 | |
| Headquarters | |
|---|---|
Key people |
|
| Parent | St. Peter's Brewery |
| Website | www |
Curious Brewing (formerly Curious Brewery) is a brewery in Ashford, Kent, England. It was established in 2011 by the Kent-based winery group Chapel Down. [1] [2] [3]
| | |
| Headquarters | |
|---|---|
Key people |
|
| Parent | St. Peter's Brewery |
| Website | www |
Curious Brewing (formerly Curious Brewery) is a brewery in Ashford, Kent, England. It was established in 2011 by the Kent-based winery group Chapel Down. [1] [2] [3]
Chapel Down had started producing lagers in 2010, importing beer and ales from the Leicester-based brewery Everards, but wanted to open a local production unit. [4] The brewery was given permission to develop from the town council in late 2016. The site was purchased for development in November 2017 following a £1.7 million investment, mostly from crowdfunding. [5]
The company chose to invest in Ashford because of its prominent location on the High Speed 1 railway. The brewery own a bar inside St Pancras railway station, London, at the other end of the line. [6] The premises were planned to be fully open in April 2019 with a production capacity of two million litres (440,000 imp gal), with an accompanying restaurant and visitors centre. [1] [7] [8] The people who donated to the crowdfunding scheme, which raised £1.16 million of the funds, receive a discount on products, with those contributing over £25,000 having their names engraved on one of the fermentation tanks. [4] A waterfall was constructed on one side of the premises. [9]
In March 2019, the brewery announced that the new premises would not be fully open until the end of May owing to a problem with the groundwork. Once open, production in Ashford would quadruple from the existing capacity, catering for up to 170,000 pints of beer at any one time. [10] [11] It opened on 10 May. [12]
In February 2021, following a catastrophic loss in trade following the COVID-19 pandemic, Chapel Down put the brewery business in administration. [13] It was subsequently sold to Luke Johnson's Risk Capital Partners, who stressed there would be no redundancies. [14] [15]
In January 2023, it was announced that Curious Brewing had acquired Wild Beer Co, based in Shepton Mallet, Dorset. Wild Beer Co had previously revealed their planned closure due to waning finances and challenges connected with rising costs. [16]
On 29 September 2023, Curious Brewing was bought by St. Peter's Brewery based in Suffolk. [17] [18]
The brewery is located on a 1.6-acre (0.65 ha) former brownfield site on Victoria Road, near Ashford International station. [5] The ground floor includes 1,000 square feet (93 m2) of publicly-accessible areas including a shop and bar. Elsewhere, there is a 4,000 square feet (370 m2) bar with two dining rooms. A waterfall is installed down a side of the building. [12] The premises is on a brownfield site that previously housed the Beaver Road School, which was demolished by a bomb during World War II on 24 March 1943. The brewhouse is named "Miss Adams", in honour of the school's head teacher who managed to evacuate all children immediately before the blast. [19]
The company produces a variety of beers and lagers, using winemaking methods. These include Curious Brew and Curious IPA. [3] As well as draught products, the group produces Curious Session IPA in cans, which was launched on Beer Can Appreciation Day, 2019. [20] At 4.4% alcohol by volume (ABV), it replaced the stronger Curious IPA at 5.6% ABV. [21]
The brewery won the 2021 UK Brewer of the Year at the International Beer Challenge, after being judged the best brewer by an expert panel of 70. [22] [23]
A special selection of "Curiouser and Curiouser" beers has been introduced. The name comes from the novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland where Alice said that things were getting "curiouser and curiouser". [3]
Brains is a regional brewery based in Cardiff, Wales. It was founded in 1882 by Samuel Arthur Brain. At its peak, the company controlled more than 250 pubs in South Wales, Mid Wales and the West Country but the brewer sold most of its pub estate in 2022. The company took over Crown Buckley Brewery in Llanelli in 1997 and Hancock's Brewery in 1999. In 2000, Brains moved to the former Hancock's Brewery just south of Cardiff Central railway station. The Old Brewery, in Cardiff city centre, has been developed into a modern bar and restaurant complex.
India pale ale (IPA) is a hoppy beer style within the broader category of pale ale.
Bass Brewery was founded in 1777 by William Bass in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, England. The main brand was Bass Pale Ale, once the highest-selling beer in the UK. By 1877, Bass had become the largest brewery in the world, with an annual output of one million barrels. Its pale ale was exported throughout the British Empire, and the company's red triangle became the UK's first registered trade mark.
Greene King is a British pub and brewing company founded in 1799, currently based in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. The company also owns brands including Hungry Horse and Farmhouse Inns, as well as other pubs, restaurants and hotels. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), until it was acquired by CK Assets in October 2019.
Wadworth is a brewery company founded in 1875 in Devizes, Wiltshire, England, best known for their 6X beer brand.
Duvel Moortgat Brewery is a Flemish family-controlled brewery founded in 1871 in Antwerp Province, Belgium. Its strong golden pale ale, Duvel, is exported to more than forty countries. Duvel is Brabantian, Ghent and Antwerp dialect for devil, the standard Dutch word being duivel. Other popular beers include Maredsous and Vedett.
St. James's Gate Brewery is a brewery founded in 1759 in Dublin, Ireland, by Arthur Guinness. The company is now a part of Diageo, a company formed from the merger of Guinness and Grand Metropolitan in 1997. The main product of the brewery is Draught Guinness.
Beer has been brewed in England for thousands of years. As a beer brewing country, it is known for top fermented cask beer which finishes maturing in the cellar of the pub rather than at the brewery and is served with only natural carbonation.
In the United States, beer is manufactured in breweries which range in size from industry giants to brew pubs and microbreweries. The United States produced 196 million barrels (23.0 GL) of beer in 2012, and consumes roughly 28 US gallons (110 L) of beer per capita annually. In 2011, the United States was ranked fifteenth in the world in per capita consumption, while total consumption was second only to China.
McMullen's, known locally as Mac's, is a regional brewery founded in 1827 in Hertford, England, the United Kingdom. The brewery expanded during the second half of the 19th century by purchasing other breweries and their associated pubs. In 1902 it was the second largest brewery in Hertfordshire. The brewery has occupied several different sites in Hertford and moved to its current location in 1891. There have been several breweries on this site and the current one opened in 2006. As of 2021, members of the 6th generation of the McMullen family are still involved with the business.
The Porterhouse Brewing Company is a brewing company based in Dublin, Ireland. It was founded in 1996 by cousins Oliver Hughes and Liam Lahart who opened Ireland's first craft brew pub in Dublin. The company's brewery is now in Glasnevin, providing beers to its outlets in Dublin, London and New York. It also sells its products via several supermarket chains.
The Marble Brewery is a microbrewery in Manchester, England which makes cask ale from organic and vegetarian ingredients.
Sharp's Brewery is a British brewery founded in 1994 in St Minver Lowlands, Rock, Cornwall, by Bill Sharp. Since 2011, the brewery has been owned by Molson Coors. It is best known for its flagship ale Doom Bar, named after the notoriously perilous Doom Bar sandbank in north Cornwall.
The beers of the Caribbean are unique to each island in the region, although many are variants of the same style. Each island generally brews its own unique pale lager, the occasional stout, and often a non-alcoholic malta beverage. Contract-brewing of international beers is also common, with Heineken Pilsener and Guinness Foreign Extra Stout being the most popular. The beers vary between the islands to suit the taste and the brewing method used.
BrewDog is a multinational brewery and pub chain based in Ellon, Scotland. With production of over 80 million Litres, BrewDog is the seventh largest beer brand in Britain, and the company claims to be the "#1 Craft Brewer in Europe". It was founded in 2007 by James Watt and Martin Dickie, who together own 17% of the company.
Peerless Brewing Company is an independent microbrewery based in Birkenhead on the Wirral Peninsula, producing cask brewed beers by combining traditional techniques and fine ingredients with a modern tang.
Small Town Brewery was a brewing company based in Wauconda, Illinois, best known for creating the Not Your Father's brand of flavored beers.
Rhinegeist Brewery is a craft brewery and craft cidery based in Cincinnati, Ohio. The company also sells their ciders under the name Cidergeist, using an alternative apple-shaped skull logo. The brewery's 25,000 square feet (2,300 m2) taproom and production facility is located in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, and occupies the former, pre-Prohibition bottling plant of Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. Rhinegeist operates an additional shipping, storage and innovation brewing facility in Cincinnati's Camp Washington neighborhood.
Chapel Down based in Tenterden in Kent, is an English vineyard and winemaker. It is the largest producer of English wine, with over 950 acres under vine, which will reach a capacity of 2.4 million bottles per annum.