Tom’s Top Ten British Breweries
By Tom CronkWhen lockdown struck I had a real keenness for beer bubbling away. With the daily commute cut out overnight, I now had time to do more stuff, sure, but I also had this significant chunk of unspent monthly outgoings sitting in my bank account. Festering. Burning a beery hole…
So, I became a member of HonestBrew, and then the Fuss Club, both of which were on top of my longstanding subscription to the brilliant BeerBods. In short, I’ve drunk a lot of superb beers from some truly outstanding breweries.
Below are my Top 10, with a total of 30 knock-out beers (three from each) for you to track down and try yourself.
Gone are the days of Moretti or Heineken on tap. This is the age of the can whose price makes the old blokes in the corner wince. Oh, and guess what, I’m a millennial and I love New England IPAs. Because they’re delicious. Deal with it.
1. Verdant Brewing Co.
These guys are at the very top of their game and rightly lauded as perhaps the best brewery in the UK right now by those of us who drink a lot of the stuff (HonestBrew’s UK Independent Brewery of the Year).
Based in Falmouth, they started out in 2014 with a plan to offer hop-forward beers unavailable to them in their local. Today they have a taproom and Seafood Bar that’s well worth a visit.
In short, they’ve NAILED it. With around 80 beers brewed to date, I’ve drunk about half of them. Yep. I’m a fanboy. And you will be, too.
My top picks, and this was really hard, are:
Putty. 8%. Double New England IPA. Almost perfect. Mango, lemon, peaches, passion fruit. Released with proper fanfare once a year, this is well worth the hype.
20 Watt Moon. 6.5%. IPA. Packed with Strata and a big dollop of Citra this one is dank on the nose with a clean grapefruit flavour coming through. Try its big sister, 40 Watt Moon, too.
Meshes of the Afternoon. 4.8%. Pale Ale. Lighter and crisper than the juicier numbers listed here, this one is much more sessionable with a creamy lime edge to it.
2. Polly’s Brew Co.
Launched in 2018, Polly’s make fresh, vibrant and always delicious beers from their farm in Mold, North Wales. For my money, Polly’s have really nailed the juicy IPAs I and so many beer drinkers like me love. With many of my favourites from their stable being riffs on similar themes, these are the ones you should start with:
Future Infinity. 6.8%. IPA. This starts off strong with pineapple (a big favourite) and then moves to coconut (yep, it’s a beery pina colada) before finishing with citrus.
Keeler. 8.5%. Double New England IPA. Here they’ve paired Mosaic hops with LA3 to create a juice bomb of an IPA. This is pulpy and opaque and a long way from what a traditional beer drinker might actually recognise as beer…
Electric Sunrise. 6.5%. IPA. Kveik is a word you’ll see a lot in the craft beer section right now, it’s the super yeast flavour of the month. Paired here with Citra and Mosaic hops (a classic combo) this is complex and drinkable and just plain lovely.
3. DEYA Brewing Company
Founded in 2015, Cheltenham-based DEYA do it right. For one thing, most of their cans aren’t 330ml, or even 440ml, but a whopping 500ml. How’s that for bang for your buck?
Like many on this list, DEYA are obsessed with freshness. Simply put, the fresher your beer the better it tastes. So there’s only one thing for it… a trip to their taproom in Gloucestershire is on the cards!
Here’s three I think you should try:
Cast Aspersions. 6.5%. New England IPA. Sweet, creamy pineapple (there it is again!) with orange to finish. Soft and juicy.
Routine Bites Hard. 10%. Triple IPA. This is a biggun. Don’t stand up too fast after finishing it. This is massively juicy, to the point of decadence. A whopper of a beer.
Something Good (Series). Approx 6.2%. American IPA. This is a clear cheat, as (to date) we’re up to about 11 or 12 in this series so there’s plenty to explore here. Be a proper beer nerd and try a couple side by side to taste the difference.
4. Full Circle Brew Co.
Founded in March 2019, the youth of this Geordie brewery belies its punch, and they’ve quickly muscled their way into the top tier of great small breweries operating in the UK today. Head to the taproom in Byker next time you’re in the North East.
With just 35 beers under their belt, if you’re anything like me you’ll quickly work your way through the back catalogue. Here are three to get you started:
Saturn V Rises. 8.5%. Double IPA. I clearly love a DIPA (Double India Pale Ale), and this is one of my favourites. Dank aroma bursts into passion fruit flavours with soft carbonation.
Pure Phase DDH Pale Ale. 5.3% Pale Ale. This double dry hopped beer showcases Galaxy and Talus hops. It’s full of citrus, grapefruit and peach.
Repeater. 4.2%. Session IPA. A session beer is exactly what it sounds like, and you can certainly sink a few of these. Tropical. Soft. Smooth. A great mid-week beer.
5. Left Handed Giant
This Bristolian brewery has been up and running since 2015. They’re community run, with plans to undertake an employee buyout in the coming few years. That’s seriously cool. And with this community driven core comes something truly special, and just a little maverick: freedom.
Here are my top three LHG brews so far:
Up Late. 10%. Imperial Stout. Woah. This collaboration with Verdant Brewing Co. will blow your socks, shoes and trousers off. Chocolate malt and caramel come first, then you get the punch of vanilla and hazelnut. Pudding in a glass.
Side Track. 6.5%. IPA. Zesty grapefruit is the star of the show with Citra, Chinook and Rakau hops. It’s vegan, too.
Slow Hands. 6.5%. IPA. Haze for days and days. This is thick and juicy with a good dose of mango from the Citra Cryo and Sabro Cryo. Nice.
6. Track Brewing Company
Established in 2014, this Mancunian brewery focuses on pale, hoppy beers inspired by its founder’s two-year odyssey cycling from coast to coast in the USA. The taprooms and breweries he found along the way inspired some real magic.
My favourite three have to be:
The Haus That Noodles Built. 6.8%. New England IPA. Summer in a can. This beer is full of soft peach, mango and grapefruit. There are yuzu and citrus, too. Bloody brilliant with a curry.
Half Dome. 5.3%. New England Pale Ale. The mango is in here too, but this time it’s joined by pineapple thanks to the Galaxy, Citra and Simcoe hops. Beautiful yellow colour.
Lipari. 5%. Fruited Gose Sour. Weirdly, the first sour to make this list. This is everything you want from a sour: lip-smacking, puckering, quenching. Layers of lemon tartness are followed by a welcome sweetness. More, please.
7. Brew By Numbers
Based on the famous Bermondsey Beer Mile in Southwark, London (you have to go, trust me), BBNo. chose a theme and stuck to it. Each can is quite literally numbered, causing a deep desire to collect them all like boozy Pokemon cards. What’s particularly clever is that the team at BBNo can then riff on the original recipe for each ‘number’, creating spin-offs and remixes that are both significantly similar and delightfully different to the original.
These guys put the hops right there on the front of the can. Perfect to help you find your favourite and explore.
Here’s three to try:
11 | Session IPA - Mosaic. 4.2%. This is a low ABV IPA by anyone’s estimations, which makes this truly light and sessionable while delivering some much needed tropical undertones.
05 | India Pale Ale - Citra & Amarillo. 6%. Peachy and passion fruity, this beer is wonderfully floral before finishing bitter. Time for another sip.
21 | Pale Ale - Citra. 5.2%. A single hop beer, so an oddity in this list, but no less full of body and flavour. Mouthwatering and tropical.
8. Cloudwater Brew Co.
A giant in the independent UK brewing game, from their Manchester base, Cloudwater champion modern seasonal beer. Founded in 2014, Cloudwater has gone on to produce hundreds of beers of all styles, including some stuff that makes you question when beer stops being beer and starts being something… else?
In a change to our regular programming, these aren’t - necessarily, my three favourites. But they are the most interesting:
I Forgot Your Snapback. 5%. Ancient Herbed Ale. This collab with DEYA (it’s going to be a winner, surely) replaces the hops with a secret blend of six different herbs and roots before being lagered for three months. The result is something supremely light, slightly gingery, and very, very gluggable.
Twelve Plus One. 8%. Double New England IPA. Another collaboration, this time with Left Handed Giant (so, yep, GOOD). This is part of an experiment to see how two breweries take the same base recipe and make it their own. Juicy. Thick. Grapey.
Pale Ale. 3.7%. New England Pale Ale. The humble session beer elevated. There’s pineapple and mango here, tangerine too. Then there’s a soft orange finish. It’s just about as easy-drinking as it gets.
9. Boundary Brewing
A trip to Belfast is in store to visit Boundary Brewing. These guys focus their inspiration on classic Belgian and modern US styles, with the result being some seriously mouthwatering beer.
And fine, I’ll bite. It couldn’t be a beer piece, written by me, without a mention to the humble beer can. All of the above and below breweries have lovely designs, but Boundary might just be my favourites.
I Declare Bankruptcy. 4.5%. American Pale Ale. This is piney with a hint of grapefruit thanks to the Chinook, Cascade and Simcoe hops. What a name, too.
Bloody Chancer. 6%. Fruited Gose Sour. This blood orange and lime gose is not for the faint-hearted. It’s terrifically tart, juicy and -happily- salty.
Incognito. 2.8%. Table Beer. One rung below sessionable, this stuff is drinkable all day long. The hops here are Mosaic and Azacca, creating a light, tropical, sweet table beer for (if appropriate?) the whole family. I mean, I think I’ve seen stronger kombuchas!
10. BrewDog
I know, I know, not exactly a ‘hot take’. But these guys are the Godfathers of modern, independent craft beer both in Britain and far beyond. They’re behemoths and just about everyone’s gateway into the wonderful world of craft beer. So I think they deserve a nod here.
Based in Ellon, Aberdeenshire, everyone wishes they invested in BrewDog in the early days. After all, they were valued at a cool £1 billion just a couple of years ago. They dominate many supermarket’s craft sections, and often at just £1.50 a can, it’s worth stocking up!
Here are my top three, weirder ones, from the self-proclaimed punks of craft:
Brewdog VS Cloudwater: New England IPA. 6.8%. This Vermont-style IPA is a collaboration with the aforementioned Cloudwater, and it caused a bit of fuss at the time due to Tesco’s (where it’s stocked around the clock) inability to maintain a cold supply chain. I’m a nerd, I know. Anyway, this is great and you can buy it just about anywhere. Fruity, tropical, hoppy, juicy. Nice.
Stratospheric. 7%. Milkshake IPA. Big fruity notes on the nose lead into berries and kiwi and lychee on the palette with milky sugars and oats creating that super thick milkshake mouthfeel.
Light Speed. 4%. Session IPA. The ABV of this IPA masks its hoppy punch. Packed with hops from the Pacific North West of the USA this is a piney, citrusy bomb of a beer. And they keep banging on about it being only 92 calories. But why anyone would calorie count beer is beyond me.
So that’s yer lot. I hope you’ll try a few. And do let us know if you love them / hate them / start a brewery and need a taste tester. I’m all ears.
Cheers x
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