Magic Rock Q&A | IMBC 18

We are none more excited to welcome back Magic Rock to IMBC as the glass sponsor of this year’s festival alongside Beer Merchants. Find Magic Rock pouring at EVERY session of IMBC 18. We spoke to Marisa and Duncan from Magic Rock to see what’s happening…

Hello Marisa and Duncan! We are excited to have Magic Rock as the glass sponsors at IMBC 18 this year alongside Beer Merchants. Your designer Rich Norgate has collaborated on the glass artwork with the person behind our IMBC branding, Steve Hockett. Your glassware is always on point – how important is the right vessel?

Marisa: Well, thank you very much, our designer Rich Norgate does a great job. We are always really happy when we get good feedback from the beer community. Great glassware always improves the drinking experience

Duncan: The right vessel is important for the correct ‘mouth movement’, I’ve always believed beer tastes different with different mouth shapes, I’m all about the stout pout at the current moment.



Magic Rock are back at IMBC for all sessions this year after occupying our bar Common for the IMBC Fringe last year. What can punters expect from the return of Magic Rock at Victoria Baths this time around? Any exciting plans you can talk about?

Marisa: All I’ll say is that we missed it so much that you won’t be disappointed for what we have instore this year.

Duncan: Its been a bit like Glastonbury, we let the cattle have a rest last year, so the pastures are now greener and we have fuller bellies ready to be milked.

Magic Rock’s setup at IMBC 2014!

Sesh Fest! What a premise. A great time was had by all. Do you have plans to repeat the festival and what else is going on down at the Tap these days?

Marisa: We definitely plan on SeshFest making an appearance in 2019.

Ah, there is always something going down at the Tap. Particularly over the next few months, a lot of exciting things are happening; the Rainbow Project Launch in our taproom, gigs by local musicians and tap takeovers. Verdant just took over our taps and it was a great night! We also just had our annual Food and Drink Festival and it was a great time.

Duncan: we are planning to double the Sesh on one day now, so splitting it into two session, so we might re-brand as Double Sesh Fest? Maybe?

Given that you are lords of the Sesh Fest, do you have any advice to attendees on how to approach their chosen session at IMBC?

Marisa: Everyone has a different definition of what a ‘session’ is and how they approach it, so giving advice can be a little challenging. To us, a good session means something a little bit more than just drinking beer, it has a sense of community tied to it.

There was one comment I overheard at SeshFest that really stood out… “What makes a good session is the people around you.” As tasty as beer can be, nothing competes being in good company when out on the sesh.

Duncan: Shandy or Radlers, in pints.

Marisa in the house

Speaking of sessions, low ABV pales are all the rage these days and we are enjoying riding that wave! Your recent Micromachine collaboration with Northern Monk was a smash hit. Have you found that drinkers are turning to flavourful low ABV beers in favour of their higher strength DIPA brethren?

Marisa: Yeah, I think drinkers are turning to low ABV, flavourful beers although I still love a 8.5% DDH NEIPA.

Duncan: Yep I can’t drink any above 5% these days, gives me a ‘hops flush’.

We know you guys are no strangers to Manchester – any tips for festival goers over IMBC weekend?

Marisa: Get to Idle Hands before or during the sesh for a coffee and get to Siop Shop for the most wonderful breakfast sandwich you will have ever eaten. Oh wait, and Siop Shop does vegan donuts?! It’s a must. (Ed: backing this 100% and you might always find said duo at IMBC 18…)

Duncan: Oasis Café, Fab Café, This and That, Corn Exchange (bootleg tape basement) and the Arndale. (Ed: Follow This & That on Facebook and thank me later) 

Cheers! Any parting words?

Marisa: See you at Indyman 2018.

Duncan: Live well and work safe.

Duncan entering the house

Follow Magic Rock everywhere on the internet and drink them dry at IMBC 18.


IMBC 18 / 4th-7th October 2018. Victoria Baths, Manchester
Tickets for Thursday 4th, Friday 5th day session, and Sunday 7th October are available HERE

 

 

Wild Beer | IMBC 18 collaboration

Yesterday we took a trip to Shepton Mallet, home of Wild Beer Co, to plot a special IMBC 18 collaboration with the Wild Beer team.


Wild are returning this year at Indy Man to plant roots once more in the Food Village as sponsors of one of our two outdoor rooms. We briefly chatted over their plans for the space in October and we are tres excite – basically more beer, more barrels, more cheese. Tick tick tick. Last year the Wild space was something of a party destination, expect similarly heightened scenes this time around.


Wild Beer’s brewery is pretty incredible. You know it’s going to be good when you approach a building signposted “The Barrel Library”. The team is passionate, as you’d expect, about looking after and experimenting with beer. There is a lot going on here and so much beer, of all different states. Barrels are numbered, piled high and catalogued. To an outsider there’s no rhyme or reason to the barrel formation, just a sea of but it’s all there on paper and in the Wild Beer team’s heads.

Brett from Wild Beer guided us through samples extracted from their barrel library of different base beer options for the collaboration. Samples are taken by removing a stainless steel nail from the barrels and filling up a glass from the pinhole stream. Bang the nail back in and the barrels are all good and back on the ageing trail.





For our IMBC 18 collaboration we picked out a foeder aged saison, Schnoodlepip, blended with a lower ABV saison in the wood. This was then put alongside two of our other favourites from the sample options – a couple of aged Pogo expressions, Wild’s tropical pale ale.



The beer will be a blend of these three beers as a base and then left to age running up to the festival on a colossal amount of fresh morello cherries in the barrel. Expect something wholly Kriek-some. This is Wild’s first Kriek-forward endeavour and they are excited to bring it to IMBC 18. As are we. Here are a few photographs from our trip, with a little commentary.


More barrels in the mainland brewery.


Fresh from the barrel.


Wild Beer hot sauce. Modus barrel aged hot sauce with homegrown jalapeños and habaneros. Not sure if this one is commercially available but sounds good, huh!


Just in case you were wondering how Wild keep tabs on what barrel sample is what…they write the corresponding barrel number on the base of the glass.



Wild’s new canning line cans up to six-thousand cans an hour. Not bad!


Cheers Brett and the entirety of the Wild Beer team for having us and we can’t wait for the outcome!

Meet Burning Soul / Thirsty Games 2017 Winners

Ahoy! The second annual Thirsty Games competition was a smash this year. Thirsty Games finalists Affinity, Burning Soul, and Little Earth Project poured beers side by side on The Thirsty Games bar throughout IMBC 17. Burning Soul lifted the Thirsty Games trophy (made by Manchester artist Pascal Nichols) on Sunday evening after winning the public vote. We caught up with Burning Soul to congratulate them on their victory and to see what they’re up to now.

As part of The Thirsty Games prize, Burning Soul are the first name on the brewery team sheet for IMBC 18. You’ll find them in Victoria Baths at IMBC 18 at every session. Thirsty Games sponsors Lallemand have also gifted Burning Soul £500 prize money as well as kindly supporting The Thirsty Games and new breweries throughout 2017.Let’s see what Burning Soul are saying…

Firstly, congratulations on winning The Thirsty Games! How was your experience at IMBC 17?

Cheers man, yeah we had an absolute blast. Everyone has always told us how awesome Indy Man is, we always planned to go but always tried getting tickets too late. To go for the first time taking our beer along was epic and it did not disappoint! From the general vibe, to everyone is there to have a great time, the setting is such a great building, to the ridiculously high standard of beer made us feel very honoured to be pouring there.

Photograph by Jody Hartley


You lifted the Thirsty Games trophy at 5pm on Sunday – was there an immediate reaction once news spread?
It was a great moment with people at Indy Man who we’d met over the weekend and the social media went a bit crazy with people congratulating us, we were buzzing.

You guys brought three of your beers along – can you talk us through them? Was there a standout beer that punters reacted especially favourably towards?

So we brought along…

Belgian IPA which is a personal favourite of ours. It’s brewed with Summit, Chinook and Citra then fermented cool with a Belgian yeast. It just works really well with the citrus hops giving it a real depth of flavour.

Citra Amarillo Sour which is a new one we have been trying lately from our pilot kit and it finished fermenting just in time and was tasting great so we brought it along to see what people thought. It’s clean smooth sour with a hit of citrus from the dry hop. Really happy with how it went down at the fest and we have just started brewing up a batch on our full kit yesterday excited to see how it comes out.
And last but not least a lightly Barrel Aged Coconut Porter, this was the most stand out beer people were really enjoying, including Logan Plant who came over to check out the Thirsty Games. This is the first beer we have put in a barrel but it’s definitely not the last. Its only been in the barrel for 1 month. We were originally going to bring our normal version but after having a taste we knew we had to sneak a little out early just for Indy man and were glad we did. It’s a dark rich chocolatey porter enhanced with toasted coconut then the Jack Daniels Barrel added lush smooth vanilla notes.
How did you find feedback in general? Did it seem like there was a lot of interaction from festival goers with the Thirsty Games bar?

Yeah the interaction was great, lots of people would come up intrigued so we would tell them what its all about get them to taste all the beers and buy their favourite.

Photograph by Jody Hartley

You were up against stiff competition in the shape of Affinity and Little Earth Project – did you enjoy pouring alongside those two? The standard was excellent this year
These guys are the reason we had such a great time. We couldn’t have asked to spend 4 days with a more lovelier bunch of people and their beers were great. Even though we were technically in competition it never felt like it. We were just a group of people, who love beer, hanging out at Indy man, having a great time. All of us singing along to queen at the end of Friday is one great memory in particular.

What were you beer highlights from IMBC 17?
It has to be getting to meet Logan and getting to talk beer with him. He was telling us about when he started out and how he went about things. He was really digging the coconut porter and was generally interested asking about the process for getting the coconut flavour into the beer. We got his vote which made our day.

What kind of kit are you working with at your brewery?
We have a 4bbl brew house that’s completely self built (after a lot of auction hunting, some quick lessons in metal work and ordering a lot of piece’s of stainless steel off the internet).
When we got the keys to our premises it was particularly terrifying as we suddenly had overheads and nothing but a pile of parts and tanks (that was a long way from being able to brew beer) After 3 months hard work it actually worked which was the biggest sigh of relief. We have since had some upgrades in the form of 2 new shiny conditioning tanks. We also often have our 100l pilot kit running, testing out new recipes that we put on in our taproom to see what our customers make of them.

If anyone is on a Burning Soul pilgrimage, where should visitors to Birmingham head?
Our brewery tap is located by the Jewellery Quarter area of Birmingham City Centre, we’re based at 51 Mott St B19 3HE. You can actually get a tram from New Street Station to St. Paul’s for £1 which is 3 mins round the corner from us. We’re open Fridays 4-8 and Saturdays 1-8. We have 8 rotating taps plus take out bottles.

We sell our beer to many local pubs and bars including the Wolf, 1000 Trades, Wellington, Post Office Vaults, Clink, Cotteridge Wines, Wildcat Tap, Cherry Reds.

What’s next for Burning Soul?

We just want to keep perfecting our beers. Now that we’re starting to really understand our kit and how to get the best out of it, we can start scaling up a lot more of our small batch recipes and getting them outside of our taproom. We’re all about experimenting, that’s what makes brewing exciting so we hope to have a lot of new beers out in the next year.

Where can people pick your beers up?

At the moment mostly in bars in and around Birmingham. We have just started selling on Eebria trade so we should start getting kegs further afield . We have done some bottle runs  which can be found in local bottle shops such as Cotteridge Wines, Connellys Wines and Clink (although limited stock at the moment). We were chatting to the canning guys We Can at Indy Man so this is an option we’d definitely like to explore so watch this space!

Thanks Burning Soul!

Follow Burning Soul: twitter, instagram, facebook

Thirsty Games 2017 winners BURNING SOUL!

IMBC 17 Photos

IMBC 17 is a goner! Luckily we had Jody Hartley down to photograph it. Here are some choice visuals! Enjoy!

Meet Buxton / IMBC 17

We stole a few precious moments with Denis Johnstone, Brewery Manager at Buxton, to chat IMBC 17 and Buxton’s exciting plans. Buxton Brewery are the sponsors of the Green Room at IMBC this year and you can expect a ravishing haul across all sessions.

Hi Denis, we are really excited to have Buxton bossing their own room at IMBC this year. Can you tell us a little about what you folks have lined up for the Green Room?

Hi Dave! Yeah we’re super excited to be hosting the Green Room this year! We’re bringing a really wide range of our beers and re-brewed some classics especially for IMBC including Wyoming Sheep Ranch DIPA and Battle Horse Black DIPA – both will be kegged a day or two before the festival! We’re also bringing two slushie machines and a heap of the Buxton x Omnipollo Original Ice Cream Beers and are planning to do some fun toppings.



I heard rumblings that there are exciting plans afoot at your brewery for the beer punter. Tours? Taproom? Can you elaborate or are you sworn to secrecy?

Yes totally sworn to secrecy haha! Yes our “Speakeasy Tasting Room” at the brewery is almost ready and we should have it opened very soon.


Buxton Tap House is a real destination for any beer aficionado. I’d imagine your soft serve machines get quite the reaction from the uninitiated at the Tap House. Do the ice cream beers blow a lot of minds on a daily basis?

They certainly do! But a few minds also regularly get blown by Axe Edge! The soft serve machines are a fantastic talking point and really get people excited about our Ice Cream beers. Apart from us and Omnipollo’s Hatt (Stockholm) there aren’t many bars that offer the ice cream beers with soft serve on an almost permanent basis!

What are your top Manchester tips for visitors to the city over IMBC weekend?

The Smithfield is always awesome but I’m pretty sure history will repeat itself and I’ll end up at Port Street most nights again this year! Especially with the Burning Sky takeover! For food has to be Bundobust.

Finally. What’s your desert island Buxton beer of choice? Cold stored, naturally.

Myrcia

Thanks Denis! 

IMBC 17 App

Welcome to 2017, we now have an IMBC app!

It’s coming to Android VERY shortly but meanwhile, Apple customers, you’re in luck. The IMBC app is now LIVE and ready to download on the App Store. Search “IMBC” to locate it or find it HERE.

You’ll need the app for the online beer list for IMBC. Expect that to drop Wednesday 27th September 2017. The beer list will be updated LIVE as beers go off and on throughout IMBC 17. Wowee.

You’ll also be able to sign up for notifications to specific breweries so you are alerted when their beers change.

Other handy features include a link through to Untappd, a map so you can get around and find breweries, and the full run down of our IMBC 17 Fringe line-up.

Big thanks to Patrick Cavanagh for designing the app and to Steve Hockett for adding the illustrative touches.

Shout out to our app and connectivity supporter Telcom too!


Meet Beavertown / IMBC 17

MEET BEAVERTOWN
IMBC 17

Beaverwho? Said nobody ever. You can’t have turned a craft beer corner in the last however many latelies without happily stumbling into a new trick from the prolific Beavertown. We stole a precious moment with Nick Dwyer of Beavertown to find out the inside track on what’s really going on chez Beaver. Beavertown are the sponsors of the Pineapple Room at IMBC 17. Here’s Nick to take it away…

Hey Nick, tell us a little about your role at Beavertown – because it’s a goodie!

It sure is.  Im “Creative Director,” a title I was given when no one knew what it meant but it stuck and sounds really grand and I love it. Basically I look after anything and everything visual at Beavertown, from designing our printed cans, labels, keg badges, merch and “POS” stuff through to deciding finishes, knocking up posters, beautifying the brewery, to liaising with production facilities and manufacturers to get all that stuff to us in time for events, beer launches and trips to other countries. I don’t think I’ve ever actually written that down before. Other little bits and bobs too, but that’s the jist of it. It’s by no means just me though, everybody will have input in one way or another too.

You guys are always busy beavers, what have Beavertown been working on lately?

Prep for our fest, The Beavertown Extravaganza in a couple of weeks! I’ve been on call for making signs and banners and other visuals etc, alongside an unrelenting list of collaboration artworks to do. These are my favourite, as I get to work with some really brilliant artists that work for other breweries, Trillium’s Kevin and Stillwater’s Mike being the most recent ones. Everyones really excited about it but its been manic! We also released our huge Firestone Walker collab, “Beavo”, recently, the first time we’ve had such a quantity of a collab beer made in the USA over here.  Other than that we’re continuing our rebranding of much of the core range, working with as many brands as possible to improve our merch and not being able to brew enough beer to satisfy the thirsty masses so all in all not much HBU?

Are you hyped for Beavertown Extravaganza? We certainly are! I’m guessing you’ve had a big role in the aesthetics of it?

Absolutely. It’s a massive undertaking that I can take only a very small amount of credit for. Sam and Kieran are the real dream facilitating one-two-punch, alongside the rest of the guys like keeping the wheels turning and everyone sort of half smiling half crying. Smying. Criling? But we are getting there, ticking things off the list by the minute!

Last year at IMBC 16 Beavertown killed it in Room 1 – you were pulling so many Tempus Project beers out of the hat alongside so much more, spaceships and spacemen, all that jazz. This year Beavertown are taking over the Pineapple Room – can you tell us a little about what to expect?

I would say bright colours, brilliant beers and good times. Kieran has just said we are going “Uber beaver” over my shoulder which is a worrying statement out of context. Every year we have whittled the playlist down via trial and error so hopefully this year we will have 100% approval!.. Also, hopefully, Logan in that super flattering Gamma Ray man costume again. “I promise that’s just my phone”


Last year as part of the IMBC fringe, you had an exhibition of your work up at Common as part of a Beavertown bar takeover. Magic Rock are up at Common this year for a bar takeover throughout IMBC 17. Hopefully Rich Norgate will be peppering the walls with his art. Who are your some of your favourites when it comes to beer artwork?

Rich is up there in that list and is also a solid dude which helps. Recognizable from a distance but really intricate up close – perfect. I have always admired his talent for making abstract shapes have so much personality. Similarly, Karl Grandin of Omnipollo with his ability to make the simplest concept so visually appealing, but when he really goes for the colours and shapes… look out retinas there’s a new sheriff in town. Like I mentioned I’ve also worked with Mike Van Hall (Stillwater), Kevin Cimo (Trillium) and Nana Gulbaek (Lervig) who are all really damn good at what they do. Also just been told I’m working with Keith Shore of Mikkeller himself (again) which is always the best news so watch this space. Im really lucky to work in an industry with such exciting artists involved. Hopefully we get to work together at some point, Dave! Donut Boy meets…well, probably skeletons.

What’s your Beavertown beer of choice? (Tricky question, I know)

Humuloid. Our first crack at one of them hazy ones the kids love so much and we knocked it out the park. I can say that, having nothing at all to do with the brewing of it. Skullwater, our Belgian pale with Stillwater is also a firm favourite of mine at the moment, as it’s something a little different to what we usually do.

Quick! I’m in London! Where do I go?

The pressure is real… Walthamstow! Massively biased as I live there but Yardsale Pizza, Sodo Pizza, Eat 17, Clapton Craft and a choice of about 10 pubs all within walking radius means I absolutely love it up there. More centrally I usually find myself at The Mermaid or The Clapton Hart as both have outside spaces and I’m a sucker for a beer in a garden.


I know you’ve got a soft spot for Manchester, if you manage to make it up for IMBC weekend – where are you hitting in town? 

You know exactly where Dave, let’s not do this. (Ed: I’ve previously sighted Nick in Manchester in Common, Port Street, Kosmonaut, Heaton Hops, and Manchester Piccadilly Train Station) 

Lastly, what was your gateway into craft beer? 

The burning desire for people to see my work. I did the initial bottle labels for Black Betty and Gamma Ray as a freelance illustration gig (paid in “exposure”,) but getting a bit of insight into the passion within the beer world led to asking for a job in Dukes, then Beavertown’s home by day, and gaming it so Logan saw more of my sketchbook and designs than he otherwise might have. Through mutual interests we became close / I became employed. Long story short I offered as much help as I could, and here I am.

Anything else to add? 

I already feel hungover thinking about Indyman 17

Thanks Nick!

Independent Manchester Beer Convention
Thursday 28th September – Sunday 1st October 2017 / Victoria Baths, Manchester
Tickets available HERE

We Want YOU!

UPDATE: We are looking for volunteers for Friday evening, Saturday evening, and Sunday sessions. Get in touch if you can make any of these sessions! 

We want YOU to volunteer at IMBC 17…

VOLUNTEER APPLICATIONS ARE NOW OPEN

Every year we work with an amazing volunteer team to help us deliver Indy Man Beer Con – we are now looking for our team for 2017!

In return for volunteering at 0ne session, you will get:

1 x ticket to a session of your choice

15 x beer tokens

1 x IMBC 17 t-shirt

1 x food voucher for the session that you work

1 x good time

Most of our volunteers help out breweries with pouring beer and running their bars. Other volunteers help in other areas such as set-up, event support, information and token desks. As a volunteer you will work in the friendly, dynamic environment of IMBC and be valued as a core part of our event.

We ask that you:

Bring a positive, friendly attitude and be willing to muck in and help wherever needed

Don’t drink on shift – asides tasting what you’re pouring – leave this for your free session

We are also interested in volunteers who would like to volunteer for more one session. If you are interested in volunteering on multiple sessions, please state your interest in your application. See below! Rewards for multi-session volunteers will be announced upon approval of your given shifts.

 

If you would like to apply, please read ~ IMBC_Volunteer Information_2017  ~ and then submit the Volunteer Application Form below,

APPLY HERE! APPLY HERE! APPLY HERE!

The application deadline is 5pm Monday 11th September, but we encourage you to apply ASAP to avoid disappointment. We have limited places available and will be filling roles as we go.

IMBC 17 runs Thursday 28th September – Sunday 1st October 2017 but we are also looking for volunteers to help with the setup and takedown on either side of those dates. See form above for more details.

Before you apply, please make sure you will be available to attend one of our volunteer briefing sessions on Sunday 17th September at 5pm or Monday 18th September at 6.30pm.