Industry | Brewing |
---|---|
Founded | 2017 |
Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
Products | Beer |
Website | theoriginalsmallbeer |
The Small Beer Brew Co. (also known as Small Beer) is a London based brewery that specialises in brewing lower alcohol beers. It was established in 2017 by two ex-Sipsmith colleagues, James Grundy and Felix James. [1] The company operates from a brewing facility in South Bermondsey, London, close to the 'Bermondsey Beer Mile,' a small London district containing many microbreweries. [2]
Small Beer Brew Co. is the first known brewery that is dedicated to the production of small beer, [3] [4] a category of beer defined as having an alcohol by volume (ABV) content that is between 0.5% and 2.8%. [5]
Small Beer Brew Co. first produced a Pilsner style, combining Maris Otter malt with Saaz Hops, which is brewed at 2.1% ABV. The lager contains less than one unit of alcohol per 350 millilitre bottle. [6] The company produces four other beers, all of which are lactose-free and suitable for people on a vegan diet. [7]
Small beer as a concept dates back to the 1700s when beers with a lower alcohol by volume content became a staple everyday refreshment because clean drinking water was so scarce. [5] It typically refers to beers brewed between 0.5% and 2.8% ABV. [8]
Small Beer Brew Co. was launched in November 2017 by James Grundy and Felix James, who met while working together at Sipsmith gin company in London. [3] [9] The pair first brewed beer together in late 2016 and came up with plan to re-introduce the concept of small beer to a modern audience. [10]
In October 2020, Small Beer Brew Co. launched a crowdfunding campaign on the Crowdcube platform. The company raised £750,000 from 555 investors, which resulted in a valuation of £9 million. [11] Following another crowdfunding campaign, Small Beer Brew Co. raised almost £700,000 from over 580 investors, increasing the valuation of the company to £16 million. [12] [13]
Small Beer Brew Co. achieved B Corp certification in November 2019 in recognition of its sustainable business practices. [14] [15]
The company enforces a "dry floor policy" at its brewery in Bermondsey, which has helped to reduce the amount of water required to produce a single pint of beer from the industry standard of 8-10 pints of water to 1.5 pints of water. [16] The brewery is powered purely by wind, water and solar energy and the brewing kit has been designed to capture, recycle and recirculate water. [4]
Beer is the oldest and most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after potable water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from cereal grains—most commonly from malted barley, though wheat, maize (corn), rice, and oats are also used. During the brewing process, fermentation of the starch sugars in the wort produces ethanol and carbonation in the resulting beer. Most modern beer is brewed with hops, which add bitterness and other flavours and act as a natural preservative and stabilizing agent. Other flavouring agents such as gruit, herbs, or fruits may be included or used instead of hops. In commercial brewing, the natural carbonation effect is often removed during processing and replaced with forced carbonation.
Mild ale is a type of ale. Modern milds are mostly dark-coloured, with an alcohol by volume (ABV) of 3% to 3.6%, although there are lighter-hued as well as stronger milds, reaching 6% abv and higher. Mild originated in Britain in the 17th century or earlier, and originally meant a young ale, as opposed to a "stale" aged or old ale.
Low-alcohol beer is beer with little or no alcohol content and aims to reproduce the taste of beer while eliminating the inebriating effects of standard alcoholic brews. Most low-alcohol beers are lagers, but there are some low-alcohol ales. Low-alcohol beer is also known as light beer, non-alcoholic beer, small beer, small ale, or near-beer.
Stout is a dark, top-fermented beer with a number of variations, including dry stout, oatmeal stout, milk stout, and imperial stout.
Stella Artois is a pilsner beer, first brewed in 1926 by Brouwerij Artois in Leuven, Belgium. In its original form, the beer is 5.2 per cent ABV, the country's standard for pilsners. The beer is also sold in other countries like the UK, Ireland, Canada and Australia, where it has a reduced ABV. Stella Artois is owned by Interbrew International B.V. which is a subsidiary of the world's largest brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV.
Small beer is a lager or ale that contains a lower amount of alcohol by volume than most others, usually between 0.5% and 2.8%. Sometimes unfiltered and porridge-like, it was a favoured drink in Medieval Europe and colonial North America compared with more expensive beer containing higher levels of alcohol. Small beer was also produced in households for consumption by children and by servants.
Alcohol by volume is a standard measure of how much alcohol (ethanol) is contained in a given volume of an alcoholic beverage. It is defined as the number of millilitres (mL) of pure ethanol present in 100 mL of solution at 20 °C (68 °F). The number of millilitres of pure ethanol is the mass of the ethanol divided by its density at 20 °C (68 °F), which is 0.78945 g/ml. The ABV standard is used worldwide. The International Organization of Legal Metrology has tables of density of water–ethanol mixtures at different concentrations and temperatures.
Grolsch Brewery , known simply as Grolsch, is a Dutch brewery founded in 1615 by Willem Neerfeldt in Groenlo. In 1895 the de Groen family bought the brewery. They had started their own brewery in Enschede the Netherlands in the early 19th century. It held a significant stake until November 2007. Today the main brewery is located in Enschede.
The Carling Brewery was founded in 1840 by Ian Carling at London in Upper Canada. In 1952, Carling lager was first sold in the United Kingdom, and in the early 1980s, it became the UK's most popular beer brand. The company changed hands numerous times – it was acquired by Canadian Breweries, which was eventually renamed Carling O'Keefe, which merged with the Molson Brewery, which then merged with Coors to form Molson Coors.
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.
Beer, called maekju in Korean, was first introduced to Korea in the early 20th century. Seoul's first beer brewery opened in 1908. Two current major breweries date back to the 1930s. The third brewery established in Korea, Jinro Coors Brewery, was founded in the 1990s. It was later acquired by Oriental Breweries (OB). Hite Breweries's former name was Chosun Breweries, which was established in 1933. The company changed its name to Hite Breweries in 1998. OB Breweries established as Showa Kirin Breweries in 1933. The company changed its name to OB Breweries in 1995.
Old Speckled Hen is a premium bitter beer made by the Morland Brewery, now owned by Greene King Brewery. Old Speckled Hen was first brewed in 1979 in Abingdon, England, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the MG car factory there on 30 November 1979. Since 2000, when Greene King bought Morland and closed down the Abingdon brewery, it has been made in Greene King's Bury St Edmunds brewery. It is available in more than twenty different countries in bottles, cans and on tap from cask and keg. The brand has been expanded to include Old Crafty Hen, a 6.5% ABV ale, Hens tooth, a 6.5% ABV ale, Old Golden Hen, a golden coloured 4.1% beer, and Old Hoppy Hen, a 4.2% ABV pale ale.
Budweiser Budvar is a brewery in the Czech city of České Budějovice, best known for its original Budweiser or Budweiser Budvar pale lager brewed using artesian water, Moravian barley and Saaz hops. Budweiser Budvar is the fourth largest beer producer in the Czech Republic and the second largest exporter of beer abroad.
Guinness is an Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Dublin, Ireland, in 1759. It is one of the most successful alcohol brands worldwide, brewed in almost 50 countries, and available in over 120. Sales in 2011 amounted to 850,000,000 liters. In spite of declining consumption since 2001, it is the best-selling alcoholic drink in Ireland where Guinness & Co. Brewery makes almost €2 billion worth of beer annually.
BrewDog is a multinational brewery and pub chain based in Ellon, Scotland. With production of over 800,000 hectolitres, BrewDog claims to be the "#1 Craft Brewer in Europe". It was founded in 2007 by James Watt and Martin Dickie, who together own 46% of the company.
Sipsmith is a microdistillery located in London. It is the first copper-pot distillery to open within Greater London' in nearly two centuries. It has been a subsidiary of Beam Suntory since December 2016.
Anheuser-Busch, a wholly owned subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, is the largest brewing company in the United States, with a market share of 45 percent in 2016.
Curious Brewing is a brewery in Ashford, Kent, England. It was established in 2011 by the Kent-based winery group Chapel Down.
Cloudwater Brew Co is an independent craft brewery based in Manchester, England. Established in 2014, the brewery began making beer the following year and quickly gained a reputation for the quality of its products. In 2017 and 2018, Cloudwater was ranked among the ten best breweries in the world by beer scoring website RateBeer, becoming the only UK brewery ever to be featured. Several Cloudwater beers have also received accolades at the same awards.