Clapham Junction’s Brewdog has teamed up with Bermondsey brewery Anspach & Hobday for the UK’s biggest craft beer festival starting today.
Beer fanatics up and down the country will have been licking their lips in anticipation for #CollabFest2016, with the event returning for a fourth consecutive year.
#CollabFest is unique in the way that each UK Brewdog bar joins forces with a promising independent brewery in their area to create a new limited edition beer from scratch, each of which are then showcased countrywide for the festival.
The festival has been tripled in length to three days this year due to popular demand, with 27 bar and brewery collaborations taking part.
The celebrations kick off today, with a total of 19 cities involved.
It has grown to be a key date in the UK beer diary and the expert Cicerone-trained staff in Clapham have been working hard alongside Anspach & Hobday to make their new recipe, unleashing inventive interpretation to contribute to the craft beer revolution.
They’ve created ‘The Marmalade Saison’ – a beer created with classic saison spice and fruit, with soft flavours of orange peel and subtle bittersweet marmalade flavours.
The marmalade is sourced from England Preserves, located a stones throw away from the brewery and is guaranteed to be a hit with both experienced and novice craft beer enthusiasts.
Anspach & Hobday are excited about the opportunity for the country to experience their invention in their first appearance at the festival.
Sales director Patrick Tuck said: “Saisons typically have fruit and spice flavours so it works quite well with the marmalade, which we wanted to make quite subtle.
“We’ve always got on well with the Clapham Brewdog guys so it seemed like a natural choice.
“The event is a great opportunity to get people involved on all sides of the industry and we’re looking forward to drinking a few halves of ours, as well as some of the others on show.”
The Marmalade Saison, described as having a very long finish and strengthened at 5.6%, isn’t the only interesting ingredient available at the festival, with nothing off limits as visitors are offered the chance to sample cherries, pomegranate, mustard and peanuts.
“The festival is the public’s chance to taste the most exciting new creations in craft,” said Tracy Lee, Brewdog head of marketing.
“This beer game is all about being collaborative, sharing expertise, throwing people together and seeing what gems they come up with, and we’re nothing short of psyched to test year’s eclectic range of badass brews.”
