no. 024 | Beak
Celebrating 2 years of batch, we’re delighted to welcome back your favourite brewery so far: Beak.
It’s been 23 months since we last checked in on Beak Brewery, but we’ve been following their progress closely. Having started life as a nomadic brewery, they’d been in their permanent brewery in Lewes, Sussex, for just over a year when we first brought you their beers.
It’s fair to say they’re now very much settled in and have spent the last couple of years getting everything dialled in. “We’ve really been honing our IPAs and DIPAs”, says Kat, Head of Operations at Beak. “We really feel like they’re exactly where we want them to be now. They’re balanced, thick and juicy”.
The demand for their beers has shown no sign of abating since we last spoke either. They’ve increased production with the addition of new tanks and have also delved into the world of ageing, using their 5,000 litre oak cask to launch their ongoing fermentation project.
Another big undertaking has been establishing their annual beer festival, These Hills. Bringing together the great and good of craft beer, the inaugural gathering took place in 2022 on the rolling hills of the South Downs alongside live music, DJs and street food and the second one earlier this year. “It’s been a great success”, Danny tells us, “and we feel really proud of it. We feel very grateful to have welcomed so many amazing breweries to our backyard from from as far afield as Australia, Canada and the USA”.
Community clearly continues to sit at the heart of Beak. When we ask about their relatively new neighbours, another craft brewery called Abyss, Kat’s immediate response is “It’s great for us and for Lewes! For a small town to have such a strong brewery presence with us, Abyss and Harvey’s is nothing but a good thing. It brings more people into town and creates a strong beer base for East Sussex”.
And should those people want to balance their impending pints with something a little more virtuous, Beak has even created a run club. Taking place once a month, around 50 people descend on the brewery to take part in a sociable, accessible run. “We always finish at the taproom”, explains Lola, who looks after Beak’s events programme. “Each runner gets a complimentary beak beer and we all sit around and have a chat! The runs have been so successful that we are about to put on our second trail running day on Saturday 23rd September”. It’s cleverly called Three Beaks and if we could get there, we would.
