79 brewingbusiness.co.uk News INDUSTRY Cask and Keg Repair & Refurbishment Specialists l A Genuine Alternative to Cask and Keg Replacement l Repairs to casks and kegs of all sizes l We can supply refurbished casks too l Fast On-Site Turnaround l Competitive Rates l Over 60 years of Industry Experience Please contact us for details of our other onsite services. Head Office: 01283 740807 • Mob: 07952 152 099 Email: repairs@dhmbreweryservices.co.uk • Contact: Jason Miller Web: www.dhmbreweryservices.co.uk • Twitter: @DHMBreweryServ Last year seemed to be the year of flavoured beers and all the leading beer festivals were majoring on them. Cloudwater’s Mango Fruit Sour being the most outstanding I found on the market. It looked like real mango juice and tasted like mango juice – it beats your average breakfast fruit juice drink, at 6.5% ABV… The inventiveness of brewers in their pursuit of the next big thing seems to be limitless, from mango beer to lemon meringue ice cream pie (Buxton Brewery’s 6.0%), it’s surprising Heston Blumenthal hasn’t got in on the act. Like cooking, the quality of the ingredients is important, but not as important as the quality of the chef – so too with beer, it’s the skill of the brewer that will ensure the success of the brewery. It’s great that all this experimentation and invention is happening in the world of brewing – it helps ensure that beer remains current and topical in our ‘Fast-Moving Consumer Generations.’ However, this has resulted in the retail and bar landscape becoming increas- ingly complicated and confusing. Whilst it is easy to focus on and emulate the ‘rock star’ brewers, innovation is important to create noise around your brand – the likes of Brewdog (those ‘bad boys’ of brewing) have proven it is the balanced, quality beers that deliver volume sales. The challenge is to ensure your brand is relevant – relevant to the beers that you brew and relevant to the market that drinks it. Today’s flavour of the month, tomorrow’s favourite beer? asks Myles Pinfold, WPA Pinfold We Are Beer raise the bar New for 2018 and a first for the industry, We Are Beer is launching ‘Raise the Bar’, which seeks to find new, up-coming brewers and shine a light on creativity and innovation. In a bid to champion new talent, an expert panel will independently blind taste all submissions. They will then select the top four brewers to attend all three Craft Beer Festivals - London, Edinburgh and Bristol - providing them with a platform to showcase their beer to 17,000 people across the UK festivals. The Raise the Bar panel includes: Jenn Merrick, former Beavertown head brewer and founder of a new community based brewery, Earth Station; Ben Freeman, co-founder and brewer at Pressure Drop; Jonny Garrett from Craft Beer Channel, alongside Greg Wells and Dan Sylvester from We Are Beer. Potential brewers (under 2 years in commercial production) are asked to enter online at https://raisethebar.wearebeer.com/ before submitting some samples of their beer for panel review. Entry deadline for Raise the Bar is Monday 12th March. 79_Layout 1 14/02/2018 10:07 Page 1