Making a stand for micro breweries
I THOUGHT it appropriate to reply to the article about the 'cuckoo brewery' last Wednesday (October 21).
So Dave Szwejowski thinks that '90 % of the (brewers) brew very similar beers'. I most strongly disagree.
There are hundreds of micro breweries in Britain and the range of beers they brew is enormous. At Kelham alone we brew bitter, mild, strong ale, stout, porter, wheat beer and probably three dozen specials a year.
We've brewed with many different types of malt, hops, fruit and spices. Virtually every other British brewer also offers an enormous variety of styles and types.
The British public have probably never been so well provided for in types of beer on sale.
Szwejowski states that he likes the type of beer brewed in America. We had an American brewer over from New York last week on an exchange, brewing at Kelham and Garrett Oliver from the Brooklyn Brewery has brewed here on a number of occasions. We do brew those styles of beer.
As for claiming that 'we are afraid to do something different and alienate too many people', let me say that I wasn't afraid to splash out and build my own brewery in Sheffield in 1990, and others have followed suit since then. I didn't need to borrow somebody else's brewery, I did it myself.
As for not wanting to alienate too many customers, that surely is the way to operate a business. One aims to satisfy customers not alienate them.
He states his philosophy is 'about doing something different'. That is exactly what I set out to do in 1990. I think that I achieved that and, along the way, also won the supreme accolade of having Pale Rider voted the Champion Beer of Britain by Camra.
David Wickett, Kelham Island Brewery Founder and Owner
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Saturday 04 February 2012
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