Crafting Quality: Inside Beak Brewery with Danny Tapper

In this episode, Danny Tapper from Beak Brewery shares his journey from a homebrewer to the owner of a successful independent brewery. He discusses the challenges faced during the pandemic, the importance of community, and the meticulous process behind brewing consistent and high-quality beers. Danny also speaks about the story behind their branding, collaborations with other breweries, and the exciting launch of their new non-alcoholic brand, Nolia.

Tickets for Three Hills Festival

Chapters

• 0:00 The Journey Begins: From Pubs to Brewing
• 3:24 Navigating Challenges
• 6:10 Home Brewing: Learning Through Experience
• 7:47 Crafting a Unique Brand: The Beak Identity
• 11:27 Consistency is Key: The Brewing Philosophy
• 14:40 The Art of Hop Selection: Crafting Flavour
• 20:23 Milestones & Collaborations with Favourite Breweries
• 27:12 Future Projects and Collaborations
• 30:10 Non-Alcoholic Beers and Nolia Brand Launch
• 32:23 Recommendations for First-Time Beak Drinkers
• 33:46 Did You Know?
• 34:50 Final Words & Outro

Transcript

Martin (00:00)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Beer Rep chats with today. I'm very proudly ⁓ joined by Danny from Beak Brewery. Danny, thanks for coming on the show.

Danny Tapper (00:10)
Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, it's pleasure.

Martin (00:13)
More than welcome, it's an honour. Let's start with the beginning. What inspired you to start Beak Brewery?

Danny Tapper (00:18)
So I'm from a family of people who like going to pubs. We never went to restaurants growing up. I'm from a little town near the Yorkshire Dales. so yeah, like family outings were always to pubs, whether we're eating or drinking. And my Grandad actually was really into best bitter. And so yeah, me and my friends when we were younger, we

Started a real ale club when we were I think we were like 15. So probably a little bit illegal Yeah, I don't know how good that is to be promoting that Yeah, so we used to we used to drink like cask Tetley's and stuff like that and I've always loved pubs and I've always loved beer and I went into journalism. I did that for ten years and during that time. I was writing a lot about food and drink

Martin (00:49)
already that young.

We'll scrapped that one out.

Danny Tapper (01:13)
and I was just really enjoying writing about people who own food businesses and I thought I'd really like to turn my passion for home brewing into a business. So I'd been doing that about five years. I did a few like voluntary shifts at the Kernel Brewery in London and Evin taught me the basics of home brewing at that point.

Martin (01:19)
Yeah.

awesome. Yeah.

Danny Tapper (01:36)
I had, I remember having his beer at the time and I think it's kind of hard to explain how revolutionary that was at the time to have that kind of hop flavour. and that really changed everything for me. ⁓ like I loved everything about Kernel and I just thought I want to do this. ⁓ and so yeah, I eventually bought a Nano brewery, ⁓ which was like a hundred litre set up and then slowly progressed into nomadic brewing.

Martin (01:47)
Yeah, definitely.

Danny Tapper (02:04)
And just, yeah, self-taught really. And yeah, then we set up Beak, which is like the bricks and mortar iteration of Beak five years ago. It's been quite a long road getting here, to be honest.

Martin (02:14)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It seems to me,

it seems like you've been around forever. It's only like five years in, but I remember, I remember having one of, one of your beers, literally when you wasn't about a year into, into, you know, setting up Beak you know, before you moved to your permanent home in, in Lewes and

Danny Tapper (02:21)
Mm-hmm.

Martin (02:34)
Yeah, it just seems like a such a long time ago, how long it's been. But obviously not so long when you say five years compared to other breweries around. ⁓

Danny Tapper (02:39)
Yeah.

Yeah, I know it's like, it feels

like it's, we've been around longer and I think that's because we were around as a nomadic operation for a few years, like before becoming Bricks and Mortar. So we had a bit of a following in Leeds and Manchester and London as well, but like a really niche following. there's like some people who still like get in touch to say, I've got a bottle of like a beer you made eight years ago and it was, you know, like a home brew beer. Yeah.

Martin (02:58)
Yeah.

Yeah.

That's nice. So what were some of the biggest challenges you faced since moving to your permanent home in Lewes

Danny Tapper (03:20)
Well, the biggest challenge was, so we got the keys for an industrial unit. I signed like a 10 year lease on an industrial unit, which was the biggest risk I've ever taken in my life. And you can imagine like how much rent, two and a half thousand square foot industrial unit is in the south of England. And to commit to that for 10 years was really scary for me because I'd never owned a business.

Martin (03:38)
Yeah.

Danny Tapper (03:45)
We got the keys and then two weeks later they announced lockdown. So Boris Johnson came onto the television, I'll never forget it, and said he was closing every pub in the UK for the first time. And, you know, however long the history of the UK is. ⁓ And that was a huge blow. And I just thought, well, this is the worst time in history to set up a brewery. ⁓ But actually, like looking back, it was a blessing in disguise because we went ahead, we had no choice but to open.

Martin (03:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Danny Tapper (04:14)
brewery. So we opened it, but we just pivoted to an online offering. And the great thing, like one of the only good things about lockdown was that for me, owning an independent business was that people were at home on social media, exploring things through their phone. we just got quite a big social media following quite quickly.

And people, you know, they had furlough money and people were just ordering their favourite breweries every weekend. I was doing the same, you know, like all my money was going to Track and Cloudwater and Kernel. And so, yeah, people started discovering us and ordering online and actually it was like really good for us. And eventually when we opened the tap room, we have a quite big outside space. So it was a really, we were able to accommodate a lot of people.

Martin (04:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Danny Tapper (05:03)
So think it was for us a blessing in disguise.

Martin (05:04)
Yeah.

Yeah, we recently chatted to Oli from Attic and they said a very similar thing, you know, as well as it was a hard time for breweries. It also helped them to progress, you know, to move forward to canning and to sell their beers online and stuff like that. So yeah, I mean, it was a hard I know a few breweries upgraded just before COVID hit and then...

went bust not long after COVID because they couldn't produce the beer because no one was, no one was buying it to sell. So yeah.

Danny Tapper (05:31)
and

Yeah, it was a really tough time,

particularly for cask beer producers as well, because obviously cask beer is contingent on a pub. It's finished at the pub. So we were really lucky just in that the majority of our beer was small pack. ⁓ didn't have a canning line, we were using a mobile canner. But the kind of beers we make lend themselves well to small pack. So yeah, we were okay.

Martin (05:40)
Yeah, shelf life. ⁓

Mm.

Yeah.

Good. So how, how did your, your background in home brewing influence your journey? I mean obviously you said your self taught ⁓ did you enter like competitions and stuff like that?

Danny Tapper (06:13)
⁓ I don't think I entered any competitions, but I did use to, ⁓ a very early stage in my home brewing career. I, I basically took my home brew to restaurants and bars, ⁓ which was kind of ridiculous. So like one of the first batches I made, I think it was, ⁓ a rye beer, rye IPA, which I still love that style. And it's like, you don't see it at all anymore. ⁓ but I remember packaging that I made a homemade label.

Martin (06:27)
Okay.

Yeah.

Danny Tapper (06:42)
I took it to, we lived on a street that had this amazing, I think it was Michelin restaurant called Braun, which I was a big fan of. And I took the beer, the home brew down and said, I've got a brewery down the road. Are you interested in trying my beer? And I had organised this meeting with the bar manager and he really liked the beer or maybe he was just being polite, but he said, yeah, it'd be nice to do a brewery visit if you're based on the street.

At that point, I had to be honest and say, well, it's not strictly a brewery. It's a homebrew project, you know, but I could potentially accommodate, you know, bottles of beer for a restaurant. Needless to say, I had none of the like food standards agency certification. I wasn't registered. wasn't. You know, all of this stuff I had to learn, like by making mistakes. So it turns out you can't just make beer in your kitchen and sell it to restaurants.

Martin (07:26)
Yeah.

Yeah, all the legal stuff.

Yeah,

your your artwork for Beak is

mean, it's amazing. What was the whole influence behind the branding?

Danny Tapper (07:45)
I'm glad you like it. Yeah, it's it actually has been through various iterations. So like the old branding was really different when I was a nomadic brewer. But this like current form, like the there's a lot of white and obviously primary colours. And basically in the village I grew up in the Dale Yorkshire Dales, like there was a designer there called Oliver Shaw, who is in my class, well, the class just above me.

And he's now a really celebrated like graphic designer. He's got a New York agency and, but we were good friends growing up still are And he, he comes from a very editorial background in terms of doing like fashion magazines and things like that. So when I was setting up Beak, I just called in a favour and said, can you design a beer label? And he has no packaging experience. So he approached.

Martin (08:12)
Mm-hmm.

Danny Tapper (08:39)
from a much more editorial perspective and it was very simple, like not really trying to replicate anything you would find typically on like a supermarket shelf and... sorry.

Martin (08:43)
Yeah.

It's very unique, isn't it? So whenever you see a can, it doesn't even have to have your logo on it. And everyone automatically will straight away know it's a Beak beer.

Danny Tapper (09:03)
Yeah, and I think that's like

a happy accident in some ways. So I always say that our cans were almost like un-designed. they were, they're not, it wasn't like we didn't do it on purpose. It was just that no one had any experience making packaging before. So it was all about, let's just make it look like a magazine. And Ollie, the designer knew, he was like, you should meet my friend Jay, who is an illustrator. And I think he'd be really good.

Martin (09:21)
Yeah.

Danny Tapper (09:32)
I said I want a beer label that doesn't look like a beer label. I think I much prefer old wine labels from the 80s and 90s and things. He was like, you should meet my friend Jay, who also I sort of knew through a friend. He was at Leeds Uni like me. I just said I want a logo that depicts a nomadic brewer with a book of recipes. And then he drew the logo for Beak straight away.

Martin (09:42)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Danny Tapper (09:58)
the

old version he was wearing a hat and there was a bird perched on the book and I said I think we've got it we just need to remove the Beak, the bird and the hat and like so we've never changed it since like I just feel like it was a fully formed thing.

Martin (10:07)
Yeah, the bird, yeah.

Yeah. mean,

does Oli still do the artwork for the cans or is that now Jay?

Danny Tapper (10:19)
So Jay,

the illustrator, does all of the artwork and Oli was doing the layouts until pretty recently but his New York studio is just like so busy and the time difference is like the actual layout is now Jay's doing both the illustration and the layout.

Martin (10:36)
Awesome. Amazing artwork.

Danny Tapper (10:37)
I love his work.

Recently we did a bit for Tate. It was Tate Modern's 25th anniversary. We took over 14 of their keg lines and his work just looked so at home in Tate Modern Gallery. I think it's like the white, so it's almost like you're looking at a gallery wall and then it just allows his illustrations to shine.

Martin (10:43)
Yeah, I've seen that,

Yeah, exactly. the colours you use the blue yellows and the reds they they really stand out on the white background. Really helps it to come forward.

Danny Tapper (11:09)
Yeah, no, I'm a massive fan

of Jay's work. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I know we are. Definitely.

Martin (11:12)
Yeah, very good. You're very, very lucky to have someone so talented doing your artwork. Yeah.

So you're very known for, you know, your incredible consistency in your beers. What's the secret to that?

Danny Tapper (11:24)
So we, even though we are known as like a hop forward brewery, I think we have always prioritized consistency and quality over hop character, not over hop character, over being massively hoppy. And like, think it's personally, I think it's really important to focus on the basics of beer before you start throwing tons of hops.

You know, anyone can sort of overload a beer with like hops and T90, Cryo, you know, there's so many options, but I actually think it's more important to get the basics right. I'd rather have like a well-accomplished best bitter than like a really hoppy New England IPA that's got loads of off flavours. And so when we set up, I made the decision to step back as brewer because I was just a one-man band before then.

Martin (11:54)
Yeah.

Danny Tapper (12:19)
because I'm not a trained brewer, you know, and I knew that there were people out there who would make much better beer than me. And so when we set up the bricks and mortar version of Beak, our first hire was our head brewer, Robin, was previously he was at Burning Sky as lead brewer, which is a brewery I massively respect. And, you know, if Mark Tranter like trust someone with his beer, I'm like,

Martin (12:42)
Yeah.

Danny Tapper (12:46)
Okay, he's a good brewer. So, so Robin joined and although he didn't, wasn't really into the kinds of beers that I was making at the time in terms of really hoppy New England IPAs, he, his background in science, like very like quality focused. And so the first releases, like they definitely weren't as like hoppy as our beers are now, but what they were is like super accomplished and consistent. so since then we've

Now we're at a stage where I think in terms of hop character, our beers have never been better, but until then I don't think we've necessarily ever had an issue with consistency, which I'm really happy about.

Martin (13:26)
Yeah, I

that's, mean, you know, the main comments that you get when people describe Beak beer is, is consistency and they've never had a bad beer from Beak, you know, and that's just a big accomplishment in itself just to get them comments back from, from customers, I suppose. And, you know, every beer, mean, every, every beer that I've had from Beak has been amazing. Never had a bad one. ⁓

Danny Tapper (13:42)
Yeah, I love those comments.

Good, I love hearing that. like also

in terms of shelf life is really important to us. We do a lot, we focus a lot on shelf life and you know, there's nothing worse when you go to a bottle shop and you get a beer from a great brewery that you know would have tasted fantastic within the first like month of it being packaged. And then it deteriorates super quickly. It is difficult, it's really difficult. And so much of it is down to the shop as well. Like how are they storing the beer?

Martin (14:07)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Danny Tapper (14:17)
You can only mitigate for that so much, we do put lot of focus on shelf life

Martin (14:22)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So we're obviously talking about hop forward beers. They're pretty much a fan favourite. ⁓ What's your process for for recipe, recipe development and hop selection?

Danny Tapper (14:35)
And so I'm glad you mentioned hop selection, because that's probably one of the most important aspects of how we get the hop character from our beers. And basically, we are one of a small selection of breweries in the UK that gets to attend the Yakama Chief hop selection every year. So we fly out. ⁓

like the end of every September and we essentially it's called hop selection it does what it says on the tin you sit around a table me and the head brewer and we basically like sample lots and lots of different hops from different farms around Yakima and like Washington Seattle area Oregon and we hand select the three most common hops we use so mosaic, Citra, Simcoe and we probably try about

12 different lots of each variety and if we're not happy with them they'll bring out another 12 hops and they're all from specific farms and I think what a lot of people don't realise about hops like especially if you're new to craft beer is it is like an agricultural product and it's like grapes in that different grapes have different like towers and you know depending on where even like a specific field within a specific farm like the same variety of hop

Martin (15:33)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Danny Tapper (15:57)
tastes completely different in like in regards

Martin (15:58)
Yeah, it's depending

on obviously where it's growing the soil. ⁓

Danny Tapper (16:03)
Yeah, the soil,

amount of sunlight, like even the time it was picked, like how ripe it is. And so we put a lot of like time and attention into selecting hops that we really like love and that really stand out to us. And it's, you know, it's a big ⁓ commitment because then you committed to those lots for the rest of the year, but we, we definitely think it's something that pays off for sure. Yeah.

Martin (16:09)
Yeah.

Definitely.

Danny Tapper (16:31)
And then we just like, think because we've been doing it five years now, there's not like a single thing that results in good beer. So I always like liken it to like the recipes are actually not as important as people think. if I was liken it to, you know, like a Gordon Ramsey book or like, let's say someone puts out a Michelin star, a Michelin star chef puts out a cookbook and you get it for Christmas. You're not going to recreate that Michelin star restaurant in your

Martin (16:57)
Of course.

Danny Tapper (16:58)
kitchen

and you've got the recipe and it's like, well, why can't you? And it's like, it's because so much of food is process driven. It's not about the recipe is important as a baseline, but it's, it's tweaking. It's like thousands of tweaks that we've been doing over, you know, five years now, just like constantly being motivated to, to change and improve. So it's like, yeah.

Martin (17:09)
Yeah.

Would that be like, you know, changing how much hops you put in, ⁓ different malt bills, things like that?

Danny Tapper (17:29)
Yeah, the malt, obviously like the malt bill is pretty important, but to be honest, once you've got a house malt bill that works for New England IPAs, they don't really change that much. But it has taken us quite a lot of time to get to the malt bill we're at now. And now again, you can chuck loads of protein heavy grains, beer and think, ⁓ cool, I'll end up with a really foggy, cool looking beer. And then you do that. then because there's so much protein, it all drops out of suspension.

Martin (17:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Danny Tapper (17:58)
that we've actually the opposite of an opaque beer, you end up with a clear beer. So there's all of these, I know, you know, like too many oats, then it becomes quite almost like dry in the mouth. And so it really has to be balanced very delicately. And then there's obviously all the different forms of hops. So like, I remember when Cryo hops started being used more often, which are essentially more punchy version of like a T90 pellet.

Martin (18:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Danny Tapper (18:25)
And everyone thought, okay, this is the answer to making great New England IPAs. But if you use too much Cryo, then you lose body because like T90 pellets like give body to beer. So there's like, there's no single answer that makes a good New England IPA. It's like, there's lots of moving parts. But essentially it's all process driven.

Martin (18:25)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

How much do you feel that water chemistry is important in the beers that you brew?

Danny Tapper (18:53)
Yeah, really important. Yeah. We have really bad water for making New England IPAs down in the southeast.

Martin (19:00)
Yeah,

you're down south from, I mean, London and it's a yeah, hard water. It's not exactly the best water to be to be using for any hop forward beers.

Danny Tapper (19:02)
Yeah.

No, but

you know, that's fine because we have the technology to override that. So we have a reverse osmosis machine, which basically was a big investment for us, but we did it right at the beginning because we knew that like obviously 99 % of what you're drinking is water and if you get that wrong, you ruin everything. So yeah, like obviously water chemistry is really important. You know, how much oxygen's in the beer, the...

Martin (19:18)
you do?

Yeah.

Danny Tapper (19:36)
ph. Then there's like balancing out maybe like American hops with Southern Hemisphere hops. A lot of Southern Hemisphere hops like create that beautiful like custard yellow you get in beers. It's not all about the malt. Yeah, we're really one thing we're really focused on is pH as well. Like I'm a really big fan of like fairly low pH New England IPAs because I just think it

Martin (19:49)
Yeah.

Danny Tapper (20:02)
It heightens like, know, orange juice kind of acidity you get.

Yeah, but then you go

slightly too low pH and it just is horrible. So it's very delicate.

Martin (20:11)
⁓

So what would you say has been some of the biggest milestones for Beak Brewery so far?

Danny Tapper (20:19)
Well, opening, like making that transition from Nomadic Brewer to Bricks and Mortar is obviously like a mass. That was like the biggest step by far our first These Hills Festival. So we put on a festival every year called These Hills in Lewes. And like that was an incredible opportunity just to get to curate like the bar of my dreams. I mean, how amazing is that? You get to sit down and just...

Martin (20:43)
Yeah, every,

Danny Tapper (20:47)
Invite all your favourite breweries.

Martin (20:47)
every, every beer drinker's dream, isn't it?

Danny Tapper (20:51)
It

was amazing and like, yeah, the first two events were like, they're just dreamy, like absolutely loved every second of it. The third one, which was last year got called off because of really bad weather, unfortunately. But we're hosting this year's event is 9th and 10th of August. we've got, you know, like people like Fidens coming and Finback and yeah, so that's great. And then other highlights are just getting to collaborate with my favourite breweries.

Martin (21:12)
That's good.

Danny Tapper (21:19)
around the world. Well, what UK?

Martin (21:19)
Which ones are your top five?

Well, either UK and across the world.

Danny Tapper (21:26)
Well, some of my favourite UK breweries like, you know, Track, Cloudwater, Deya, Verdant, like, and you know, I always say to the team, like, never get complacent about working with people like that, because, you know, I still fanboy out about those breweries. And for me, it's like, it's like a dream getting to work with them and being friends with these people and getting to learn how I really look up to all of those breweries.

We haven't collaborated with Kernel yet. That's actually, I feel like that needs to happen.

Martin (21:58)
Would it be in bottle or can though? That's the question.

Danny Tapper (22:00)
I don't know, the thing with like, we're

really different breweries, obviously, even though like, Beak in many ways was inspired by Kernel we've gone off in like a completely different direction, but yeah, that's another UK brewery I've got like absolutely massive respect for. ⁓ In terms of internationally, it's been really fun collabing with, we did Equilibrium from New York and Finback ⁓

Martin (22:25)
Yeah.

Danny Tapper (22:25)
We went over to Seattle and brewed with Fast Fashion They've got a small brewery in Seattle, like incredible. Yeah, just like.

Martin (22:34)
We've

got

Danny Tapper (22:35)
when, when these people turn up in Little Lewes, like all the way from, you know, like Miami or Florida or New York and, Australia and Japan, had Uchu brewing over here and they come over here and I'm just like, wow, like these people are on our doorstep in Lewes.

Martin (22:45)
Yeah, Uchu.

Yeah. I

mean, it just goes, goes to show how far you've come in five years and, and that you've, how quickly you've risen to, know, firmly put yourself in with, you know, the ones that you say that your fan favourites like Verdant and track and, and you're there, you're, you're up there with the best top quality hop forward beers from the UK, easily.

Danny Tapper (23:13)
Yeah, I feel really

lucky and yeah, like I say, it's like something we never want to lose sight of.

Martin (23:20)
Yeah, again, that's where the consistency comes into play. I've got to keep on it.

Danny Tapper (23:23)
Yeah, no, I actually never

forget that one of my highlights was when we, I, when we first opened, we'd probably been open like a couple of months and I was physically like packing all of the web shop orders. And I remember I saw a name, it's like Adam Verdant and it said Falmouth, Adam Robertson. And it's like, I saw it as a Falmouth address and I was like, that's Adam from Verdant And so I just put like a cap in, was like a

thank you for creating such great beers And then I just thought, you know what, I'll send him a message and see if we could do some kind of collaboration. This was like six months down the line. he texted, no, email straight back saying, I was just thinking exactly the same thing, how good it would be to do a collaboration. like that moment really stands out for me as well.

Martin (23:53)
Yeah.

You

Yeah, definitely. That would be a, definitely a proud moment. You're emailing him thinking, ⁓ should I, should I test the waters and see if he's interested in it? Yeah, exactly. And then for him to turn around and say, I was actually thinking the same thing. That must've been a very, very proud moment. you know six months in as well. Yeah. you're now you're based in Lewes. How important is, ⁓ your local community?

Danny Tapper (24:13)
Yeah.

Yeah, like, you won't know who I am.

Yeah, definitely.

Really important and like I always think the best breweries have a really good sense of place. So when you think of track and Cloudwater you immediately think of Manchester and yes, they have national and international reputations, but the heart of the brewery is rooted in those communities. And I think that's really important. And when I was thinking of where to set up Beak, initially I was thinking, maybe, you know, London is the place to do it. Maybe Brighton.

But actually setting up in a small market town on the South Coast is like the best decision we ever made. And yes, we don't have the same population as a major city, but what we do have is like a really strong sense of place and community. And I think like that's something that comes across in our branding and the people who follow us like are starting to learn about this place called Lewes or Loos There's a lot of people.

Martin (25:29)
lose air.

Danny Tapper (25:31)
And that's one thing I really like about the US scene as well. Like a lot of my favourite breweries are in little towns in the middle of nowhere. They're not in like, not all in the big cities. And I just love the fact that every weekend we get these people getting off the train from across the country, even other countries, like coming to this little market town. And we're all so proud of where we live here. ⁓ there's a really, really good sense of independence and community. So yeah, for me.

Martin (25:41)
Yeah.

Danny Tapper (26:00)
Like being a part of that community is really important.

Martin (26:02)
Yeah, which obviously this leads us on to your taproom. It's become quite a bit of a destination. ⁓ You know, how does that work and how important of a role does it play ⁓ for Beak?

Danny Tapper (26:16)
Really important financially, it's, you know, it's a nice, nice, ⁓ like, you know, it, it's important, but it's not like a massive part of the business financially, but in terms of what it brings to our sense of place, it's like incredibly important. like, as every brewer, I'm sure we'll probably tell you there's like nothing quite beats being able to finish work and then go and see people enjoying like what you've been.

producing all week. Enjoying the fruits of the labour, yeah, and like on a sunny day down here under the cliffs, it's really beautiful. we have, you know, have families, really good, like, diverse demographics. We've got runners. It's, yeah, it's really nice. Yeah, really, really important.

Martin (26:45)
Yeah, enjoying the fruits of your labour

Have you got any upcoming projects, collaborations, any beers that are coming up that you're especially excited about?

Danny Tapper (27:11)
Yeah, I mean, we've got, well, in terms of projects, we've got, we're actually, we've been planning an expansion for the last few years. We just, problem with Lewes is that it's really hard to find big industrial units that are in the centre because it's a really small town and increasingly, like all the units are getting knocked down and turned into housing. So we've been looking for a space to move.

Martin (27:35)
Mm-hmm.

Danny Tapper (27:37)
We've actually got our eyes on and we've just put in an offer for a much bigger unit in the centre of Lewes. And if we can get this, it will future proof the business in terms of what we want to achieve in terms of meeting demand. So we're really, really hoping we get this unit. if we do, it'll allow us to expand to a size where we'll finally be able to meet demand, which will just be like.

so much easier for us. Whereas at the moment, if you come, think a lot of people are surprised by how small we are. We're absolutely tiny and we're bursting at the seams. Like lot of our stock is just like, you we're having to work outside, we're having to borrow space from our neighbours. So yeah, that's, that's like the big project we're working on.

⁓

terms of like collaborations, I can't like share too many of the details cause our ops manager will kill me, but like we've, we've got, we've got an Imperial Stout coming out with, three sons from Florida who, yeah, one of our favourite breweries. The week after that, we've got a double IPA with Fidens coming out again, another fantastic brewery. ⁓ then we'll be doing.

Martin (28:27)
No hints.

Danny Tapper (28:47)
We've got another, so we do a project called Outliers Project, which we did our first release a few months ago. And the whole concept of Outliers is picking people that fall outside of the craft beer clique and like bringing them to the fore and doing a collaboration with them. So the last one we did was with a project called Concrete Blues in Philadelphia. And it's just this one man band who makes British cask beer ale in Philadelphia.

as we did in the ESB with him. And we've got another one of those in the pipeline coming out hopefully quite soon. Trying to think of who else, we're doing a, we've actually just two days ago done a Deya collab as well, which yeah, I'm really happy about. That's due for release in about three weeks.

Martin (29:31)
Nice, when's that due for release?

Keep your eyes on that one.

Danny Tapper (29:36)
and

a massive Deya fan, so it's always like really fun to send their close friends as well. it's, if anything, like the collaborations are just like a really nice way to catch up with friends and yeah.

Martin (29:38)
Yeah, same.

Is it going to be in a 440 mil or 500? That's being brewed at Beak Lovely. Looking forward to that one. So do you see yourself expanding a bit into more different styles? Will you be brewing a non-alcoholic or low, really low ABV beer?

Danny Tapper (29:49)
440, yeah, it's being brewed here. Yeah.

So I'm glad you asked that actually because we're the other thing project we're really excited about is we've actually launching a separate brand to Beak called Nolia. N O L I A. So completely separate brand to Beak, but almost a bit like, you know, left-handed giant have blender, which is their mixed fermentation project. It'll be similar to that in that it's like a sub brand. Our name is nowhere on the can, but there are like

Martin (30:28)
Yeah.

Danny Tapper (30:34)
elements of our design in it so you can sort of tell there's a link. But where that has come from is we over the last 12, well about 12 months ago, we decided to start exploring non-alcoholic beer. And the one thing we really wanted to achieve is like currently the alcohol free market is dominated by macro breweries and the focus is very much on

like session pale ale flavours and lagers because it's all about refreshment and health and we were like why is no one creating the kind of modern top tier IPA flavour profiles within an alcohol free package and obviously like some of our peers and other independent breweries have been doing amazing work with that but the macros have totally neglected it and we, so 12 months ago we started investigating like how we can

re create the kind of flavours that Beak are known for but in an alcohol free form. And so in November we released our first ever AF beer which was called Flowers. And since then that beer is now on Untappd It's the number one highest rated alcohol free IPA in the UK which we're really proud of. And what we've done is we've taken Flowers and we've basically like bumped it up in terms of like

hop aroma, mouthfeel, overall character. and renamed it as Nolia And with these really nice printed cans, we love the design and we're going to be announcing the launch of that at the end of this month. And that'll be going, yeah, that'll be for sale from the, I think it's the 28th it launches.

Martin (32:08)
Awesome.

That sounds amazing.

Yeah, so ⁓ for anyone who's never had a Beak beer, and I'm sure that's not many people in the UK, which one would you recommend they start with?

Danny Tapper (32:24)
I mean, it kind of depends on, on the person, but like, I always point people to Parade, which is our flagship IPA. was the first beer that we really put out, even as a nomadic brewer, was brewing it, brewing it then. And it's like the classic hop combination of mosaic and Citra. All of the hops are hand selected by us each year. So they're super fresh, really characterful. ⁓

It's got like, it's got a lot of body. It's definitely a New England IPA, but it's probably slightly less thick and rich than some of our six and a half percent IPA releases. So it's like, it strikes that balance between there's this. Look, it's 6%. So wouldn't go as far as describing as sessionable , but it's. It's there's a session ability and like a refreshment to it, which means that you can drink.

Martin (33:01)
Yeah.

Danny Tapper (33:17)
fair amount of it. It's not super overpowering, but it's our biggest selling beer and I think it represents what we're all about as a brewery in terms of consistency and hop character.

Martin (33:29)
Yeah, definitely. Parade's a lovely beer, as many others as well. So finally, ⁓ last question. ⁓ What's something people might not know about Beak Brewery that would surprise them?

Danny Tapper (33:43)
Hmm, that's a good question.

a lot of people know where the name Beak comes from but the the Beak is like it is a nod to the cuckoo brewing past of the Brewery but also the fact that

When I was growing up home brewing with my friends, me and my friends all called American beers beaks because you know, you get like golden eagles and things like that on American beers. You quite often have these birds of prey. So we always called American beers beaks and European beers borgs. It's like Carlsborg Kronenborg It was a silly little joke we had when we were drinking real ale.

Martin (34:09)
Yeah.

Yeah, Tuborg

Yeah, that brings a bit of your past into the brand and the name and the whole history behind the name. yeah, I didn't know that actually. didn't know about that used to call American beers, breweries, beaks. And that's probably where the name. Yeah, that's good. Anything you want to mention? Anything else before we end up?

Danny Tapper (34:37)
Yeah, just a funny little joke me and my friends had.

I

think the most important thing I to get across is... Oh, no, there is actually one more thing. There was obviously the These Hills Festival, which we're really excited about on the 9th 10th of August. We've got a subscription box called Beak Social Club. And if you sign up to that before the end of this month, you'll get a free These Hills ticket. So, yeah, that was something I wanted to mention.

Martin (35:07)
Great. Yeah. We'll put the description for the links on the description below. Danny.

Danny Tapper (35:12)
Great. And also

just to thank anyone who's listening to this who's bought Beak. Like, yeah, just a big thank you for like supporting us and like, as you know, as an independent business owner, know, every sale is like so important in keeping like all of these independent businesses open. So yeah, we appreciate it.

Martin (35:33)
It certainly is important. Every sale counts. yeah, we've got a few of the Beak beers on the site right now at thebeerapp.com. ⁓ yeah, jump online and get some.

Danny Tapper (35:35)
Yeah.

Great, good to hear.

Martin (35:47)
Yeah, let us know what you think. Danny, it's been absolutely a pleasure to talk to you and thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule. can imagine you're super busy and yeah, thanks for coming on.

Danny Tapper (35:54)
Thank you for having me.

Thank you.

Martin (35:59)
So, yeah, we'll, uh, I'll catch up with you soon and, and yeah, enjoy the rest of your day. Enjoy the sunshine. Cheers. Danny. Thanks a lot, Bye bye. Bye.

Danny Tapper (36:00)
cool.

Nice one. Cheers Martin appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.