MEET THE BREWERS COLIN STRONGE, head brewer, Buxton Brewery
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ith his imperial stouts, sours, barrel-aged beers and double IPAs, 33-yearold Irishman Colin Stronge loves getting creative. He joined Derbyshire’s Buxton Brewery last May and leads a brewing team that was recently ranked 52nd out of 13,000 by Ratebeer.com. “I fell into brewing,” says Colin. “I moved to England in 1998 to study architecture at Liverpool Uni. To pay the bills I got bar work at a brewpub run by Liverpool Brewing Co [now defunct]. I loved it, especially learning how the beers were created with different malts and hops. Next I moved to Manchester and ended up at Marble Brewery for nine years.”
Colin then joined Black Isle Brewing, north of Inverness, and stayed for two years before heading south to Buxton. “There’s a real desire to keep things moving forward in British brewing at the moment,” says Colin. “I get ideas from beer festivals – my favourite brew of 2013 was one I stumbled across at a festival – Limoncello IPA by Siren Craft [Berkshire], although my favourite of all time is Orval, a Belgian Trappist ale. “I also get ideas from stuff I find lying around. The past year was good for berries here in the Peaks, so we made a beer called Red Raspberry Rye. We’re also experimenting with aged beers.”
LOGAN PLANT, head brewer and founder, Beavertown Brewery
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rowing up in the West Midlands, I remember going to lots of beer gardens,” says 34-year-old Logan Plant, jointfounder of Hackney’s Beavertown Brewery. “I got to know the beers of the Black Country family brewers – Bathams, Holden’s and Enville.” It clearly made an impression, but it wasn’t until the age of 29 that those ale-soaked seeds sprouted in the mind of Logan, and the former musician started to pursue a career in beer. “I was with my brother in Brooklyn, New York, after playing a gig. We popped into a craft bar and there was this amazingly fresh, powerfully hopped beer being served. It was fantastic.”
This catalyst took effect and Logan began homebrewing. Fifteen months later he opened a four-barrel brewhouse – Duke’s Brew and Que in De Beauvoir, Hackney. “Duke’s is a barbecue restaurant so we brewed beers with food in mind. Our first beer – 8-Ball Rye IPA – was for the pork, and our second, Smog Rocket, a smoked porter, was designed for the beef ribs.” It didn’t take long for Logan and the team to outgrow Duke’s Brew and Que, which is now their tap house, and in March 2013 Beavertown moved to a bigger brewery in Fish Island, East London. Logan’s favourite beer? “Furious by Surly Brewing Company, Minneapolis.”
Craft Beer Rising Winter/Spring 2014 27