Swerve Driver...

It’s full steam ahead at Turning Point. Between the two of us we’re keeping very busy indeed. As much beer as we can manage to make, whilst taking the care to make it as well as possible. As much beer as we can fit into Kowalski (our van, named after the Primal Scream song of the same name… “to him, speed means freedom of the soul”) without doing it a mischief. A little bit of an improvement in the weather has boosted productivity significantly. The first time anyone here been working in a t-shirt since last October!

This week we brewed Lucid Dream and Rising Tide. Both mainstays of our usual availability. A lot of fun to make as always. We had a helping hand from Alex, off of the Knavesmire pub on Tuesday’s brew. It’s always fun to share the love and show someone how we do what we do. His enthusiasm was boosted by the fact that we had our newest beer ready to be kegged in the conditioning tank, ready for taste testing and all that! Which brings us swiftly onto our next point: “Swerve Driver”. A bit of a first for us… bizarrely, our first stab at an out and out IPA. One year in, we’ve done New England style, tropical IPA, American Pale, White IPA etc… all manner of things, anything but a straight up IPA, but here it is! Swerve Driver is as pale as the moon, with layers of tropical fruit, lemon zest and pine from a triple dry hop charge of Centennial, Amarillo, and Mosaic. A balanced bitterness, with a lot of body from a base of extra pale malt, wheat, and oats coming in at a bold but drinkable 6.0% ABV. The beer was dry hopped with reckless abandon. Our aim was to get it out of the brewery as fast as humanly possible to keep it super fresh, and hopefully it will be on top form when it’s served. Hops are a precious resource, so we will always do our best to maintain their wonderful flavour and aroma and get hoppy beers delivered as soon as we can. The beer was kegged starting at 6am on Wednesday. Beer went straight from the tank, into keg, and into the van and was whisked off to York, Leeds, Manchester, and Ilkley for delivery in most cases by midday. Whatever was left headed up to Newcastle the following day. With a few kegs left for delivery early next week. All in all, a full batch of beer out of the brewery delivered to bars in under 10 days. We’re very excited indeed to find the beer over the course of the weekend and treat ourselves to a few of them!

Possibly the highlight of the week however was recreating the first photo we took in the brewery when we first got the keys last year. It’s amazing how quickly a year has passed, and how we’ve aged faster than the usual course of nature in that time! We hesitate to call it our birthday (for the ridiculous reasons outlined in the last blog, so we can have a month long party) but it does feel an awful lot like it this week.

Right, where can I find a pint of Swerve Driver…