One day, the halls of the Old Truman Brewery stand echoing and empty. The next it is transformed. Rows of wooden stalls stand shoulder-to-shoulder, seeming to jostle good-naturedly for position. The rooms begin to fill with people and the hum of excited chatter rises until the noise and colour and scent of beer becomes all but overwhelming.
Perhaps, as you stroll down the makeshift aisles, the glow of a little sign atop one of the stands catches your eye amongst the hubbub. It bears a simple legend: Brand New Brewery. Beneath this stall huddle shiny new kegs containing beers that have never seen the light of day, itching to be poured and discovered. This is how Double-Barrelled launched at the biggest craft beer festival in the UK.
With more than 170 breweries, Craft Beer Rising (CBR) is a busy beer festival, to say the least. Standing out is hard enough with that much competition, without even factoring in the presence of certain brands that shall not be named here.
Yet it was amongst the hustle and bustle of the first big festival on the craft beer calendar that Double-Barrelled chose to debut their beer. Mike and Luci began this adventure by making homebrew for their wedding (and did an epic 85,000 mile beer discovery trip around the world) so launching their brewery at CBR just over two years later was quite a confident and risky move.
It’s difficult to physically walk around the entire festival and take in each and every stand, let alone speak to the exhibitors and as well as trying plenty of beers, but the potential exposure was a big lure for Double-Barrelled.
Mike Clayton-Jones said: “For us though, we didn’t see it as a beer festival. We took it as a trade show that allows the public to purchase tickets as well, so you can exhibit your beers and brand to the trade. The aim was to get on the radars of distributors, bars, bottle shops etc. and to get the name and beers in front of as many people as possible as quickly as possible.”
This is also despite some opinions of overpriced stalls and a long list of demands from the organisers such as paying for things like gas or fridges if needed, as well as a header board if you don’t want the standard one supplied. There were also grumbles about charging the public a hefty ticket price which allowed just entry and a glass.
Go big or go home
So why CBR when there are so many festivals and events on the calendar throughout the year where it might be easier to stand out?
Mike explains: “In the craft beer world, CBR is the only ‘craft’ festival we could find, that is not invite-only in terms of the breweries that are pouring/have beers available. Some exhibitors may not be ‘craft’ by some consumers’ definition, but they do have a mass market, introduction to craft appeal.”
Unlike some events, attending CBR means you’ll often meet and chat to the people who actually made the beer you’re drinking and this seems to work really well for Mike and Luci.
“The impact of this makes way for a broader spectrum of consumers buying tickets – i.e. not just the hardcore craft beer fans, and serves as a very useful category penetration tool for craft beer overall, despite that meaning that the range of breweries available is not as ‘hypeworthy’ as festivals such as Beavertown Extravaganza and Indy Man Beer Con,” adds Mike.
In the end, following some careful planning, Double-Barrelled chose four beers to debut at the festival:
- Red Jungle Fowl – A raspberry and beetroot gose, 5%
- Cagoule – A juicy IPL dry hopped with Citra, 6.7%
- Bear Swamp Road – An imperial stout with cacao nibs and vanilla, 9.5%
- $7 Saturday – A milk stout, 5.6%
This is despite a relatively tiny 100L brew kit, so everything brewed since the beginning of December was made exclusively for CBR.
Although Mike and his wife Luci weren’t attending with the goal of turning a profit, it’s still difficult to catch attention at such a busy festival. Luckily, plenty of well-respected bloggers and names within the industry, including Melissa Cole and Roger Protz, started commending, applauding and praising Double-Barrelled.
“We never expected it to go as well as it did, and think that’s all down to people shouting as loud as possible about us, in particular other breweries (what an industry we work in!!!),” raved Mike.
Slight controversies aside, the festival was another good one, successfully showcasing a broad range of beers poured by breweries of all sizes from across the UK and further afield. The atmosphere was great and attendees could try everything from a sour to a barrel aged imperial stout, as well as food and even cocktails.
If you weren’t at CBR or happened to miss them, Double-Barrelled is definitely one of the breweries to look out for in 2018. And no, the name doesn’t allude to the beers being twice barrel aged (Luci says definitely one day), it’s a reference to the couple’s double-barrelled surname.
Alcohol by Volume 
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