indy man beer con

Enter The Thirsty Games 2020

THE THIRSTY GAMES 2020

The Thirsty Games is IMBC’s competition to find the best small and upcoming breweries operating in the UK today. This year will be the fifth year of The Thirsty Games.

From nationwide submissions we will pick the best three entrants to present as The Thirsty Games 2020 finalists. A public vote, alongside an industry panel, will decide the winner of The Thirsty Games 2020.

In previous years, The Thirsty Games bar has been a focal point of the physical festival at Victoria Baths. This year, with IMBC 2020 not happening in its usual guise due to COVID-19, public voting will assume a new normal form. In the next months we will look to provide you with options to sample The Thirsty Games finalists. Stay tuned for updates.

The winner of The Thirsty Games 2020 will receive prizes from Thirsty Games supporters Lallemand, Yakima Chief Hops, and Simpsons Malt. Basically all the ingredients you need to make great beer, from three of the greatest suppliers around. The winner will also become a featured brewery at IMBC 2021. A prize fund and further incentives will also be bestowed upon the crowned brewery.

Previous Thirsty Games winners are ÖL Brewery (now Ventile Brew Co, 2019), Liquid Light (2018), Burning Soul (2017), and Fivecloud Brew Co (2016). Thirsty Games alumni includes Donzoko, Yonder, Little Earth Project, Affinity Brew Co, Wilde Child,  Maregade,  Cellar Boys, and Vault City.

HOW TO ENTER THE THIRSTY GAMES 2020

Use this FORM if the below criteria applies. 

CRITERIA

The entrants should be 10bbl single brew length or under in size, or a brewery operating on a cuckoo basis in the UK.

The entrants should have been producing beer for less than 24 months.

The entrants should have their beer on general sale and be duty paid.

TO ENTER

We want to sample your A-game beers. Send us your most interesting and creative samples.

Send a minimum of two cans / bottles per beer entered. Please send no more than three different beers.

IF THE ABOVE APPLIES THEN FILL IN THIS FORM HERE, PLEASE. SORRY TO SHOUT BUT HERE IS WHERE YOU FILL IN THE FORM. CLICK CLICK. 

DEADLINES

All samples must reach Port Street Beer House, 39-41 Port Street, Manchester M1 2EQ by 1st September 2020.

The chosen three Thirsty Games finalists will be announced shortly afterwards.

Thank you and good luck!

 

Posted on 6th July 2020

The Thirsty Games 2019

THE THIRSTY GAMES 2019

The Thirsty Games is IMBC’s competition to find the best small and upcoming breweries operating in the UK today.

From nationwide submissions we will pick the best three entrants to make up the Thirsty Games contenders at IMBC 19 (3rd – 6th October 2019, Victoria Baths). Each chosen brewery will pour their beers at every session of IMBC 19. You, the beerholder, will then vote on your favourite brewery across the length of the festival alongside our guest panel and the brewery with the most favour will be crowned the winner of The Thirsty Games 2019.

This is the fourth year of The Thirsty Games. Previous Thirsty Games winners are Liquid Light (2018), Burning Soul (2017), and Fivecloud Brew Co (2016).

CRITERIA

The entrants should be 10bbl single brew length or under in size, or a brewery operating on a cuckoo basis in the UK.

The entrants should have been producing beer for less than 24 months.

The entrants should have their beer on general sale and be duty paid.

TO ENTER

We want to sample your A-game beers. Send us your most interesting and creative samples.

Send a minimum of two cans / bottles per beer entered. Please send no more than three different beers.

The beer you send should feature at least one beer that you would pour at IMBC 19.

IF THE ABOVE APPLIES THEN FILL IN THIS FORM HERE, PLEASE. SORRY TO SHOUT BUT HERE IS WHERE YOU FILL IN THE FORM. CLICK CLICK. 

DEADLINES

All samples must reach Port Street Beer House, 39-41 Port St, Manchester M1 2EQ by 12th August 2018.

The chosen three Thirsty Games finalists will be announced shortly afterwards.

WHAT YOU WIN

The victorious brewery of The Thirsty Games 2018 will win…

A featured brewery pitch at IMBC 20 pouring their beers at each and every session rubbing shoulders with some of the best breweries in the world.

Plus more prizes to be announced.

Posted on 10th July 2019

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!

Posted on 11th October 2017

IMBC 17 Breweries

Here we go. Here is the brewery line-up in full for IMBC 17. The brewery line-up differs from Thursday/Friday to Saturday/Sunday. To see the line-up for individual days see HERE. 

Tickets are still available for Thursday 28th September and Sunday 1st October. Buy tickets HERE. 

IMBC 17 BREWERIES

IMBC 17 ROOM SPONSORS:::

BEAVERTOWN BREWERY (London, UK) / Pineapple RoomBUXTON BREWERY (Buxton, UK) / Green RoomCLOUDWATER (Manchester, UK) w/ FOREST & MAIN (Pennsylvania, USA) / Room 2
FOURPURE (London, UK) / Room 1LERVIG (Stavanger, Norway) w/ BEER MERCHANTS (Manchester / Kent, UK) / Turkish Baths
 NORTHERN MONK (Leeds, UK) / Food Village

SIREN CRAFT BREW (Wokingham, UK)  w/ RAINBOW PROJECT / Room 3

 WILD BEER CO (Shepton Mallet, UK) / Food Village
 +++

ALMASTY (Newcastle, UK)
ATOM (Hull, UK)
THE BEAK (Leeds / London, UK)
BLACKJACK (Manchester, UK)
BLACK IRIS (Nottingham)
BOUNDARY (Belfast, UK)
BRASSERIE TROIS DAMES (Sainte-Croix, Switzerland)
BREW BY NUMBERS (London, UK)
BREWSKI (Helsingborg, Sweden)
BRIGHTON BIER (Brighton, UK)
BRODIE’S (London, UK)
BROUFOX French Brewery Showcase (France)
BRUSSELS BEER PROJECT (Brussels, Belgium)
BURNING SKY (Firle, UK)
CHORLTON BREWING COMPANY (Manchester, UK)
DEYA (Cheltenham, UK)
DRY & BITTER (Gørløse, Denmark)
DUGGES (Landvetter, Sweden)
ELUSIVE (Finchampstead, UK)
FIERCE (Aberdeen, UK)
FIRST CHOP (Salford, UK)
FIVECLOUDS (Macclesfield, UK)
FIVE POINTS (London, UK)
GARAGE (Barcelona, Spain)
GUEUZERIE TILQUIN (Bierghes, Belgium)
HAWKSHEAD (Staveley, UK)
HOGAN’S CIDER (Alcester, UK)
THE KERNEL (London, UK)
LEFT HANDED GIANT (Bristol, UK)
LINES (Caerphilly, UK)
MAD HATTER (Liverpool, UK)
MARBLE (Manchester, UK)
NORTH BREWING CO (Leeds, UK)
ODYSSEY (Whitbourne, UK)
OTHER HALF (New York City, USA)
PARTIZAN (London, UK)
REDCHURCH (London, UK)
RED WILLOW (Macclesfield, UK)
RIDGESIDE (Leeds, UK)
RUNAWAY (Manchester, UK)
SIX DEGREES NORTH (Aberdeen, UK)
SQUAWK (Manchester, UK)
THIRST CLASS (Stockport, UK)
THORNBRIDGE (Bakewell, UK)
TORRSIDE (New Mills, UK)
TRACK (Manchester, UK)
VERDANT (Falmouth, UK)
WIPER AND TRUE (Bristol, UK)
WEIRD BEARD (London, UK)
WHITE HAG (Ballymote, Ireland)
WYLAM (Newcastle, UK)
ZAPATO (Leeds, UK)

THIRSTY GAMES 2017 FINALISTS:::
AFFINITY BREW CO (London, UK)
BURNING SOUL (Birmingham, UK)
LITTLE EARTH PROJECT (Sudbury, UK)

 

IMBC 17 SUPPORTERS
Official Glass Sponsor: BEER MERCHANTS


Official Brewer Mother & T-Shirt Supporter: SIMPLY HOPS

Official Keg Partner: KEGSTAR
Thirsty Games Supporter: LALLEMAND


Beer Mat Supporter: YEAST BERLIN

App and Wifi Supporter: TELCOM

 

Posted on 4th September 2017

Thirsty Games 2017 Finalists

THE THIRSTY GAMES 2017 FINALISTS

This week we announced the finalists for our Thirsty Games 2017 competition. The Thirsty Games is an IMBC initiative to find the best new small breweries operating in the UK today. From the nationwide entrants, we, along with Thirsty Games sponsor Lallemand, tasted the submissions and chose the strongest three breweries.

Last year, 2016, was the first year of The Thirsty Games. Fiveclouds took home the crown after a close run battle with Wilde Child and Maregade on the inaugural Thirsty Games bar. Read about Fiveclouds journey since HERE and seek out their beer.

At IMBC 17, you will be invited to taste the beers from The Thirsty Games 2017 finalists and encouraged to vote for your favourite brewery. You, along with a panel of brewers at the festival, will decide the winner of The Thirsty Games 2017.

You will find our three Thirsty Games finalists on The Thirsty Games bar at every session of IMBC 17, pouring a selection of their beers throughout the festival.

The winner of The Thirsty Games 2017 will be gifted the prize of being the first brewery on the team sheet for Indy Man Beer Con 2018, invited to have their own bar across all sessions. Thirsty Games supporters Lallemand have also queued up a couple of big prizes that we will unveil shortly.

Without further ado, here are the three Thirsty Games 2017 brewery finalists…

LITTLE EARTH PROJECT


Little Earth Project is a small and adventurous micro brewery in Sudbury, Suffolk. Specialising in Historical, Farmhouse and Sour beers. Very British Sour Beer. IPA, Stock Ale, Porter and Farmhouse ales all fermented with local wild yeast and bacteria. We look forward to welcoming Little Earth Project to IMBC for the very first time.

Twitter
Instagram
Website

AFFINITY BREW CO
Affinity Brew Co: a South Walian and a Bristolian, marooned in a shipping container in North London, with nothing but a 2.5bbl Brew kit and an idea: To brew the beers they want to drink.

Both have been in the industry for many years as brewers, publicans and many other roles in between.

Head brewer Steve’s love of Belgian styles has resulted in Affinity’s signature beer being ‘Breeze’, a 3.8% Lime Zest and Coriander Seed Saison. And rather than brewing a double IPA, why not have a crack at a raspberry, coconut and cacao stout based on a famous Australian cake?

Steve and Ben’s unwillingness to stick to a core range mean that things are unlikely to stagnate at Affinity HQ; welcome along for the ride!


Twitter
Instagram
Website

BURNING SOUL



Burning Soul of Birmingham complete the Thirsty Games 2017 line-up. Here’s what Burning Soul have to say…

“The two of us set up Burning Soul Brewery on a mission to brew the best beer we can, because it’s what we love doing. Making uncompromised beers with the best ingredients available to us, to serve to the awesome beer community. The name Burning Soul isn’t just about beer, it’s about chasing down whatever it is that makes you tick, for us it’s brewing beer and we hope our passion for brewing great beer shines through in every drop we make.
We love all beer styles so for us it’s worth experimenting to find new exciting beers that work. We don’t shy away making progressive styles and love switching it up, using exciting ingredients in order to create memorable beer we hope you don’t forget.”

Twitter
Instagram
Website




#IMBC17TG

Indy Man Beer Con 2017
Thursday 28th September – Sunday 1st October 2017
Victoria Baths, Manchester

Tickets for the Thursday and Sunday sessions available HERE. All other sessions have sold out.

Posted on 13th July 2017

IMBC 15 IN PHOTOS

And well, that was the Independent Manchester Beer Convention 2015. Thank you to everybody involved. Photographs by Jody Hartley

Posted on 14th October 2015

IMBC 15 Breweries

The moment you’ve all been waiting for. Here is the brewery list for IMBC 15. More day-to-day info to follow SOON.

INTERNATIONAL BREWERIES

1. NZ Collective:
8 Wired (New Zealand)
Renaissance (New Zealand)
Three Boys (New Zealand)
Tuatara (New Zealand)
Yeastie Boys (New Zealand)
2. Against The Grain (USA)
3. Firestone Walker (USA)
4. Galway Bay (Ireland)
5. Jopen (Netherlands)
6. Mikkeller (Denmark)
7. Põjhala (Estonia)
8. Lervig (Norway)
9. Tilquin (Belgium)
10. Nómada (Spain)

UK BREWERIES

11. Cloudwater (Manchester)
12. Northern Monk (Leeds)
13. Hawkshead (Staveley)
14. Camden (London)
15. Beavertown (London)
16. Brewdog (Aberdeen)
17. Ad Hop (Liverpool)
18. Almasty (Newcastle)
19. Alpha State (London)
20. Alphabet (Manchester)
21. Atom (Hull)
22. Black Iris (Nottingham)
23. Blackjack (Manchester)
24. Brew By Numbers (London)
25. Burning Sky (Firle, Sussex)
26. Buxton (Buxton)
27. The Celt Experience (Caerphilly)
28. Chorlton Brewing Co. (Manchester)
29. Cromarty (Cromarty)
30. Elgoods (Cambridgeshire)
31. Five Oh Brew Co (Manchester)
32. Hammerton (London)
33. Hanging Bat Brew Co (Edinburgh)
34. The Kernel (London)
35. Kirkstall (Leeds)
36. Left Handed Giant (Bristol)
37. Mad Hatter (Liverpool)
38. Magic Rock (Huddersfield)
39. Moor (Bristol)
40. Orbit (London)
41. Partizan (London)
42. Quantum (Stockport)
43. Redchurch (London)
44. Runaway (Manchester)
45. Siren (Berkshire)
46. Squawk (Manchester)
47. Thornbridge (Bakewell)
48. Track (Manchester)
49. Vocation (Hebden Bridge)
50. Weird Beard (London)
51. Wild Beer (Somerset)
52. Zapato & The Beak (Leeds)
53. Wiper & True (Bristol)
54. Wylam Brewery (Wylam)

COLLABORATION BEERS

The following beers were paired by pulling out of 3 hats, 1 contained fruits (roughly), 1 contained styles and the final contained breweries. You’ll never believe what happened next.

Weird Beard/Lervig with IMBC: Gooseberry Pale
Northern Monk with IMBC: Quince IPA
Madhatter with IMBC: Seaweed Gose
Cromarty with IMBC: Bilberry Saison
Squawk with IMBC: Fig Stout
Hanging Bat with IMBC: Sloe Wit
CANNING SERVICE

In a first for IMBC, We Can will be providing cans for takeaway. Grab an empty can, take it to the tap of your choice to get it filled, take it back and We Can seal will seal it – the beer will last around 5 days. We Can will also be selling the above collaboration beers, these will last up to 6 months. Takeouts just got verified!

 

Posted on 9th September 2015