2021: Year in Review
The end is finally in sight for 2021, a year that we could generously describe as “Mostly better than 2020”. The team here at the Brewery have worked tirelessly from our first day of production back in January, to palletising the last crate of bottles at the end of this week. Now that we're able to relax a bit and enjoy some well earned rest, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on what we've been up to this year.
Despite a still difficult year for breweries and the licensed trade, we managed to keep ourselves busy with brewing and bottling all year long. Blonde remains our flagship beer, and we’re immensely grateful to everyone who enjoyed a pint of it over the course of this year. Thank you.
In terms of the team here, we welcomed Stuart, Steve, Danny & Yorick to our ever growing posse of beer slingin' badasses; they've endured the joys of our temperamental bottling machine, our island-based difficulties with ferries, and my recurring bad moods. I'm all too aware that praise can be few and far between, so I'd like to take this opportunity to thank them for their exceptional work this year; we couldn't have done it without them. Thanks guys.
We updated the recipes of some of the beers to give them that extra bit of TLC that they deserved; Brewery Dug's transformation into a Modern English-style IPA was particularly well received, even earning it a Bronze at the World Beer Awards this year. Helga was very chuffed with it! Our Black IPA, id, enjoyed a glorious revival, combining speciality German roasted malts with gargantuan quantities of American hops; it also gave us an opportunity to introduce 330ml bottles into our range again, something we'll definitely be doing a lot more of in the new year. And finally, our last brew of the year, the beer to send our house yeast off in style, was the first ever batch of Valhalla; an enormous Imperial Stout combined with a blend of coffee roasted specially for us by the lovely team at the Arran Coffee Lab. It’s always fun to start a new annual tradition, and I can’t wait for you to try the beer when it’s ready.
Speaking of awards, our proud tradition of winning an award every single year we've been in business continued, with four of our beers winning medals at the World Beer Awards and the International Beer Challenge (Dark, Dug, Blonde and Milestone Special Reserve). Arran might be one of the most decorated breweries in the world at this stage, and it's a real honour to be part of that history.
Our brewery shop resumed offering tours & tastings to tremendous success – there's a chance you might have been on a tour led by myself at some point over the summer, and if so I apologise unreservedly. No one is as interested in yeast as I am. It was however a delight to be able to show guests around our brewery again and talk beer, which was an experience I didn't know I'd been missing! This also led to us giving an open invitation to all our wonderful trade customers here on the island; please do get in touch to arrange a full tour, tasting and cellarmanship training day to help you sing the praises of our beer to every customer!
On the matter of talking about beer, this year saw the first online version of the Arran Market, where many of the local producers on the island took to the interwebs to talk passionately about their businesses. I've been a firm believer that the high tide raises all boats, and the support from the local community throughout this pandemic has only reinforced that belief. Thank you to all the folks at the Arran Online Market for helping put together a viable marketplace in less than easy circumstances.
This was also the year of the brewery's first ever collaboration, thanks to the guys at Electric Bear Brewing for welcoming me into their abode for brewing a hop-forward Red Rye IPA, the aptly named Can We Take A Picture Yet? I'm led to believe other collaborators don't tend to show up at the brewery at 8am armed with croissants, but I'm happy to be an exception. We can't wait to have the Electric Bear guys come back to Arran to make another collaboration next year!
Once again, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our brilliant customers for supporting us throughout this extremely weird time; to thank Adam, Chris, Danny, José, Hollie, Roel, Steve, Stuart, Veronica and Yorick for their embarrassingly hard work over the course of the year; and to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy Hogmanay.
Slainte!
- Craig