The Fownes Brewing Company - Brewers of Epic Tales

The Dwarfs are calling

Published on April 21, 2013, by admin

Things never slow down for the Dwarfs at the Fownes brewery.

April will see us taking our beers to two local festivals, Walsall and Stourbridge.

If you’re going to the Walsall beer festival (Thursday 4th to Saturday 6th April) we’ll have two new beers available there. And if you’re ever out for a pint in Walsall, check out The Wheat Sheaf on the Birmingham Road, as they now regualrly serve Fownes ales on the bar.

Four months in and the Best of British Hops range of beers has been very successful, not only in demonstrating the flavour characteristics of British hops but also the desire amongst drinkers to try them. April will see us use UK Cascade, a British grown variation on a popular American hop (see over for more details). We’ve also launched Ulfsberg Cross 4.8%ABV, a development of January’s Bramling Cross.

Ladies, time is running out for you to get your tickets (£10 at the bar) for the ladies only ale tasting evening, 6pm on Thursday 18th April. It will be a fantastic, fun night out, giving even those of you who dislike beer the opportunity to have another try in a relaxed, friendly environment. You’ll get to sample six different beers along with food chosen to match that beer style as well as a goodie bag to take away. Your host for the evening, Marverine Cole (Beer Beauty), is an award winning beer blogger, accredited beer sommelier and TV presenter. When she tried the Fownes beers in a recent visit to the Crispin she said “THEIR BEERS ARE UTTERLY BRILLIANT!” For the gentlemen there will be food available, three new ales and a talk on British hop farming. Please come along, bring your friends and support this great evening.

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank our local MP, Ian Austin, for his continuing support of the Fownes brewery. You may remember back in October 2012 Ian adopted the first of our casks; since then he’s arranged for Crispin’s Ommer to be sold as a guest ale in the Strangers bar at the House of Commons (more on that in July), made the voice of local brewers heard in parliament (we finally got rid of the Beer Duty escalator) and gave us a mention on TV during the Sunday Politics show on the BBC (24/3/13).

Yorkshire Beard Day 2013

Published on March 4, 2013, by admin

Sunday 3rd March was Yorkshire Beard Day. The event was held at the Spa complex in Scarborough.

To give our 1st Annual Beard of the Year competition a kick start we headed up there to promote it and hopefully get some awesome beards on camera. We were not disappointed by what we found. 21 people took part in the competition including Michael Legge, last year’s champion (and this year’s). Some of the ladies were also sporting very impressive hand made beards.

The days entertainment included live bands as well as judging of the entries.

: Our stall complete with new banner.

: Ukulele band taking the stage.

: Hairy Poppins and King George.

: Contestants registering.

: Tuxedo t-shirt. Every good beard should have one.

To see photos of the contestants click here.

For more up to date information on the competition check out the Facebook page.

Busy little Dwarfs

Published on February 24, 2013, by admin

There is much a foot here at the Fownes Brewery.

To keep up with the demand for our beers in the interim before installing larger equipment in July we’ve added a 4th fermenter to the brewery. As soon as it’s up and running we’ll post some images. While on the subject of demand, Crispin’s Ommer is flying out of the cellar to the point where Rob at The Jolly Crispin has had to invest in a 3rd auto tilt stillage for the beer. We are very proud to have produced a beer specifically for the pub’s regulars and been rewarded with them emptying over 5 firkins every week.

At the start of the month we sent Firebeard’s Old Favourite No.5 to the Hucknall beer festival in Nottinghamshire. Thanks to Anthony Hughes at Lincoln Green Brewery for taking our beers along and relaying the fantastic feedback. Customers were asking for a pint of the red stuff long after it had sold out on the Friday night.

Our Crash Ball tournament was a great success. The Crispin Crusaders, the home team, gouged out a bloody Grand Slam leaving bodies in their wake before partying on the bar late into the evening. The t-shirts and banner for the event, provided by Teet Shirts in Cradley, gave the event a fantastic visual impact. The t-shirts were so popular we are considering adding them to our regular line of merchandise and the aim for next year is to host a much bigger competition with a wider range of fantasy races taking part. If you missed the event being tweeted live or haven’t seen the match reports check out the page here.

The collectors card we launched at the end of January have been flying out with only 45 cards still available. Once you have a card all you need to do is try each of the 8 currently available ales at The Jolly Crispin, get your card stamped and return it before the 31st March to receive a free Fownes Brewery t-shirt.

With both January and February’s Best of British Hops range selling out in under 48 hours when they’ve been on the bar we’ve received some fantastic feedback, with many people saying they take them back to the beers of their youth. It really shows that there is place for British hopped beers in public houses across the land drinkers should do more to seek them out and show their support for British hop farmers. In April The Jolly Crispin will be playing host to Ali Capper from the British Hop Association who will be giving a talk and answering questions on the British hop industry. CAMRA members will probably have read an article by her in a recent edition of What’s Brewing.

On the same evening in April, as well as Alison talking to real ale lovers in the pub we’ve got a host of other entertainment on offer. The evening kicks off at 6pm with a Ladies Ale Tasting Evening run by TV beer expert and blogger Marverine Cole (Beer Beauty). Tickets and details are available here.

Later in the evening our resident storyteller John Edgar will be performing the latest instalment in the Korvak story as well as his own tales. On the bar we’ll be showcasing the next in this years range of porters, Korvak’s Triumph – a honey porter; a sneak peak of Story Teller – Bramling Cross Bitter and the latest Best of British Hops beers – Cascade.

Sunday 3rd March will see us head up to Scarborough for the 2013 Yorkshire Beard Day to promote our Beard of the Year competition. With some of the country’s best beards entering the competition we’re hoping to get some fantastic entries for our contest. As well as encouraging people to enter the event we’ll also be selling our latest t-shirts and bags.

Remember to ‘Like’ us on Facebook to keep up to date with all the latest news from the brewery or ‘follow’ us on Twitter.

1st Annual Crash Ball Tournament

Published on February 14, 2013, by admin

This Saturday will see the first annual Crash Ball tournament being broadcast live on this website and Twitter #CrashBall.

The Crash Ball tournament ties in with the first of this year’s seasonal ales. Using the Blood Bowl fantasy football system from Games Workshop, six players (3 Dwarfen & 3 Human teams) will compete in a friendly contest based on story for Crash Ball to see who will be champion.

Come back this Saturday to see images and live match reports.

Laid out on the bar

Published on January 19, 2013, by admin

Here at the Fownes brewery the Dwarfs and Trolls are beavering away to get everything ready for Thursday 31st January when we have our launch party at The Jolly Crispin for the products we’ve got in store for 2013 (more on those in the near future).

One of our aims for the start of 2013 was to really put our stamp on our brewery tap, The Jolly Crispin. And in the blizzard conditions on Friday a brave courier van rolled up outside the brewery and delivered the first of our marketing materials for the new year.

Previously we’d had our beer mats produced by Thirsty’s whereas this time we employed Phoenix Marketing based on a recommendation for Anthony Hughes at Lincoln Green Brewery.

Now we have three designs of beer mat: the first is the same as the original, the company logo on grey, the second is the ‘Brewers of Epic Tales’ hammer design that had been previously used on t-shirts and our pull up banner,

and finally a design promoting our brewery tap and it’s house bitter, Crispin’s Ommer.

As before the reverse of the beer mats has all the information that potential customers would need to find us in the real world or online and allow them to interact with us and the stories that the beers are accompanied by.

To put our presence on the bar we also now have bar runners, two designs, one promoting the Crispin as our home and the other showing our core range of pump clips. These will now be a permanent feature on The Jolly Crispin’s bar as well as those of our premium retailers.

Adventures in Brum

Published on December 30, 2012, by admin

The last few weeks have seen us venturing into the city of Birmingham.

On Monday 17th December, following the ever dependable Jane on Sat Nav, I entered Birmingham city centre, parked outside The Wellington on Bennetts Hill and pondered what to do next. You see this was the first time I’d ever delivered beer to another pub. I’ve dropped off at beer festivals, had beer collected from the brewery but never delivered to a pub that wasn’t the Crispin.

Having just driven past several eagle eyed traffic wardens the possibility of a ticket was at the forefront of my mind. So, I dashed to the parking meter only to discover it doesn’t take cash. Yes, that’s correct, if I want to park here I needed both mobile phone and credit card. Forget that! I went to the car and in my best handwriting wrote a note explaining I was making a delivery and I’d return shortly.

I walked down the side of the pub to be faced by a huge number of firkins and kilderkins. Suddenly my four 9’s of King Korvak’s Saga seemed quite insignificant. Making my way into the bar I met Tracy who told me to leave the casks by the cellar door with the other casks while she sorted out the cash for the invoice.

Car unloaded, cash in hand, I set the destination for home and spent the next few days studying the Wellington’s Twitter feed to see when Korvak had made his way onto the bar.

I met up with Nigel Barker of The Wellington Saturday just gone and he was telling me that three of the four casks had already been put on and sold the thirteen days since they’d delivered. A fact that was supported by comments from followers on Twitter.

“Fantastic yr for @FownesBrewing who finish it with their 1st ale King Korvak’s Saga on sale in Birmingham’s best real ale pub @WellyRealAle

“@TobleroneTyrant @nashienet @FownesBrewing @WellyRealAle It appears to be selling like hot cakes and I haven’t tried it yet!”

A number of our supporters in Birmingham had been disappointed that they hadn’t had chance to get over there before it sold out given their Christmas vacation.

Gary Timmins (Regional Director) had invited us to donate a cask of beer for the CAMRA Regional Prize Giving event at The Bartons Arms in Birmingham. In exchange he would feed us Thia food and put us in the room with representatives of all the local CAMRA branches and award winning brewers. An opportunity like this is invaluable so we jumped on it.

Monday 24th December and The Bartons Arms became our second delivery to a pub in Birmingham in as many weeks. However, this was a drop unlike any I’d previously encountered. Three times as deep as the drop at the Crispin, I really wished I’d had a rope and hook with me because the thought of letting our lovely plastic casks fall that far made me a little weak at the knees. I was assured by the cellar man that all I needed to do was line it up with the wooden rails, let go, and the mat at the bottom would do the rest. With a short pause of hesitation, not wanting to look like an amateur, but also knowing that these things never end well for me I let go and the world slowed down. The split second of relief when the cask hit the mat disappeared almost instantly as it bounced off across the cellar! My heart sank as I was convinced a fall from such a height and bouncing like that was sure to have cracked the plastic.

“Is it okay?” I enquired in a shaky voice.
“They don’t normally do that.” The cellar man shouted as he retrieved the firkin. “It’s fine.”
Breathing resumed and once I had a signature I was on my way.

Wanting to make the most of the visit to Brum I enlisted Jane’s help to navigate the one way system to get back to The Wellington, produced another hand written sign and popped into the pub to take a photo of King Korvak’s pump clip on the bar. I was greeted again by Tracy.
“Delivery?” she enquired.
“No, here to take a photo of my pump clip if that’s okay?”
“Sure, which ones yours?”
“This one, King Korvak’s Saga.”
“That’s been selling really well.” She told me. I tried not to beam too much at the good news.

We’re definitely looking forward to supplying more of our dark beers to Nigel at The Wellington, it has to be one of the best destinations for dark beers in Brum.

Our first meet the brewer evening

Published on December 16, 2012, by admin

Back in October we were approached by Stephen Jackman from The Salmon pub in Leicester. With a thriving pub and a passion for serving new beers for his loyal regulars, he’d heard about us and wanted to buy some beer. Initially I was reluctant to drive all that way but Steve assured me he would collect, pay up front and return the casks promptly. Based on this and needing an opportunity to practice my sales patter I set out to see how many casks he would take. He didn’t need much persuasion and six casks (Frost Hammer, 2 Gunhild, King Korvak’s Saga, Firebeard’s Old Favourite No.5 and Leviathan) later I agreed to come over with Tom and do a meet the brewer evening to support the beers Steve was putting on.

The Salmon is a beautiful former Bank’s pub, tucked away from the main streets of Leicester but always busy with those who know where to seek out the best pint in town. The interior features a mix of wood panelling, tiling, giant Bank’s mirrors and rugby memorabilia. A central island bar with stained glass in the top caters to both sides of the bar with 6 hand pulls and an array of keg dispense taps for the unenlightened. In the vaulted cellar you will find around 30 casks on stillage with many more standing by. An award winning pub, The Salmon is well worth a visit whenever you’re in the area. When we arrived we set up our roller banner in the corner and laid out our malts and hops on the table before realising we were blocking the rugby on the TV. Quickly moving to avoid upsetting the regulars we waited to begin.

Having spoken about our beers and beer in general to groups of people I was fairly confident about the evening but when faced with a pub full of strangers I wasn’t sure which approach to take. I began with the, lets stand here with our hops and malt and see if anyone comes and talks to us. That didn’t work out so well although Tom did find himself in conversation with two of CAMRA’s youngest members, discussing the brewery and our plans for the future.

I went out amongst the customers and quickly found those interested in what we were doing. The first group included a gentleman who’d visited the brewery a few weeks prior and mentioned he was from Leicester and was expecting to see us there. His group also included Andy, the beer buyer for the Leicester beer festival so hopefully there’ll be some of our beer making an appearance there next year.

Later in the evening I put the hops and malt on the bar and had some interesting conversations about hop varieties and starting up a brewery.

Returning home was a bit of a trek with part of the M6 being closed and having to go cross country with the aid of Google maps but we rolled in about 12.30 in the morning.

A fantastic evening and very much looking forward to returning in the near future. Thanks to Steve and all the patrons of The Salmon.

Dudley Winter Ale Fayre and beyond

Published on December 16, 2012, by admin

The run up to Christmas is proving to be a very busy time of year here at the Fownes Brewery.

At the end of November we took part in the Dudley Winter Ale Fayre run by CAMRA. Being our local branch we volunteered to help with the set up on the Monday, took it easy on the Thursday talking to landlords and brewers, Friday and Saturday back on the bar and Sunday taking it all back down again. We sent a firkin of Gunhild and Leviathan to the festival, both of which were very well received. By the end of Thursday the cask of Gunhild was tilted, and both were empty by the end of Friday night.

Without any of our own beer to sell on the Saturday I made it my mission to spread the word about Lincoln Green Brewery who we had brought a cask of Robin’s Red Fest to the festival for. This was greatly enhanced by the fact that Anthony had appeared in Central News the night before and provided a great talking point. Before the end of the night the Robin had flown the nest leaving only an empty cask.

The festival also saw the last of our beer mats go. Having ordered a 1000 first time round, now we are getting 10,000 split across three designs. This will help us continue to establish our mark on The Jolly Crispin whilst continuing to promote our brand further afield. In addition to the beer mats we’re also ordering some bar runners to keep our name permanently on the bar.

The Adopt A Cask scheme has been going really well with 26 of 50 now adopted. We’re really hopefully people will adopt some more last minute as Christmas gifts.

On the 15th December we’ll be at The Salmon pub in Leicester to do our first meet the brewer evening which we are really looking forward to.

Adopt A Cask

Published on December 1, 2012, by admin

Our Adopt A Cask scheme is now underway. Launched at the opening of the brewery on 18th October, the scheme is an alternative to traditional financing.

Being a one barrel brewery the amount of money that can be generated is limited by the volume of beer we can produce. Because of this getting financing up front on an unproven business has been difficult. Casks are an essential component of any brewery, without them beer cannot be stored, delivered or dispensed, but the initial investment is very high. For a small brewery like ours plastic casks were the only viable option being half the cost of the more traditional stainless steel cask, but still cost £40 each. Our plan was always to rapidly reinvest money coming into the business to fund further expansion and increase the size of our brew plant. With the burden of purchasing 50 new casks around our Dwarfen necks those plans would take too long to achieve, hence the birth of Adopt A Cask.

Local people are asked to adopt a cask, thereby supporting a new local business that will go on to generate new jobs in the future, and in return receive a token of our gratitude. Depending on the number of casks adopted the rewards range form a t-shirt and certificate to a brewery experience day and cask of beer.

The first person to adopt a cask was Ian Austin, MP for Dudley North. Mr Austin was a leading figure in suggesting the setting up of the Green Shoot fund, overseen by Wolverhampton University and the Express & Star newspaper. The fund will provide grants of up to £50,00 to help small businesses expand and create jobs in the region. This is the sort of opportunity needed by small start ups like us to get a leg up and bring our plans to fruition.

Ian came to the brewery on Friday 30th November to collect his certificate and t-shirt and was good enough to pose for a picture as well. In addition to supporting the cask adoption scheme, Mr Austin has also had Crispin’s Ommer, the house bitter at The Jolly Crispin, added to the waiting list of beers to feature at Strangers bar in the Palace of Westminster. This will a fantastic opportunity to showcase a beer that isn’t available outside of the Fownes Brewery tap.

So far 10 casks have been adopted, the names of those generous individuals can be seen on our supporters page, with interest expressed in another 10 or so. We are aiming to have all 50 adopted by the end of the year. An adopted cask makes a unique and fantastic Christmas gift. For more information see the Adopt A Cask page.

Movember

Published on November 30, 2012, by admin

Movember is drawing to a close. Having tracked the progress of our man in the north and being suitably impressed with his effort at emulating the facial hair of a Dwarf in just one month we’ve made a small contribution to his total.

If you haven’t already donated then now is your chance to make a big difference.

Click here to visit Owain Millard’s Mo Space.

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