from the fuller's archive. Henry: The past masters was more the barrel age kind of thing, where they would get. Henry: John Keeling, as you can imagine, has all these connections with all these various people. Henry: So we had all these various whiskeys and things, whiskey barrels that would come down and we'd age beer in it. Henry: Usually. Henry: The golden pride worked eight and a half percent for, like a year or two. Henry: So the barrels would be all over the brewery. Henry: They'd be like, stretching out and about in the packaging areas and stuff like that. Henry: And we'd think, oh, do we borrow it now? Henry: We'd be like, can we be bothered? Henry: Maybe we'll do it in the month or next year or something. Henry: That was a lot of fun, all that stuff. Henry: That was my first brew, the 1914 X. Rob (Host): And was that when you first got into older, more traditional styles of british beers, or had you had a view into that before? Henry: That's a good question. Henry: I don't think I was into it quite as much as I began to be into think. Henry: I think at Harvey's, they had their barley wine, which is their Elizabeth and ale. Henry: So I think that's a wonderful, wonderful beer. Henry: I'm not sure if they do it anymore. Henry: That was a sort of 8% barley wine kind of thing. Henry: Really wonderful beer. Henry: So I think that was the first stirrings. Henry: But I was mainly just sort of drinking ESB and London pride and sort of bitters rather than older stuff before. Henry: Yeah, I would say. Rob (Host): And you mentioned, like, Georgina and John, were they people that were really key to you kind of growing and developing as a brewer? Henry: Oh, 100%. Henry: I mean, God, I used to have terrible rouse with George. Henry: We used to argue about all sorts of things, and I'm sure she was justified in everything she said to me. Henry: But, yeah, I think, again, I was very fortunate that she hired me, really. Henry: And I think she really pushed for me to be hired. Henry: So I'm very grateful to her for that. Henry: And I'm also grateful to her for that, because I think she realized that I had a passion for brewing history and recipe development and stuff, and she really allowed me to do that compared to other stuff that I should have been good at, that I wasn't, like, plant maintenance or understanding exactly everything that was going on in the brew house, because I think because I went in as a management level, that was my job as a team leader, I didn't have. Henry: And the guy I was replacing, brendan Bray, the. Henry: The incredible Brendan Bray, who'd been there for 48 years. Henry: He joined when he was 14 and retired in 1966 and retired in 2014 when he was 62. Henry: Every time I see him, he just looks younger. Henry: Replacing that guy, but you cannot replace that guy. Henry: He was there when everything was installed. Henry: I mean, he was there. Henry: It's mind boggling. Henry: The bloke just knew everything. Henry: I remember I only had three months with him before he left, and we'd be talking about something. Henry: He's like, oh, yeah, I told them in 1978 that that wasn't going to a good idea to be there. Henry: And I was right. Henry: I didn't have a lot of time to really learn all the various processes that all the operators were doing. Henry: So I really leaned upon a lot of the guys there to do all the hard work. Henry: And George, rather than just getting rid of me, allowed me to sort of expand into coming up with new beers and what I was really passionate about. Henry: And in hindsight, I'm very, very grateful and fortunate to her that she saw that in me, I think. Rob (Host): Yeah, absolutely. Rob (Host): And were you involved in the prize old ale at Fuller's at the time? Rob (Host): The sort of first time that. Henry: No is the answer. Henry: So I joined in May 2014. Henry: So by then, I think they'd done their last bottle release, I think, in 2011. Henry: So by the time I rolled around, these 40 hectiliters in the tank room, in the maturation area that I've spoken about at length, had been undisturbed pretty much for like three years. Henry: But as part of all this past masters and all this stuff, I was like, well, look at this. Henry: Look at what we got down here, why don't we do that? Henry: But for whatever reason, poor sales and the fact it was a gale's beer, and at that time, 2014, sour beers are not the exciting, they're a scary, weird thing. Henry: Hazy ipas in 2014 was not a thing in the UK. Henry: It's amazing how much things have changed, even just in the past, looking back, five, six, seven years. Henry: So there was a lot of nervousness within Fuller. Henry: So it was a hard road to get it back and out there. Rob (Host): Absolutely. Rob (Host): And how did the opportunity come around to go back to Dark Star, back to the brewery that maybe started it all for you? Henry: So I went to, again, Herriot Watt connection. Henry: I went to Herit Watt with Andy Patterson, who's now at Lanamand and is now known as Lamandi. Henry: That's his name now, like Madonna or something. Henry: He just goes by the one name. Henry: And he had been at Dark Star, head brewer, Dark Star. Henry: And so this is towards the end of 2017. Henry: And he just sort of rings me up or messages me and saying, look, I'm leaving dark star. Henry: Are you interested? Henry: And by this point, I'd been living in Worthing, commuting up to London every day, which was a bit of a mission. Henry: And I'd loved Darkstar for a long, long, long time by then. Henry: So I sort of got in touch with Darkstar, and by this point, my wife was pregnant with our second child. Henry: And I was sort of thinking, I kind of need to be. Henry: As much as I love it at Fuller's and I love everybody there, I kind of need to be less than 2 hours away if something happens. Henry: So I applied and I went to see them and I got the feeling that things were in a bit of disarray. Henry: The brewery at that time ended 2017. Henry: It was packed with stuff. Henry: It was just like, I don't know, it was just. Henry: Yeah, I just got this. Henry: Maybe this is hindsight, but it seemed like something was up. Henry: Anyway, I didn't hear anything back from the guys at Dark Star, and so I thought, oh, they must have just hated me. Henry: That's fine. Henry: But then a few months later on, I'm brought in, Georgina wants to see me, and she comes into. Henry: I go into her office and she says, oh, well, Fullers are going to buy someone near you. Henry: Oh, who is it? Henry: It's got to be Darkstar, right? Henry: And she was like, yes, yes, it is. Henry: And we want you to go because they don't have a head brewer there, so we want you to go down there three days a week and help them out while the sale goes through. Henry: And I was like, oh, okay. Henry: Well, George, I just have to tell you that I had applied for the head brewer job there. Henry: And she was like, oh, so that's why they all know who you are? Henry: And I say, yes, okay. Henry: But then before I went there, I had to sign an NDA, a non disclosure agreement. Henry: So when I got there, I couldn't tell anyone why I was there. Henry: So I was there, and they're like, oh, you the new head brewer there then? Henry: And I was like, no. Henry: What are you doing here? Henry: I don't know. Henry: So I was there. Henry: I did that for about four or five months, I think. Henry: Possibly three or four months. Henry: Yeah, because the sale was announced. Henry: I think they announced the sale in April 2018, I think. Henry: Yeah. Henry: So I was there just basically brewing while the other two guys, the wonderful Alex Coolhard and Darryl Mills, just did everything else. Henry: So I got to brew at Dark Star. Henry: I got to make all this hop head, and they got to teach me. Henry: And again, learning a different know. Henry: But all the wonderful brewers who've operated on that know you got Andy. Henry: Andy. Henry: Andy Parker did his first when he won in the homebrew know. Henry: He brewed on it, his red ale there. Henry: Andy Patterson, of course. Henry: Jen Merrick, wonderful Jen Merrick, who's now at big smoke. Henry: So that was a real thrill. Henry: But it was a bit like, okay, no one knows about the sale apart from the senior dark star team and me, and I can't say anything, and obviously everyone knows something's up. Henry: And unfortunately, I was there when they told everybody, and I was told, just stay up on the platform, because at Dark Star, you had this big staircase that led up to the brew kit. Henry: They were like, just stay up here. Henry: And sort of 15 people got made redundant. Henry: I mean, they all got looked after. Henry: But it was still a very sad time, as these things always are. Henry: But I suppose my feeling was with the senior management there, they were just exhausted. Henry: Mark Trantor had left five years previously. Henry: Rob Jones, who was one of the original guys, he'd left at the similar time. Henry: He's got his pub, the amazing Duke of Wellington in Shoreham. Henry: And they were just knackered and they just needed to sell. Henry: And it's a very, very difficult market. Henry: And that's the thing with a lot of brewery purchases. Henry: It's very rare, except at the top level, that these things are a hostile takeover very, very much. Henry: People need to sell. Henry: They've come to the end of the road. Henry: And it was very sad for me personally because I was so excited about the idea of joining as a hebrewer of an independent dark star and carrying on that legacy. Henry: But then I went back to Fullers and then of course Asahi bought Fullers. Henry: That was announced in the January 2019. Henry: And we all thought that Dark Star would be shut by Asahi, but they didn't. Henry: And Asahi wanted me to go there, invested in Dark Star. Henry: So they put in a new external work boiler, they installed a sip set, stuff like that. Henry: And I was like, wow, okay, they're investing. Henry: This is wonderful news. Henry: So I took them up on their offer and I became head brewer of Darkstar, albeit in very, very strange circumstances. Henry: I was there for three and a half years. Rob (Host): When you were there as head brewer, were there any kind of things that you had to bring in? Rob (Host): You talked about it maybe being quite busy and in disarray. Rob (Host): What did you have to do to do that? Rob (Host): Or had that been done? Henry: No, we had. Henry: It was. Henry: It was pretty much ground zero. Henry: So there was a gentleman there called Duncan who's still with know. Henry: He was basically like the last man standing. Henry: He'd had a battlefield, several battlefield promotions. Henry: He'd gone from sort of sales administrator to basically taking care of all of the Asahi administration. Henry: All that frightening, know that SAP and all those sort of systems. Henry: He was incredible at that. Henry: I was again, incredibly lucky in that our operations manager was a gentleman called John Marston who joined a couple of a few months after me. Henry: He's ex Carlsberg, so again, he's one of these guys. Henry: He's non commissioned officers. Henry: He'd started at Carlsburg when he was 18 and worked his way up. Henry: So he was running the canning lines. Henry: Really sharp guy, really lovely guy. Henry: They were doing a million cans in 48 hours. Henry: So he saw the dog style canning line and this was like going from a Formula one garage to like, fisher Price. Henry: This is crazy. Henry: Of course, coming from Carlsburg, he's big in the five s, big into all those six sigma. Henry: All that stuff really ingrained into him. Henry: So, yeah, together and with the sort of new team that we had to assemble, we tied it up basically. Henry: That's what we did also because the kit had been really. Henry: So they were there in Partridge Green 2009. Henry: They really, what we call in the industry, sweated that kit. Henry: So we spent a lot of time fixing stuff. Henry: So trying to sort out the louter ton, which eventually we could never get it sorted. Henry: Sorting out the mash mixer, it needed a new motor. Henry: Replacing the heat exchanger, sorting out the canning line. Henry: There was lots of stuff that we had to do to just try and fix it. Henry: And then also really, we had to try and rebuild Dark Star as a brand because I think the two sales had first to Fuller's and then to assahead, sort of affected how people view it because brewing is very emotional or beers are very emotional. Henry: You can't have people's loyalty and then expect them just to be fine when things change. Henry: So there was enormous amount of backlash against the sale to Fullers and then further when Asahi took over. Henry: So that was difficult to navigate. Henry: And I can understand it because that's how I felt about Dark Star. Henry: I remember ten years ago someone saying to me, craft beer is like indie music. Henry: And I think it's very interesting to me that a lot of craft breweries, if they're successful, have a similar lifespan to dark star in that sort of 25 year lifespan, because you get your fans, as you can imagine in 1994 in Dark Star when they started pumping out hop head. Henry: And in a land of bitters, I'd have loved it back then, but in a land of bitters, they were doing this really uncompromisingly bitter hoppy pale ale with this amazing american cascade hops coming through. Henry: And that would have electrified the scene, right? Henry: And so you'd have all those fans and they'd come with you. Henry: But then, like the fans of one Direction or girls allowed or whatever, they sort of grow up. Henry: But I suppose at least with beer, people sort of stay with you a bit longer, but they are older and you're going to get the new guys coming through. Henry: But people are going to have that emotional attachment because so much of it, as I just said at the start of this, the Prince Albert, that's my memories of dark star, of me being a young, carefree moron turning up there. Henry: I mean, I remember they had an Australia day thing where you could eat, like, crocodile and ostriches, and they were selling Foster's rattlers for a quid, and I turned up in my dressing gown. Henry: But then after I'd had too many of the foster's rattlers, I was like, I need a proper drink. Henry: So I started drinking hop. Henry: You have all these memories, so it's not a surprise, but it's good. Rob (Host): Does the dressing gown come out much these days? Henry: Unfortunately, it's no longer. Henry: It's too thread bear. Rob (Host): I think that's an amazing analogy, though, about craft beer. Rob (Host): And it has its moment, doesn't it? Rob (Host): With its fans at the time? Rob (Host): But the craft beer scene moved so quickly. Rob (Host): But maybe there's hope then that in 2030 years time, we have the comeback tour. Henry: Yeah, I think you're starting to see this, actually, a lot of the older guys, I mean, I'm 40. Henry: A lot of these older guys, I'm very involved in our local camera branch here. Henry: A lot of the older guys there, they're big into their hoppy, hazy, pale ales. Henry: And it's people my age and actually a lot younger, who are really reevaluating and interested in the older stuff, much to the amazement and astonishment of the older generation. Henry: A lot of whom, I mean, I've heard a lot of people say, look, if keg beer was as good in the 70s as it is now, there may not have been a campaign for real ale. Henry: Yes. Henry: So it's a funny one. Henry: You always rebel against what the previous generation did. Henry: You always want to forge your own path? Henry: Well, you should do, I suppose, but, yeah, I think you do just have a lifespan, I guess. Rob (Host): Absolutely, yeah. Henry: Everything's a cycle from spring to winter. Henry: It's the circle of life. Henry: Inescapable. Rob (Host): That's why we're back with flares and things at the moment. Henry: Oh, thank God. Rob (Host): Which, for the listeners at home, that's what we're both wearing right now. Henry: And platform shoes. Rob (Host): What would you say is your brewing philosophy and approach? Henry: My brewing philosophy is that basically, time is the most precious and indispensable ingredient of all. Henry: I'm sorry, everyone, if that sounds really pretentious, but I think that's what I've really learned with the prize old ale thing, is that letting beers mature and you can get depths of flavor that I think are really interesting and powerful. Henry: My reason for thinking that is I've been lucky enough to go to Rodenbach, which is one of my favorite breweries. Henry: And it really is an extraordinary place. Henry: I mean, I don't know how much you know about it. Henry: Well, it was set up by Alexander Rodenbach. Henry: He was a doctor, so it was set up in the 1820s or something to make alcohol for medical purposes. Henry: So it wasn't even set up to be a brewery, but you had to brew to create the stuff. Henry: So at Green King, they talk about their strong suffolk beer, this sort of aged beer, like, you know, but that's a hostage situation as far as I'm concerned, because they've got this incredible beer, but they don't really do anything with it. Henry: Imagine having wooden fats almost as far as the eye could see. Henry: The Rodenbach recipe, beer recipe is actually pretty boring, from what I understand. Henry: It's like Pilsner malt and a bit of maize and some german hops. Henry: There's nothing exciting about it. Henry: And the head brewer even says that to you when you do the tour. Henry: But there's 30, I think, 30 cellars full of all these wooden vats where the beer is maturing. Henry: Whoa. Henry: And then the Rona background crew is a blend of 18 month old stuff with fresh stuff and all this sort of. Henry: I mean, that kind of thing is thrilling. Henry: And what makes it really amazing is that in which in each cellar, there's a different smell. Henry: You're getting different esters, you're getting different, like, sometimes it'll smell like apples, sometimes it'll smell like paint emulsion, sometimes it'll smell a bit sort of almost diacetali, almost sweet, and you're just like, wow, this is a real level of flavor that. Henry: Of course, commercially, you can't do this. Henry: Asahi can't suddenly be like, we're only exclusively releasing these kind of beers. Henry: It's not going to work in a beer format because it's not the sales for it. Henry: But we live in puritanical times in that everyone is very against alcohol, for whatever reason. Henry: I'm sure it's all justified, but everything is. Henry: I remember when we launched prizehold ale at the Harp, a lot of the Asahi guys were there and all they could talk about was the fact that Asahi Zero was about to be launched. Henry: And I was just like, really? Henry: And I'm not against nonalcoholic drinks. Henry: I think if it gets people drinking in pubs, I don't care what people drink in pubs. Henry: It doesn't matter to me. Henry: I don't want everyone to be drinking solely 9% ales. Henry: I just think that it's important that we recognize that not only does alcohol act as a social lubricant. Henry: It's also that sort of really vital midsection in flavor that really just lifts all the various elements within a beer and can really take it to new heights if done well, if fermented properly. Henry: We don't want any of that heat. Henry: We don't want any of those shifusal alcohols. Henry: But when you have a beer, a strong beer, that's been matured for a long time, correctly, it's a really beautiful thing. Henry: And that, for me, ultimately, is the mystery of it all, is where that flavor is going to, how it's going to turn out. Rob (Host): And in some ways, we're not in charge of that. Rob (Host): We can have some ideas about where we want to go or what we did last time, but the beer is going to go where the beer wants to go. Henry: Yeah, exactly. Henry: Yeah. Henry: 100%. Rob (Host): I think it's interesting as well, that dual trend about, on one hand, 0% is hugely popular and people wanting to have that moderate. Rob (Host): But I do also think there's people who do want the good stuff. Henry: That's what I'm hoping from my business. Rob (Host): Henry's crossing his fingers there and praying. Rob (Host): And that thing around time is really important as well, isn't it? Rob (Host): Because you can make a beer quickly, it doesn't necessarily mean you should. Henry: Yes, exactly. Henry: And I think with cas beer, because there's such a low entry to it, it's quite cheap and easy to produce caspier. Henry: Not saying good casp beer, but to produce caspier, people can just chuck out 3.54% cask beer and just be like, yeah, have some of that. Henry: And a lot of it is not good. Henry: And, yeah, you need to respect the process sometimes, I would say. Henry: I mean, it's very easy to feel, I think, as a modern brewer, that you're just an assembler rather than a brewer. Henry: You're just sort of getting your molt, getting your hops yeast out of a packet. Henry: We're all brewing in the same store of equipment. Henry: We're all brewing in 45 degree cylindrical conicals. Henry: I think beer is more fascinating than that, and I think it's more at hand. Henry: We get a lot of e casks in. Henry: So ecasks and kegs are like where it's this company where you sign up for it, and you just get these kegs from everybody. Henry: They've got the yellow bands. Henry: So what you find is you get stickers on them. Henry: When I'm keg cleaning, clean the kegs, you get these stickers of all the various breweries so there'll be. Henry: Cloudwater would have used it, maybe, or verdant, you may have used it, or westerum or whatever, and you sort of see the ingredients and then sort of day in, day out, I'm cleaning these ecasks e kegs, so then we can then fill them ourselves. Henry: And you just sort of think, I mean, this is groundhog day, you know what I mean? Henry: I'm just seeing the same type of beers over and over again. Henry: I'm drowning in 4% pale ales. Henry: And I can understand why that's the market, because they're runner beers and people like hops. Henry: But for me personally, that's sort of the last thing I want to do. Henry: And if I'm able, with sunken nave, to create my own beers, I don't want to compromise on that. Henry: Even if it means I only produce about three or four beers a year to begin with, is my view. Henry: And I think the cultural thing is important. Henry: You go to Belgium and they still have these amazing legacies of these flemish reds, brune and lambix and all that sort of stuff. Henry: And their culture there is to drink bottles of eight, 9%, the abbey beers, the Trappists. Henry: And that's great over here. Henry: Our culture and people like Martin Cornell and Ron Patterson have written about this at length. Henry: Our culture is lower strength beers, is the milds, is the bitters, is the ipas or whatever. Henry: At four, when you're working in cask beer, try selling a cas beer that's 4.7. Henry: I mean, it's crazy. Henry: That zone from 3.9 to 4.7 is like the Grand Canyon. Henry: I mean, it is unassailable. Henry: It's massive, even though it's only 0.8% alcohol. Henry: And the culture over here is pale and hoppy beers. Henry: And that's something that obviously I respect, and that's also a great thing. Henry: So I'm not totally dismissive of that. Henry: I'm just in the incredibly entitled position of being able to hopefully have an opportunity to sort of produce beers that really interest me in that way. Henry: And they are the matured beers. Henry: They are the. Henry: And they won't necessarily be matured for eleven years like the prize old ale with. Henry: I'm talking maybe like three months or six months or a year. Henry: Or when you want to try and make these beers, you have to get. Henry: It's a bit like the sort of malt whiskey, single malt whiskey. Henry: You've all got to get into traction. Henry: You got to build up your body, your barrel store and things like that at the moment I don't have anywhere to store it. Henry: So that's part of the fun of trying to get this sunken, nave thing off the ground, is I'm lucky enough that I'll be able to brew at hand and use their wonderful gravity kit that they've got there. Henry: I've got a tank there, a 22 hectiliter tank there, but then once I package it, I have to get it off site because they haven't got any space. Henry: So that immediately brings you into play. Henry: I have to set up my own bonded warehouse somewhere. Henry: I have to transport all this stuff so I can see why people do 4% pale ales. Henry: Trying to do this stuff is a bit ridiculous, but if I don't do it now, when it'd be great to. Rob (Host): Hear about prize old ale, go back to the start. Rob (Host): So how on earth did you find out about prize old ale and how did you go about bringing it back to life? Henry: Well, so Fullers bought George Gale's brewery in Horndine, which is in Hampshire, in 2006. Henry: And John Keeling, the head brewer, Fullers, decided that he wanted to ship all the prize old ale, which, as you can imagine, is this 9% strong matured beer. Henry: All that remained at Gale's to Fullers. Henry: And then they also took a brewer there. Henry: So a gentleman by named Anthony Smith, who's still at Fullers, he's in charge of the sort of maturation zone of fullers. Henry: He was a brewer there. Henry: He'd just started. Henry: I think he was there for about 18 months or two years. Henry: He left when Gale shut. Henry: He then moved to Fullers, and he was my colleague, so I was team leader of the brew house. Henry: He was team leader on the cold side. Henry: And so he would just tell me about old ale and how it was brewed, and I fell in love with the romance of it. Rob (Host): And for those that don't know, what's the history of Brisole ale? Henry: So bright old ale is Gales Brewery, classic southern english family brewery, full of starting 1845, gales in 1847. Henry: So in the 1920s, they needed a new head brewer, and they got one from Yorkshire. Henry: So he bought with him a recipe for this prizehold ale. Henry: So the prizehold ale itself is based on a beer. Henry: Well, it's a very loose style called a stingo. Henry: So a stingo, as a history goes back hundreds and hundreds of years, and it goes back to the time when there was lots of brewing. Henry: Every sort of big manor house would have its own brewery, and a lot of the lords of the manor would get into competition with each other to see which was the strongest beer they could brew. Henry: So these guys could net. Henry: So it's a little bit like the Mars and Oktoberfest kind of thing in Germany, because it was too hot to brew in the summer, they would either brew it in March or October, and they would mature it for at least a. Henry: So a stingo is basically a very strong alcohol, highly hopped, heavily hopped beer that has been matured in wood. Henry: That is it. Henry: So, of course, depending on what the guy was, the lord of the manor was growing, you could have had all sorts of stuff in there. Henry: It could have been barley, as well as wheat, as well as oats or whatever. Henry: Normally, these type of beers, there was a big tradition that carried on for a long time of majority ales. Henry: So when the lord of the manor had a son, he would brew a bit, he'd get his serfs or whatever, his servants, to brew a really strong beer. Henry: I'm talking as strong as they could make it, 15%, 16%, hop it with everything they had, and then it would mature until the young lord reached 18. Henry: The boil times for these beers would have been immense. Henry: Two, 3 hours, 4 hours, possibly. Henry: They'd have just get. Henry: And again, it would have been cauldrons, pretty much. Henry: So open flames. Henry: They'd have just been keep chucking the wood in underneath. Henry: Boil, boil, boil. Henry: So you'd been getting a lot of caramelization stuff, and the millieard reaction, the darkening of the beer. Henry: So these beers would have been quite dark to get that alcohol, and then they'd have let it mature for 18 years. Henry: Again, sadly, my business model can't. Henry: No one's going to give me money for beer that will be released in 18 years time. Henry: Anyone out there? Henry: That's how they started. Henry: You've got barley wines and things like this. Henry: I think this is slightly different in terms of de aging, because you can have barley wines that are reasonably sort of fresh, not quite aged quite as long, a little bit lower in alcohol. Henry: So this gentleman, I forget his name, brought the recipe for prize old ale to Horndine, and they brewed it continuously until 2006. Henry: So that's 86 years or something. Henry: They were brewing it. Henry: I was very lucky enough to be invited to this beer festival in Amsterdam called Bret Fest, and give a talk about prize old ale. Henry: And as you can imagine, they really wanted me to talk about the character, which it was pretty wild. Henry: They had some things in there. Henry: There was some acetabactor, there was some bretonomyces, there was stuff like this. Henry: And they really wanted me to say that the batch I'd brewed was full of Bretanamyces, was full of all this stuff. Henry: And unfortunately, because the prize old ale itself had been at Fuller's, had been in tanks so long, the beer had gone from 9% to 11%, and a lot of all the bugs and everything had just sort of killed over and died. Henry: So there wasn't actually a lot of stuff in there left. Henry: But the really important thing to remember about all those exciting microbes and all that stuff is that these english brewers weren't doing it intentionally. Henry: You had Dr. Henry: Hansen in Carlsburg. Henry: He was the one, or was it Hansen? Henry: It was one of his assistants. Henry: He was the one who found the Bretanamyces, the british fungus that these victorian brewers, these Bretanamices stuff, these wild yeasts, were living in the wood of the barrels. Henry: They were living in the breweries themselves, at least to begin with. Henry: They were not inoculating this stuff intentionally. Henry: They learned how to do that. Henry: And certainly after the second world war, there were a few breweries. Henry: Colne Spring ale by Ben skins is a really good example of where they brewed clean. Henry: After they found out all this stuff, they were like, oh, we can't have all this stuff here. Henry: We need to get regimented. Henry: So they started fermenting clean and drinking the beers, these strong beers, and going, oh, something's missing. Henry: So then people like Benskins were like, let's control this. Henry: So then they a bit like orval does, they inoculated Britanniamyces to get that flavor back again. Henry: Choose your Bret descriptors, if you will, because people always get upset, know, horse blanket is mentioned or leather or that kind of. Henry: Again, exactly. Henry: It's these deep flavors that are really, I find so fascinating and so difficult to describe. Henry: So, yeah, prize old ale gales had a huge infection problem. Henry: They had great brewers, but they had old kit. Henry: There was all sorts of stuff that it was just picking up. Henry: So they were rough filtering all their beer, even their cast beer, because they had to, because of infection problems, whereas the prize old ale was not. Henry: So what's fascinating is that with the prize old ale, it was matured in wood. Henry: It was in a copper lined wooden washback for two weeks before it was then sent over to be matured in wooden hogsheads for a year before it was then bottled into 275 mil bottles and corked. Henry: And the quality was really starting to dip towards the end of gails's time. Henry: Yeah, a typical tale. Henry: As old as time. Henry: They were spending all their money on the pubs rather than the brewery. Henry: So the brewery was sort of collapsing a bit. Henry: We're not collapsing, but they weren't upgrading. Henry: It was maturing in wood. Henry: But then when it went to fullers, they then put it all in steel tanks, stainless steel tanks, and then brewed up a batch of Gale's prize old ale at Fullers and then blended it all together. Henry: So to quote Tyson Fury, this prize old ale that's about to be released by Asahi on the 16 November or has already been released, that is a lineal blend of all of that stuff. Henry: Because that's what they were doing at Gale's. Henry: They were blending in older batches of prize old ale with this newer stuff that they were making, maturing it for a year and then releasing it. Rob (Host): So kind of like a. Henry: My. Henry: That's my understanding of what they were doing at Gales. Henry: Maybe that's certainly what they were doing at fullers. Henry: That's certainly what they were doing at Fullers. Henry: I've been led to believe that they were blending as well at Gales. Henry: If I'm wrong, Derek Lowe, Anthony Smith, Moira Williams, please tell me. Henry: But yeah, that's certainly what they were doing at fullers. Henry: And so you have this tremendous legacy that's going back 86 years. Henry: To go back to the beginning of your question so many years ago now it feels like I just fell in love with the romance of it. Henry: Anthony Smith was telling me how it was a victorian tower brewery there in Horndin, and they had their old copper and they only used it for prize old ale. Henry: So they would boil it for 3 hours in there and then there were sort of holes in it and stuff like that. Henry: And so work would sort of come dripping down and all this sort of stuff. Henry: And then, as I say, you got the wooden washbacks, you got the hog's heads, and you got that flavor. Henry: I was just entranced by it. Henry: And the fact that it was just alone down there, unloved in that tank at Fuller's, I thought was a travesty because tasting it, having already loved running background crew, is one of my favorite. Henry: It's my favorite beer of all time. Henry: I was just like, wow, this is tasting similar, but also softer and a bit more toffee and things like then. Henry: And then I got talking to. Henry: I was lucky enough to meet Bret Ellis from Wild Beer Co. Henry: Formerly. Henry: And he knew all about prize Odale and he loved it. Henry: And Bret is incredibly talented californian brewer. Henry: He was a chef and he moved into brewing. Henry: I mean, he first caught my attention because world Beer Co's first beer was modus operandi, which was a blooming old ale. Henry: Yeah. Henry: Lovely matured barrel, age old ale. Henry: So as soon as I saw that, I think that was 2013. Henry: As soon as I heard about that, I was like, these guys are incredible. Henry: Get out of my head. Henry: Get out of my dreams and into my glass. Henry: I knew those guys and they knew all about prize old ale. Henry: And so we came up with a plan, this is 2015, I think 2016 that we would brew a batch at Fuller's and then blend it together with what we had, the original stuff and then get it tankered to Somerset while Wild Beer Co. Henry: Was. Henry: And they would take on that wooden hogshead idea and we would blend it in a variety of different barrels and stuff like that. Henry: And unfortunately, that never happened. Henry: That never came to fruition. Henry: But having them on board really helped me get the conversation started with Fullers about getting it, about releasing it and also planted in my mind the idea of the. Henry: So, you know, I have Bret Ellis's genius to thank for that. Henry: For sort of helping me on my way with then and know things happened with Fuller's and it sort of slid off the radar despite me periodically saying, can we do this? Henry: Why don't we release this, this prize all day? Henry: I'll. Henry: Bill will really like it. Henry: I mean, then Fullers have got vintage ale, which is their big release. Henry: And they had the Passmasters. Henry: I suppose it was too crowded at that time. Henry: So fast forward to when now I'm at Dark Star. Henry: I'm still pining after prize old ale which I've left behind in Chisig. Henry: And then I hear that they want to get rid of the tanker that it's in because it's right by the maturation sip set and put because they want a water tank. Henry: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Henry: No. Henry: So talking to guy Stewart, who's the boss, the brewery manager there, he very kindly agreed to pay for the tankering of it from Fuller's to Darkstaff. Henry: So I'm there and I put it in a tank. Henry: So I'm now finally got my baby home. Henry: Nobody leaves prize old ale in the corner. Henry: So I've got it. Henry: And so this is. Henry: When was this? Henry: This was sort of. Henry: It was some point in 2020 some point, I think just before COVID I had it. Henry: And then obviously Covid happened and that killed everything. Henry: All plans for a while. Henry: I then made the mistake of talking to Asahi and sort of saying, look, I need 15,000 pounds for a wooden washback. Henry: If we're going to do this, we need to maximize the complexity we need to really go for it. Henry: And of course, Asahi, being a normal company, was like, whoa, what? Henry: No, absolutely not. Henry: What are you talking about? Henry: I said. Henry: But the complexity and that basically my mistake kicked it the plan into touch for another 18 months. Henry: And slowly, after whispering to them and calming them down for a while, I managed to say, look, sorry about the whole wooden washback thing. Henry: That was me shooting for the moon. Henry: And I ended up in a black hole. Henry: We'll just do in stainless steel. Henry: Just let me brew it. Henry: It's a cheap beer for you guys to make. Henry: There's no seriously expensive hops. Henry: Just let me do it and I'll blend the two together and I'll bottle it by hand myself. Henry: And it's low risk, okay? Henry: We're only talking. Henry: I've got 4000 liters already of the original stuff. Henry: I'll make another 4000 liters. Henry: It's not a lot of beer. Henry: It's low risk. Henry: So they agreed. Henry: And then. Henry: So Anthony Smith had been helping me throughout all of this stuff, giving me all this information. Henry: He truly is the mvp of this whole story. Henry: Really him rather than me. Henry: He came down for the brew. Henry: I was also joined by my dear friend Jamil Zenishev, who at Fullers I did a 260 hectiliter sour with BlackBerry sour, which was incredible. Henry: I'd done that a few years before. Henry: And so we and our friend Neil spake as well, who's a great home brewer from Texas. Henry: And we did the brew in April, in April 2022. Henry: So that was a seriously emotional day. Henry: So Anthony brought down the gales yeast from fullers, and as you can, they were in 25 liter blue drums. Henry: As you can imagine, they were really expanding in the heat. Henry: So when I opened them up, it was very wild. Henry: So we did the beer. Henry: We whacked in. Henry: So the beer itself is very simple. Henry: It's parallel malt. Henry: I chose Marisotta. Henry: That isn't what they use back then. Henry: But I was like, look, if I've got one. Henry: As I rightly predicted, I was only going to get one shot at this. Henry: So I went for the marisotta. Henry: I went for that really beautiful top of the range barley, torrified wheat and black molt. Henry: That's it from the grist. Henry: And then hops. Henry: It was goldings and fuggles. Henry: A lot of goldings and fuggles at the start. Henry: It was interesting because it's the dark star. Henry: They had a four vessel sort of continental system. Henry: So you had the mash mixer allowed a ton and a separate copper and whirlpool. Henry: And I wasn't allowed to use holcomb hops because we couldn't in our kettle. Henry: So I had to use type 90 pellets, I should say. Henry: You get different hop utilizations there and stuff. Henry: So I had to try. Henry: I knew I had the specs there. Henry: In terms of the bittering units, the bittering was about 45. Henry: So I couldn't do what I wanted to do, which is just basically whack loads of hops in at the start because that's kind of what these beers do. Henry: They whack all the hops in at the start and that's it. Henry: There's no citra or mosaic charge at 75 degrees celsius and all that sort of stuff. Henry: No dry hopping or anything like that. Henry: We did whack in a quarter ton of invert sugar, so we had the blocks, so we whacked those in to add a bit of flavor and color and also, obviously, get the extract up. Henry: I got told off on Twitter because, as people quite rightly said at Gale's, they used glucose, so glucose is a more sort know it's a different sugar to invert sugar, so the yeast ferments it in a different way. Henry: So people were very dismissive of my large s, my love of invert. Henry: And then that was it. Henry: We only did a two hour boil. Henry: So we only needed a two hour boil to get up to an og of 92, put in the fermenter, aerated it, because we were using liquid yeast rather than dried. Henry: And then the next day I aerated it again and it fermented really quick in about sort of 48 hours, really. Henry: It went. Henry: And then I left it in that tank. Henry: I used to did it off and all that sort of stuff. Henry: Left it in the tank for a while and then I blended it. Henry: So if we brewed it in the April, I blended it together in the may, the two tanks. Henry: And as you can imagine, that felt like blasphemy. Henry: As I've said in other places, that was a very nervous moment. Henry: You've got this incredible beer that's already going back to 1920s. Henry: And plus it's been maturing by this point, pretty much undisturbed for about eleven years. Henry: And you're blending the two together. Henry: And then we left it for six months. Henry: And then. Henry: Yeah, then we had the launch at the harp. Henry: And then, unfortunately, the day before we were due to launch it in bottle, we were told that the Sahi was shutting the partridge in sight. Henry: So unfortunately we had to delay the launch. Henry: And then we were in this very weird situation where we were just trying to bottle as much as we could before everyone was let go, apart from me at Christmas. Henry: So. Henry: Yeah, so we didn't release quite as much as we wanted to. Henry: But I think it was about 3000 bottles, 3500 liter bottles all waxed by my fair hand. Henry: I found it very, very soothing. Henry: The gold wax. Henry: It's something I'll carry on. Henry: You can't see this, but I've got a tremendous sort of figure of eight, kind of. Henry: I'll do a YouTube video about how I do it. Henry: It was wonderful, but it was still great. Henry: And it was just such a relief, I think, to taste it and discover that it wasn't horrible. Henry: I hadn't totally messed it up. Henry: So. Henry: Yeah, so it was just a very funny time, really. Henry: I sort of achieved this dream that I'd been trying to do for. Henry: I mean, think about. Henry: It's not even seven years, eight years. Henry: And I got it done. Henry: And then I had the launch at the heart pub which is this incredible pub in Covent Garden. Henry: Really one of the best. Henry: It's the fullest pub now, but it's still a wonderful, wonderful caspier pub. Henry: One of the best in the world. Henry: I had to launch it there was amazing. Henry: My mum was there. Henry: All these. Henry: Desta Moore was there. Henry: I mean, all these great John Porter. Henry: All these wonderful people. Henry: And then, as I say. Henry: So I reached my height of my pomp. Henry: I was a man in full. Henry: And then the next week, literally the next week they'd announced they were shutting and we were all to be pretty much made redundant. Henry: So that was a crashing fall from grace. Henry: But that's life, as I say. Rob (Host): Yeah, as you say. Rob (Host): It's a huge contrast there between the high and the low. Henry: High and the low. Henry: Yeah. Henry: And of know had their. Henry: You know. Henry: I don't want to badmouth them too much. Rob (Host): It's fair to say you had a critical reception when it was. Henry: I mean, it was wonderful, really. Henry: I got to know Roger prots a bit and talk to him. Henry: So he's a legendary beer writer. Henry: He was very, very supportive also. Henry: I mean, the main man really is Martin Cornell, who's helped with. Henry: I mean, you were saying you've read his article that he's just released. Henry: He did a lot of help. Henry: He really helped me get it off the ground pro bono. Henry: He wrote a report on prize old ale and why it was so important. Henry: And that was really crucial. Henry: Handing that over to the marketing team at Esahi. Henry: That really helped impress upon them the importance of this beer. Henry: And I think the fact that someone of the stature of Martin Cornell was involved, I think really helped. Henry: So, yeah, it was beer of the week in the Daily Star. Henry: Adam Adrian Tierney Jones. Henry: I need to get that framed. Henry: I've still got it. Henry: From a personal, selfish point of view, it was great for my profile, great for my future project. Henry: It's just very sad that it's come at the cost of sort of losing my dream job and working with a great team of people. Henry: But as I say, it's business. Rob (Host): But I think it's an example of gails standing on the shoulders of all the brewers that went before you, adding on to that long line that's gone since the 1920s. Henry: Exactly. Henry: I'm part of the history now. Henry: I'm part of the fabric. Henry: Genuinely, I'm really thrilled that Asahi have carried it on and I think that's a testament to them. Henry: And I know Sven, who's the lead brewer, and I'm sure he's going to do a great job and I'll certainly be buying a case of it when it's released. Henry: I wish them all the best in that regard and hopefully sales are good and it becomes a yearly release. Henry: That's ultimately the greatest victory and success of this whole project that I could hope for, really. Henry: So fingers crossed. Rob (Host): Absolutely. Rob (Host): And what it says is, I think there's so many chance moments when that beer could have gone and disappeared and become a line in a history book, but there were chance decisions, there's some really good decisions, and then there's been some real determination to get that beer along. Rob (Host): And without all of those things, you wouldn't end up with any of the beers being released there and being enjoyed by people. Henry: Yeah, exactly. Henry: And know, and as I say, a h*** of a lot of people worked very hard to help me know. Henry: John Keeling deserves a lot of praise. Henry: And as I say, anthony Smith provided a huge amount of the technical know how and stuff. Henry: Like mean, I like to think that I was. Henry: To mean, I'd like to think without my driving crazy enthusiasm for this thing, it wouldn't have got off the ground. Henry: My relentless calling of people. Henry: I grudgingly accept my share of the praise and what a wonderful project to be involved with. Henry: What a really fortunate that people didn't care about prize old ale and they let me pick up the bat on it. Rob (Host): And you've shown it's an ale worth caring about. Henry: Yeah, definitely. Henry: Because it's so different from vintage ales that fullers do. Henry: And again, talking about the strong Suffolk, that green King do a personal, as I say, a hostage, as I call know that's a great beer. Henry: That's not really made that much of and hopefully what I really hope is that people see the success of prize old ale and a lot of these family brewers dig up their old recipes and start doing again. Henry: I've got a friend of mine at a brewery up north, I won't mention it until it's actually released, but he's managed to convince his bosses to do a stock ale in this site. Henry: So this time next year, Rodney, we'll all be drinking 9% and we'll just be like, why did we never do this? Henry: Just as long as it's not in pints. Rob (Host): So on to pastures new now for you, Henry, and you've got a couple of projects on the go at once. Rob (Host): Never want to take things lightly, but you're working at Handbrew as a brewer and you're also starting off your own project, brewery sunken nave. Rob (Host): And can you tell us a little bit about both of those? Henry: Sure. Henry: So, yes, I'm very lucky to be at Handbrooko, so the brewery is very close to my house, which is great. Henry: There's a big tick, always be. Henry: I can walk there or if it's raining, get a know lazy like. Henry: So Han Bruco is owned by a gentleman called Jack Tavare. Henry: I may be getting his surname wrong. Henry: I think everyone pronounces it differently. Henry: So he's a young guy, I've known him for a long time, he's a lovely guy. Henry: He started off, I think he trained at the brew lab up in Sunderland, so that's how he got into it. Henry: And then he's been a picture in the Brighton brewing scene. Henry: So he was brewing at the hand in hand Brew pub in Brighton, in the Kemptown area of Brighton. Henry: If people have never been really go. Henry: It is an amazing pub. Henry: Rob, you were saying off air that it holds a special place in your heart as well. Henry: It's a great part of town and it's a great pub and that's sort of where hand Bruco started and he's built up the business to such an extent that they've now got a brewery in an industrial state in Worthing, near West Worthing station, which is a lot bigger. Henry: And so that's where I work and I'm working under the auspices of the head brewer there, Kate Hyde, who's been the head brewer there, I think, since they moved to Worthing, so that's three years. Henry: So she's great and loves a lot of really strange beers like me, so that's good. Henry: And also, for my own career, it's great to work there because it really is a really sort of upfront craft brewery. Henry: So they're doing a lot of long. Henry: My career has sort of been very cask focused. Henry: I was lucky at Fuller's because it was a massive place that I was only in the brew house. Henry: Once it got into the fermenter, I didn't care about it anymore. Henry: It wasn't my problem. Henry: It was Anthony Smith's problem. Henry: I certainly didn't have to do any packaging, which, as we all know, is the worst bit of brewing, whether you're home brewing or whatever you're doing. Henry: But now I'm back to being a brewer. Henry: These guys are very craft focused. Henry: So what that means is that I don't have my trillions of little friends, my trillions of foot soldiers, namely my little yeasts. Henry: When you work in a cask brewery, yeast does everything for you. Henry: It makes the beer. Henry: If you're making cask beer, it carbonates it for you. Henry: It scrubs oxygen out. Henry: I love all those little guys. Henry: It doesn't stop me getting rid of them every brew, but I still appreciate them. Henry: When you're working for a craft brewery, there is none of that, because you're force carbonating and you're kegging. Henry: As I say. Henry: The first time I cleaned an fv at hand, I was like, there's too many bits. Henry: You've got a carb stone in there. Henry: You've got your sample. Henry: You always have your sample tap, whether you're doing Caspia or whatever, you're constantly having to put top pressure on the top of the tank. Henry: You're really trying to keep the oxygen out there quite rightly. Henry: It's just an ordeal. Henry: You're trubbing off the tank, you're getting rid of the hops and the yeast because they like doing their dry out beers all the time. Henry: I'm like, do you never had to do any of this at dark star? Henry: It's so much more straightforward when you're putting beer into casks. Henry: That still doesn't mean that it's easy to make good cask beer. Henry: You still got to have all your best practices. Henry: But this is a whole sort of new world for me. Henry: So I'm kegging and doing all this stuff. Henry: So it's been an education for me in terms of all that stuff and carbonating, carbonate, getting beers carbonated and doing all that stuff. Henry: So I've been humbled. Henry: I've been taken down from my ivory tower, but it's good for me. Henry: That's good. Henry: It's tough, it's hard work, but they're a great bunch of people and it's lovely to work there. Henry: And as I say, handbrook have got a great brew kit, which is nice. Henry: It works and everything. Henry: And you can actually run a brew through pretty quickly. Henry: Normally it sort of takes about 8 hours there. Henry: It can take five or six. Henry: So yeah, it's nice. Henry: It feels like a good move for me. Henry: And the reason why I have the job is that I basically burst into the brewery and said, look, I need somewhere to brew my sunken nave beers, okay? Henry: And you need a brewer, so why don't I brew for you and then I can put a tank in and use your kit on Saturdays and brew into it. Henry: And to my total astonishment, they agreed. Henry: So now I'm in the position where. Henry: And luckily one of the tanks that they had, it was owned by a contract customer of theirs and they needed to sell it and so I bought it. Henry: So it feels very fortunate. Henry: I've known Jack and Kate for a long time, so it's great to be working with them anyway. Henry: But it feels fortuitous. Henry: Obviously, the money is less fortuitous, but that's just a reality. Henry: When you leave the corporate world behind, you get a pay cut. Henry: But other than that, there has to be some sacrifices somewhere. Henry: I can't keep living high on the hog and expecting lots of money for just like, cleaning kegs and tanks. Henry: As important as that is, Jack, it's great to find a home for it. Henry: So I think I realized very quickly that, as I say, with the prize old ale thing, it was great. Henry: And I feel that I earned that rise in my profile. Henry: I was genuinely trying to do something. Henry: It wasn't just purely for selfish reasons that I wanted to re release this beer, get this prize old ale real released. Henry: But I realized with the timing of Asahi letting us go that this has given me extra emotional power to kind of achieve what I'm going to achieve. Henry: Because at the age of 40, either I do my own thing in some way or I'll never do it. Henry: So it's kind of given me the opportunity to leave behind, as I say, my dream job, which dark star. Henry: But to move on and challenge myself and try and go on my own. Henry: I mean, obviously my hero in all of this, my lode star is Mark Tranter in terms of what he's done, where he left Dark Star ten years ago, possibly even longer now. Henry: Used that money to set up burning sky because not only does he make incredible beers, especially his Cezans, I think are the best in the UK. Henry: So much great stuff. Henry: He's also got an incredible brewery. Henry: I don't know if you've ever been there. Henry: It's in furl. Henry: I don't think they do tours or anything, but he's got this beautiful 17th century barn in this beautiful village near Lewis where he brews this stuff and he's got the cool ship. Henry: It's incredible. Henry: So of course I want something like that. Henry: I doubt I'll ever get there. Henry: It's a fantasy of mine that this whole project will reach a point where I'll have my 17th century barn in the south Downs in Worthing somewhere, and I'll just spend my time just knocking nails into barrels and tasting them and going, oh, that needs another two years before I can blend into that. Henry: So the idea with sunken name, I suppose, is to try and try and go on my own sort of flavor journey and develop my own understanding of these type of beers, of these classic styles, and put my own spin on it or whatever, or just find it or just really nail what I like. Henry: I'll give you an example of that. Henry: I find with a lot of barley wines that they can be just too under attenuated, too sweet and too cloying, and I really don't like that. Henry: And there are barley wines which are incredible, which totally nail what I want to achieve. Henry: They perhaps a bit drier, a bit less hot, a bit less sweet, that sort of thing. Henry: Again, it's difficult to describe with words what I want, but it's trying to carve a little opportunity for myself to make beers in those ways. Henry: And the sunken nave name, as it came out, was. Henry: I've lived in Worthing now for nearly nine years and I've always been very interested in the local history of the place. Henry: I'm that kind of guy. Henry: And the story is that on the outskirts of, I've been told that I really needed to deliver a ten second punchy pitch for this, but I've really struggled. Henry: Here's the slightly longer one. Henry: Anyway, the sunken nave thing. Henry: The logo is a church tower falling into the sea with a little smuggler guy with an eyeglass on a turret, part of it. Henry: So on the outskirts of Worthing, you got this village called fering. Henry: And the sea used to go out a lot further, all the way across worthing, and there used to be sort of like common land where they would graze sheep and stuff. Henry: And there was a church there. Henry: And one night the sea slowly sort of encroached upon it and there's some wonderful contemporary accounts of them being in this church when there's seawater on three sides of it. Henry: But then 1 km storm, it fell into the sea while the bell was ringing. Henry: And then rumor has it, so this is in the 16 hundreds. Henry: So rumor has it, when the spring tides come in and there's a storm and the moon is in the house of Aquarius or whatever, you can hear the bell ringing. Henry: And I remember always reading this plinth when we're taking the dog for the walk or the kids or whatever out there, just thinking, I'm loving this. Henry: This is incredible. Henry: So suddenly I was thinking to myself, I need to come up with my own brewery name now, how do I do this? Henry: And for ages I was looking in the book, in the Sussex dialect book. Henry: And every good name that I found, like, what was the one? Henry: Well, I can't remember what it was called, but I was like, I'm going to call it this. Henry: And then Beak had done it. Henry: Great brewery based in had they got it? Henry: And I was like, okay, fine. Henry: I'm going to need to allow myself two words now. Henry: And then suddenly this thing just came into my mind of sunken. Henry: And then the central part of a church is called the Nave. Henry: And another thing about fullers, another thing about worthing is that there's all these little alleyways called twittens in the Sussex dialect. Henry: And the twittens is where all the smugglers would have rolled all their french cognacs or whatever along. Henry: And these twittens always end up at pubs. Henry: And a lot of churches in this area were used as lookout posts for the Federalis, for the excise know. Henry: So they were like this. Henry: So I was like, smugglers. Henry: So you can't call your brewery smuggler ales or rebel or outlaw because it's the biggest freaking cliche there is, right? Henry: But there's the nave of a church. Henry: N-A-V-E. Henry: But at a k it becomes a nave, which is also like a smuggler outlaw. Henry: It's a different word. Henry: So that whole thing of sunken nave really appealed to me. Henry: And it came to me in a flash. Henry: And I was like, okay, that's what it's going to be called. Henry: So that's where the name came from. Henry: And it also sort of, sort of coincided with this idea of sunken beers resurrecting lost styles. Henry: And I've been lucky enough to make friends with some sort of local brewing historian. Henry: Guys who run the Worthing pubs website. Henry: Check it out if you're in the area. Henry: It's fascinating loads of photos. Henry: And I've discovered that there was various breweries in Worthing, and I have recipes of one of them, which is called tamplins. Henry: So they had a brewery here briefly. Henry: So basically, there's an archive of Tamplins recipes over in East Sussex. Henry: The archive, it's called the Keep, which is a name that I love. Henry: It's near Brighton Stadium, it's near the Amex. Henry: And you go in there and they've got some sort of clues. Henry: I wouldn't call them recipes, I'd call them clues, pointers. Henry: And I've got some other recipes from Brighton beers, because in Worthing, there was Kemptown Brewery and based in Brighton, but they had a lot of worthing pubs, so a lot of people would have been drinking the Kemptown stuff. Henry: And so they've got. Henry: Their logo is the Brighton dolphin, which is this real freaky looking dolphin. Henry: But anyway, I've got some of their pump clips and I can see that they were doing double brown stouts and double dolphin, it was called. Henry: So I'm basically trying to piece together what they were drinking and brewing and what sort of stuff. Henry: And basically, yeah, I'm going to produce. Henry: I was thinking about, this is, like, totally pointless, why am I trying to do it? Henry: But I'm going to try and produce what I think I'm going to cherry pick from all these influences and produce a beer that I think is a sort of interesting take on all that sort of mess, that hot mess that I just told you. Henry: So it's sort of important. Henry: It's going to be those sort of styles alongside milds and light ales and things like that, because I have to do some stuff that's lower abv, but it'll be in the classic tradition, I think, rather than the sort of Colonel cable beer sort of stuff. Rob (Host): Yeah, I love that, though. Rob (Host): That's all. Rob (Host): I don't know. Rob (Host): Very much similar to prozo there, in the sense of taking something old, working with the history of the place. Rob (Host): And you described that so well about the history. Rob (Host): I love the names of the little alleyways. Rob (Host): I've heard of snickets as the one which people use to sort of get around area, but all those sorts of local terms that really represent a place, taking the beers from the breweries that were there at the time, representing the time and bringing them back for now, with your twist, your take, your curation, I guess, of all of that. Henry: Yeah. Henry: Hopefully. Henry: As I say, I also think what's fun for me about it is that there's never been a better time to brew than right now. Henry: We have access to everything. Henry: Not only do we. Henry: I mean, take, for example, brute IPA. Henry: Some guy comes up with that in San Francisco. Henry: Within about two weeks, everyone's brewing it all over the world. Henry: The Internet has allowed all this information. Henry: And there's something wonderful about the fact that the detective worked to try and piece together this, and also that the answer might be pretty nondescript. Henry: I might come up with some beers. Henry: Obviously, my beers will be incredible, but I'll find recipes and go, all right, okay. Henry: Because worthing 200 years ago, it was a fishing village. Henry: This is not a brewing heartland, but I just find that interesting. Henry: So a big thing that I would love to do, but I think it's commercial suicide, is that around here you can still see it where people still. Henry: There's still bottles of brown man's brown ale and some blending beers, where you'd have, like, half a bitter and put the brown in there or mild or whatever. Henry: I love brown ales anyway, so I'm really keen to do my own version, but I want to see if I can do some weird thing where it's like, yeah, here's some furkins of my beer, and then here's a case of the brown ale to blend with as well, because that was a big thing. Henry: I always remember my background is west London, so my granddad always used to say to me first, always said to me when I was getting into brewing, there's no money in brewing. Henry: Why do you want to do this? Henry: And in many ways, he was absolutely right. Henry: But talking to him about how he drank, it was all light and bitter and brown. Henry: And a lot of times they did that because the caspier was a bit old and wasn't very good. Henry: But there's something there about blending again. Henry: And it's the culture at Fullers again, the lads there will correct me, but if you mixed golden pride, which is their 8.5% barley wine, with ESB, which is their classic 5.7% strong bitter, they called it blood and pride, because if you drank some of those, you'd fall over on the way in there and you, like, crack open your head again, drink responsibly. Henry: I'm not advising that. Henry: So it's that sort of thing. Henry: I'm letting out all my trade secrets here, aren't it? Henry: But it's that thing that is interesting. Henry: And as I say, I'm now 40. Henry: I reached a point in my career where I became a head brewer, and now I've been defenestrated from that and I'm just sort of thinking, what do I want to do? Henry: And can I get away with it? Henry: Can I be audacious enough? Henry: We'll see. Rob (Host): Can you tell us anything about what might be coming up with sunken nave, or is that hush hush at the moment? Henry: So there are some really exciting collabs. Henry: So I think by the time this will be released, this will happen. Henry: So on Monday, I'm doing a collab with Ruth and Andy at elusive, which is a real, real thrill. Henry: Really incredible. Henry: That's going to be a 6% old ale. Henry: A lot of my focus is going to be on old ales again, because in Sussex, the old ale is part of the culture here, especially in the wintertime. Henry: The Harvey's old ale is the benchmark. Henry: 4.3%, nearly 28% crystal malt, medium crystal malt from French. Henry: And jups, don't tell anyone I told you that. Henry: Invert sugar number four with all this wonderful stuff. Henry: I'll be doing some cask old ales, that sort of lower strength stuff, more sessionable old ales and. Henry: Yeah. Henry: And then. Henry: And then this sort of historical stuff. Henry: See where it takes me. Henry: We've got a difficulty now in that because they've changed the duty rates. Henry: Anything that's over 8.4% is full duty. Henry: And that is a real problem. Henry: That's a real problem because it just means. Henry: So, for example, if I wanted to do a furkin of 10% beer, the duty on it alone would be 120 quid. Henry: Wow. Henry: So I'm ringing around pubs being like, do you want a furk in of this? Henry: Yeah. Henry: Great. Henry: It's 250 quid. Henry: Hello? Henry: Anyone there? Henry: I'm holding a phone, hand phone to my face. Henry: So we will see how I operate within those limitations. Henry: I just think that so many people do hazy ipas and stuff like that. Henry: Well, and it's really difficult to do technically. Henry: So if people can do it, well, technically, they have my deep respect. Henry: I can't do that. Henry: I can't afford to do that. Henry: These hops are expensive and in the same way a lot of people do imperial stats, I'm less interested in doing that because it's well served. Henry: I want to do some other stuff, so watch this space. Rob (Host): Fantastic. Rob (Host): Thank you very much. Rob (Host): So, for anyone who's interested in it, where can they follow you and find out more? Henry: So, I do have a website called sunkennave.com. Henry: There is a sort of subscriber list on there. Henry: A few people have signed up, so I am planning on doing a lot of bottling and selling direct to customers if they'll have me. Henry: So yeah, there's the website. Henry: There's also an Instagram, Sunkennave and X. Rob (Host): Formerly known as Twitter. Henry: Formerly known as Twitter Sunken nave. Henry: So you can find it all there. Henry: I'm hoping to get my first brew in myself before the end of November. Henry: Sorry, before Christmas. Henry: Ideally, that's where you'll find out on the social media. Henry: I will also be doing a tasting session yet to be confirmed at the indie is it the indie beer feast which is part of Sheffield Beer Week? Henry: The first and 2 march go to Sheffield. Henry: Anyway, even if you don't come and see me, Sheffield is an incredible brewing city, pub city. Henry: But yes, I'll be doing a tasting there alongside other events. Henry: So 2024 is going to be the year of sunken nave people. Henry: So get on board. Rob (Host): Thank you so much, Henry. Rob (Host): Really appreciate it and it's been fabulous to hear about all of your history, experience and journey with beer. Henry: Well, thank you so much, Rob, for thinking of me and inviting me on the podcast. Henry: And best of luck with your new venture with this. Henry: Thank you very much. Henry: Cheers. Henry: Cheers. Rob (Host): Thank you very much for joining us. Rob (Host): And thank you to of course, to. Rob (Host): Henry for being our guest. Rob (Host): You can find out all of the social media handles and breweries in the show notes and this is the part where I ask for your help. Rob (Host): If you haven't done so already, please subscribe to the podcast, leave a review or rating, or share it with others. Rob (Host): This really helps us out and helps other people find the podcast, particularly as we're starting out. Rob (Host): And you can follow us on social media search for wearbeer people all one word. Rob (Host): You can also email us at wearebeerpeoplepod@gmail.com let us know what you think, share your thoughts, and if you have any recommendations for beer people you'd like to hear from. Rob (Host): And until next time, don't forget you, me, us, them, we are all beer people.

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