A look into the world of independent brewing here in Liverpool with Carnival Brewing Company
Independent brewing in Liverpool is on the up and the rise of these breweries intrigued me into finding out more about the independents behind these brewing ventures.
Carnival Brewing Company is an independent Liverpool based brewery and they create such beautiful products that are superior to the some of the mainstream. Carnival kindly spoke to galerie de aims magazine this week to discuss life as an independent brewery in here in Liverpool.
Over to Carnival Brewing Company…
What is your favourite thing about being a local brewery?
We love our city and being based within sight of the legendary Liver Birds (we can see them from our car park), makes us very happy. Liverpool is a very beautiful mercantile city, made famous around the world by its unique waterfront. As we are only a few minutes away from Princes Dock and the Three Graces, we feel very much part of the city even though we have only been open since December 2019. Liverpool is a great city for independent business. We receive a lot of support from local pubs, bars, restaurants and customers, and we hope to grow and thrive as our city recovers from the covid pandemic.
Brewing in Liverpool is on the rise at the moment and it is so exciting! What is next for you guys?
Our business is still focused on playing catch-up. We opened for three months before having to close and so a lot of our plans have had to change. We are now on a direction of travel that has diverged from our original plans, but that’s business. We intend to increase our fermentation capacity, extend our reach to Europe and participate in more events like festivals and meet the brewers to become a little more well known. We also have plans for increasing our staffing to keep up with demand.
Do you have any exciting collaborations or new products in the pipeline?
We always have new products in the pipeline. We are still playing catch up so we have a lot of new beers we are still planning to launch by the end of the year along with rebrews of some of our more popular products. We’ve just released and sold out of our recent dessert beer collaboration with the wonderful Three Hills Brewing in Northampton and London and we have a couple more in the planning with other breweries we admire. We are collaborating with Festevol to release some beers for their forthcoming live shows at the Invisible Wind Factory in August. We also plan to release our first gluten-free beer before the summer is out. Our collaboration with One o’Clock Gun in Albert Dock has just been rebrewed as it has flown out, and we have just canned a new collaboration beer with Rocket Records, a label known for their releases of artists such as Goat and Pigs x 7. This beer was brewed to celebrate the restart of live music after such a long hiatus. Finally, our new non-beer collaboration is taking shape with Liverpool Lost Dock Rum, who make excellent spiced rum. This one will be really special!
Some of my favourite products are any of those that are tropical! What seem to be the most popular?
Our most popular beer is Carmen, our Mosaic hopped pale ale. It’s totally tropical, easy drinking and light so ideal for pubs and restaurants. Our cans have a really lovely design too so it makes for a really eye-catching product. A lot of our pales and IPAs are dry hopped with new world hops giving those lovely tropical aromas and flavours. Our new Kolsch lager bier is very popular too especially now it’s summer and people want something crisp and refreshing to drink. Our fruited sours are also very popular – Summer Smash is our latest sour and sadly now we have a couple of cans left. It was a collaboration with indy music legend, Lawrence and mixes honeydew melon with juniper and mint to create a super light, tangy and refreshing tipple.
What are the best things about being an independent in Liverpool?
As i mentioned earlier, Liverpool is a city that really supports local business. From pubs, bars, restaurants to shops and our local communities, people are locally-minded and when they find a good thing, they really support it. We’ve found this with our tap room, which admittedly is a little hidden away, but when people find us they keep coming back.
You can shop Carnival Brewing here
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