Never stop moving

East London’s Crate Brewery, bar and pizzeria must count as one of the most dramatic transformations of any UK craft brewer in recent years.

When it started out in the summer of 2012, across the canal from the madness of the Olympic park, it brewed just three very traditional English styles: a golden ale, an IPA and a best bitter. Today, it is one of the UK’s most prolifically experimental producers, working with fruit, nuts, wild yeast and an array of boundary-expanding styles, to great acclaim.

“About two years in, we looked at where we were in the market and realised we could be doing more,” says Tash Richards, Crate’s head of sales. “So we moved into a bigger brewery other side of the yard, and began expanding our range. In last 18 months, we’ve really had the capacity to start experimenting. We also brought new brewers on board, who brought fresh thinking and ambitious ideas. 

“So we moved away from that core range that we were known for. That core is now much smaller and we focus on experimentation a lot more. We permanently have sour beers on, and just change the flavours. So right now we have a passionfruit and hibiscus sour, a forest fruit sour and lemon gueuze. Oh, and a kiwi dry-hopped sour.”

But even as Crate has moved beyond its traditional styles, it has kept hold of key elements of their craft, including a fascination with cask. Tash talks with great passion about the brewery’s cask programme and the importance of educating bars and consumers.

“Particularly if they’ve had a poor cask ale in the past, people make a lot of assumptions about what will and won’t work. To date the craft beer movement has really been a keg beer movement. We’re seeing that change; as well as producing a lot of our beers on cask, we’ve brought in some amazing cask beers from outside London. Wild Beer did a red berry sour on cask last year that was sensational – they’re nailing it at the moment.”

Tash says the taproom is a great place to feel the pulse of beer trends, and allows the brewery to experiment, confident that they’ll get immediate feedback. She laughs when I ask whether 2017 will finally be the year of the sour.

“People were saying that at the start of 2015, which was much too early,” she says. “Then again at the start of 2016, which was probably more accurate. This year we’re seeing that taste change and evolve, as people seek out drinks in the same tangy, sour flavour family. So things like kombucha, orange wine and organic wine are really taking off.”

While the ‘big’ brewery across the yard from the super-cool taproom and restaurant deals with the larger-scale brews, the original nano-kit at the end of the bar continues to churn out weird and wonderful concoctions for patrons to road test. Currently on the go are a pecan nut imperial stout and two raspberry sours; one fermented with wild yeast, the other with brettanomyces. Because why not?

“We just love doing whatever we find interesting and whatever people enjoy. This year we’ll be bringing back some favourites as seasonal brews, but we’re not going to stop experimenting. We’re just having too much fun,” Tash concludes.