Meet the BRZN new brewers on the block

If you thought there was no room for more breweries in Brighton, you were wrong. In fact it seems that if you have a shipping container, a passion for beer and an inclination to throw caution to the wind, then anything is possible.

BBB interview Sheldon, one of the four co-founders of BRZN beer, just before they launch for takeaway at the brewery on Saturdays 11-7pm.

Who are the people behind BRZN, and how did it all begin?

BRZN is run by four friends who all bring something unique to the company: Aleks knows everything pub; Sheldon is all about branding and social media; Max controls all things production and Joe is the recipe man.

What brings us all together is our love for all things beer. Between the four of us just about every style you can think of has been tasted, brewed, discussed and enjoyed.
It was over some beers that the idea of trying to make some outlandish home brew came up. For six months the four of us produced some ridiculously good (and some not so good) brews in Aleks’s big old kitchen. We loved it so much that we decided to start BRZN. In December 2019 we moved into our unit at The Cobbler’s Thumb on New England Road, and now we brew up a storm there.

Tell us about the name and brand.

BRZN is about being Brazen – whether it’s with the beer that we make or the branding that we use. The entire ethos of BRZN is to make beer that we enjoy drinking, and to never lose sight of that.
We came up with the idea while sitting around a pub table. Come to think if it… most of our ideas occur that way. Nowadays it’s over a ZOOM conference beer.

You’re brewing out of a little container off Preston Circus. How does it work in such a tight space? How much can you produce?

It is an incredibly tight brewing space, but with a lot of jigging and poking we managed to squeeze in a 2.5 barrel kit with two fermentation vessels. We might be brazen enough to try and fit in a third one! We really aren’t making huge quantities of beer, but we see that as an advantage. It means we can afford to be creative and adventurous.
We love being in the Preston Circus area. It already has such great beer destinations – like our neighbours UnBarred, not to mention the masses of great pubs.

In a saturated market, where do you feel BRZN will stand out as a brewer? What are you offering that’s different?

Our size means our wastage remains low. This, thankfully, allows us to be Brazen all year round, and keeps our options forever open. Having small run lengths can be a pain, but that’s also a blessing. We love a variety of beer styles and we want to keep exploring them without worrying too much about seasonal variations and levels of sales. Habanero imperial stout in July… sure. Zesty cream ale in January… why the hell not? Like I’ve said, we want to make beer we like drinking and dreaming of. Hopefully our customers will appreciate the variety this approach allows us to bring. Oh and we’re obsessed with hops… but isn’t everyone?

This Saturday you’re opening up for takeaways for the first time. It must be a strange time to be doing that… What measures have you taken to make this social distancing compliant?

It is certainly less than ideal, but it’s a move made out of necessity – in this case, beer pays the rent!  There’s a nice (though small) area between the unit and the pavement, and the plan is to turn this into a queuing area, so it’ll have to be a one-in-one-out sort of situation when it comes to paying at the till. Luckily the Police and Environmental Health people have been wonderful at providing us with hints and tips on how to keep ourselves and the public safe.

And this will be regular on Saturdays from now on then?

We’re planning to open every Saturday between 11am and 7pm throughout the summer. Hopefully the demand will be there to make it a regular thing. Every week we’ll aim to bring the customers something different.

What beers can people get their hands on? Can you give us a short intro to each of them, and what they mean to you as the brewers?

We’re planning to have at least three delicious beers on each weekend, and they will all be available in litre containers.
This week’s tap list is:

Monkey House Inferno – 3.8% (keg) – Red Berry Sour

Tart! Brings together blueberry, blackcurrant and raspberry purée with the sharp lemony goodness of a great kettle sour. Puckering and fruity.
We wanted to make a heavily fruited kettle sour. We’ve had some excellent results with beers like Great Responsibility (lemon sour) and Alternative Currant (blackcurrant sour) in the past, and with the sun out we thought this would be ideal.

Guillotine Factory – 4.9% (keg) – Coffee Milk Stout

Mad amounts of espresso were added to this milk stout at several points throughout the brewing process. It’s super sweet and carries a kick – like a double-shot macchiato with two sugars. Doubly thick and smooth.
This beer is a spin-off from our stronger coffee milk stout, Sean Bean Death Scene. Like Fraser it takes some beautiful core ingredients from the original and takes it somewhere new.

Raptor Enclosure – 5.1% (cask) – Kveik Pale

A new and improved recipe, with Mandarina Bavaria and Citra hops, oodles of oats and fermented with Voss Kveik. This isn’t your regular cask pale ale. It’s citrusy and tropical, with a healthy amount of haze and body.
Raptor Enclosure was originally designed as a keg product, but while packaging our last run we decided to rack a portion of it into cask. We really liked the mouthfeel and how it complemented the hop profile. We wanted to add yet another dimension to it, so we decided to use Voss Kveik as our yeast and upped the amount of citra in the dry hop.

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