Keeping it fierce

Fierce Beer was born out of Aberdeen’s tumultuous energy industry, when oil workers Dave McHardy, David Grant and Louise Grant decided it was time to follow through on a long-held passion and start their own brewery.

Dave Grant already had some pedigree in what he calls “homebrew plus” selling his beer to a couple of local bars and The Hanging Bat in Edinburgh, but it wasn’t until earlier this year that he finally started brewing in earnest. As well as being craft beer lovers, the entire team at Fierce are enthusiastic gastronomes, and their love of food and flavour combinations has driven their approach.

“Right from the start, we established that drinkers and bottleshops didn’t need another company making lager and pale ale an amber ale, because there’s so many guys doing such a brilliant job of that already,” says Dave. “We don’t want to imitate Brewdog with lots of super-hoppy beers, because there are plenty of people out there for whom that’s not to their taste. 

“So everything we do is pretty out there and different, with additions like chillis, ginger peanut, coffee… all sorts of things to tantalise the palate. So, we’ll take a pale ale and add fresh fruit or fruit peel. Adding peanut and chocolate to porter makes a snickers bar. Adding lime and habanero to a pale ale works really well too.

“We also try to make things where people can’t quite spot why the thing they’re drinking tastes that way. A great example is our pale ale with cold-pressed coffee and vanilla added. All blind tastings people think they’re a porter, and then they can’t believe the colour. So we like to challenge people’s assumptions by making dark light and light dark and other weird things.”

Provenance is also very important to Fierce, and Dave only uses real ingredients, buying locally wherever he can. For example, the raspberries the brewery uses all come from in nearby Ormskirk. Understandably, food pairings have been a big focus for Fierce, and the brewery has worked with several local restaurants – including MUSA, Maggie’s Grill and The Tickling House – to match their beers with particular dishes. 

“People are constantly reminding us ‘you’re only five months old guys, you need to chill out a little bit’! We’re already doubling our size in November, with new equipment coming in, and exported to one country with another coming up. But we’ll continue to expand and grow the exports, it’s up and up from here!"