Festival of Brewers Focus – Eyes Brewing

Starting up a brewery seems hard. Especially to an outsider, like me, who hasn’t and will probably never try. So kudos from me to anyone who gives it a go, especially when it’s a unique concept such as that of EYES Brewing. EYES have started up the UK’s one and only Wheat-focused brewery, and they also think that it is the first of its kind anywhere in the world since the Second World War.

As well as having an original concept for their brewery, Dan, Chris and Tom also have a pretty eventful back story, as explained by Dan. ‘After my little girl was born I stepped away from a career in stand up comedy and back in to teaching.  After going on a day of brewing with Andy and Steve from Learn to Brew, now Crooked Brewing, Tom and I started to get into the theory and make up of beer. As I was building an extension on my house, my wife suggested we build a little bit on the back to put a small brew house in. I paid for the room, Chris and Tom paid for the brewery, and then EYES home brewing was born.’

From banding together over a 100L kit, things progressed when Chris  had the opportunity to become an assistant brewer under master brewer Al (now at Brass Castle) at Ainsty Ales in York, learning how to brew on scale. However, things weren’t running as smoothly for Dan in this period. ‘I was struggling with depression and ended up in hospital. The school I was working for were incredibly supportive until they saw a photo of me at York CAMRA Beer festival’. Disappointingly, the school then changed tack and pressured Dan to quit his job, resulting in a legal battle which ended with him being awarded compensation for his unfair treatment.

Eventually, alongside a small business loan EYES finally had enough money to buy a van, a fleet of casks and ingredients for the first few brews. In December 2016 they started to sell their first beer, cuckoo brewed at Ainsty Ales, an arrangement which has worked well leading to them brewing at various places in and around Yorkshire. The EYES team is now a quartet of Dan, Chris, Nev and Tom.

EYES are looking to stand out with their range of Wheaty treats, in particular one from the darker end of the scale. ‘Dark Harvest will be a stand out for people as it is one of the world’s first ever Black Hopfenweisses. When we started brewing we started to make German style Hefeweizens as this is what we loved to drink. We then decided to see if we could create more British and American styles of beer but continue to keep over 50% wheat in the grist. Our first ever sale was in Whitelocks which we found incredible, and we will be bringing some exciting cask beer as well as cans’.

The EYES crew are looking forward to attending Festival of Brewers, and are relishing the thought of being a part of a small, independent event. ‘This is like an underground gig for bands to look out for. Leeds has an incredible history when it comes to brewing and this is the future. I think people should get a ticket to see some of the innovation and up and coming stars of this great City of Beer. Though we are pretty much a festival of relative unknowns in the beer world we have a lot of variety amongst us. This is what I am looking forward to. There will be so many different beer styles to get. You won’t get sick of the same beers again and again like you may at other festivals’

About the Festival of Brewers

The first ever Festival of Brewers event takes place on 29^th and 30^thJune 2018, with New Craven Hall hosting, which can be found just one-mile South of Leeds City Train Station.

All too often, independent beer festivals choose to focus their attention on the same, larger, popular UK craft breweries. This makes it difficult for the hundreds of smaller breweries across the UK to share the spotlight. Festival of Brewers aims to address that by only showcasing the small and independent breweries.

You can find out all the information, including participating breweries and street food vendors, tickets and how to find the venue on the website www.festivalofbrewers.co.uk.

A Pirate Life for me

David at Bier Huis in Ossett, near Wakefield stocks a wide range of great beer, mostly from the UK but with decent picks from Europe and the USA, and when I pop in I often find something I havent seen or heard of before. 

Upon my last visit I was intrigued to see a selection of beers from Pirate Life Brewing. Australian beer is a rare thing to see in the U.K outside of the usual macro suspects, and so I picked up one each of the cans on offer for an evening’s entertainment. 

The Throwback Session IPA was the first to be popped, and it poured as expected – light, golden and clear. There was a crisp, underwhelming aroma but with a sweet lemony hint. Befitting it’s name the finish was quite like a light session bitter rather than a pale, but the flavours were easy going and fruity, and the Simcoe shone through in a lightly savoury aftertaste. A thoroughly smashable easy drinker, and not quite what I expected from an Aussie brewery (I know, prejudiced stereotyping here) – I could imagine this being drunk by the pint from a  cellar cool cask.

The Pale also took my tastebuds by surprise. The aluminium cracked, the contents unleashed a big foamy whoosh into my glass, and there was a musky, piney, peppery aromatic flood. There wasnt much fruit on the nose, but lots of syrupy pineapple, and sticky malt on the tongue. Bitter and fresh, it certainly didn’t taste like it had been affected by the beer miles from Adelaide to West Yorkshite. Strongly resinous and sweet, I’d describe the Pale as Torpedo-esque, oily and thick. One to try and try again.

Following the Pale I had great expectations for the IPA. A slightly hazy amber in the glass, this is more of a typically west coast IPA, with Centennial to the fore on the aroma. On the tongue I got sherbet orange and lime, a lot less bitter than the pale, but still sweetly citric. More so than the pale, there was a now commonplace savoury aftertaste where I’d like to find a more pronounced bitterness. Not quite what I want, but I appreciate it for being more than a box ticker, and I’ll be trying this again.

I left the IIPA until the next day, as at 8.8% and 500ml, I didn’t think I would be giving it a fair trial after the other three. Similar to the Pale in colour, perhaps a shade or two darker, it was dialled up to eleven on the dank and juicy scale. There’s lots of passion fruit and mango, but with the pungent bitterness to cut through. An Double IPA that pays as much attention to the use of malt as the hops, this is thick and full but a different kind of prospect to the current run juice-like IPAs. Although I didn’t notice it at the time of purchase, due to chatting about beer, this certainly wasn’t cheap but it definitely was memorable, and given the distance travelled, volume of the can and level of quality provided it was justified. 

Many times, I’ve gone off plan and bought something exotic or unusual and been disappointed, but Pirate Life have created two good and two great beers that I’m pleased I stuck my cash on the line for.