The previous iteration of Loud Shirt Brewing Co. was in decline leading up the COVID lock-downs. Thankfully, an American engineer with a talent for home-brewing great US styles was looking for a UK base.
These days Loud Shirt Brewing Co. are letting their beers, rather than their shirts, make noise.
We catch up with Elias (Director/Head Brewer) and Lewis (Head of Sales) to discuss their beers and ambitions…
D – i’m here in Kemptown with Elias (Director and Brewer) and Lewis (Sales and Marketing) of Loud Shirt brewing co, the new, and shall we say improved, Loud Shirt Brewing Co..
(Elias) – I’d hope so
Laughter
So lets make intros starting with you Elias. Lets have some background on you..
(Elias) – I started with home-brewing about 18 years ago now, I am an engineer by trade and I was in the US and while in my studio apartment just started brewing away on these rudimentary kits you had back then. I actually made one of the worst beers i’ve ever tried in my life and after a few years kits and ingredients started getting better. So I started again and I got to a point where my friends and I were really enjoying the beers. But i just assumed they were blowing smoke up my ass, enjoying the free beer
Laughter
So i went to a couple of friends I knew with restaurants in NYC and asked them to give some to their staff and tell them this was a potential brewery you’re looking to stock, would you want it on the taps.
And i went in one night and was talking to them and asked if they had any new beers. They were like ‘yeah we have this new beer, it’s fantastic, we just gotta get it on the taps’ I asked which one and turns out it was my beer.
No way..?
(Elias) – Yeah, and at that point I realised I had honed the skills that people in the industry appreciated the product. After that my wife and I wanted to pursue a passion and something fun, New York was taking it’s toll and we said lets start a brewery.. and so we went to India..
Where all good breweries get started of course..
Laughter
(Elias) – We wanted to really expose the market to good beers and also come to the UK to contract brew and build the brand on this side. But then covid hit and we never left here.. So the brewery in India has stuttered a bit but it’s still in mind for collaboration and expansion. My wife is from there and we have that tie there.
Ah ok. So the UK division of your enterprise if you like is Loud Shirt, what lead to you taking over what was a pretty struggling brewery then?
(Elias) – Well, one thing I’ll say is Sussex has some really really great product and that lends it self to a great drinking scene. The [Loud Shirt Brewing Co.] business was on the market, which was a sign that it wasn’t doing well, but we didn’t have access to bars and restaurants because of COVID to find out what the vibe of the brand was. However, we took a punt because we had licensing in place, we have a taproom that is licensed for 7 days a week, and licensed to sell other products, wine and spirits, we have no limitations.
(Lewis) – I mean that’s as rare as licences get, that was one of your main factors in choosing this place wasn’t it.
(Elias) – Yeah it really was. And so we said worse case scenario, we come down there and see how it works and if it doesn’t we have the global brand. I very quickly saw the feelings of most customers was not very positive. So we are pushing to change opinions on it so people see we’re not the same brewery. Ergo change in branding, website, Instagram everything is stripped back bare bones
(Lewis) – We do love the name. It’s memorable. These guys set up to give it a go, but we keep a little bit of that history of the brewery alive. But with a better logo.
Laughter
So lets talk about tonight. Its the eve of a very special night for you. Lewis, tell us a bit about whats happening and why it’s important
(Lewis) – First and foremost, and importantly, it’s a thank you to all our current customers. Since I arrived 3 months ago my job has as sales here has been to tell people who we are and what we do. I came down here, followed by the product, I met Elias and I was convinced by the product, it was superb, so I left my last company to come join them and get it out there. So tonight is a thank you to all our customers who have bought from us over the last 3 months, and a time for new customers to try the beers on tap, including some of our new EXP, experimental beers.
We are also going to be announcing a collab as well as introducing our intention to collaborate with other great brewers in Sussex, many that we call friends, and others in the UK.
Cool cool, that brings us nicely to the beers, if people come down to the taproom, whats in the range to try?
(Elias) – We’ve got 5 core beers. 4 keg one cask. Hazed and Confused is our flagship NEIPA sessionable at 4.5%
Very sessionable by the one I’ve just finished
(Elias) – It’s a recipe I’ve been developing over the last 7-8 years. Working on the malt profile and getting the body into the beer, and also finding the right balance of hop profiles. Sabro is the main component of Hazed, a polarising hop I realise, but its a hop I like.
So thats your core session and it’s won SIBA bronze twice right?
(Elias) – Yeah back to back, it was the first beer I produced here at Loud Shirt. I want to improve it and I want that beer in the top spot next time as I think it’s just a great beer. That is our flagship core sessionable.
Then we’ve got El Dorado. The name stems from the development as it started as a single hop, and now it’s El Dorado and Tallas, it’s still predominantly El Dorado but I brought in the Tallas to add a bit of fruitiness to go along with the pineyness.
It’s a cracking beer, i really enjoyed that one.
(Elias) – It’s the beer I always tend to go to, it’s my session beer. I know a session in UK is 3.5-4.5 but..
Laughter
Depends who you speak to, i’m sessioning your imperial stout right now
Laughter
(Elias) – We’ve got our core American light lager. It’s a no frills, high adjunct, light cascade hop. We don’t want to overpower or wow anybody with it. It’s all rice, corn, light and drinkable, spend 4 hours drinking it and not even realise
(Lewis) – It’s quite a nice lager for the Sussex market because a lot of them are quite malty, pilsner, vienna style, whereas this is quintessentially an American light lager. Clean and crisp. And obviously in Sunny brighton, a great beer. When I first came down to join Elias last summer, the sun is shining, must have been about 30*, i’m here with my housemate and Elias has all these beers and asks us what we want, we say “2 lagers”. After that Elias asks us what we want, we say “2 lagers”. We’re like “I know you do great beers, but it’s hot”
Laughter
(Elias) – And the 4th core keg beer is our new pale ale, Like Clockwork, the name originated from Clockwork Orange but not, there are no notes of orange in it.
In cask we have our darker pale ale, EXP01, that’s our 5th core beer and that will always be available.
So you have other EXP beers, why don’t they have names..
(Elias) – So the EXPs are single one offs, EXP02 was our single hop cashmere hop IPA. So if we have a beer we find to be so great we have to keep it, it’ll enter our core lineup. The purpose of the EXP lineup is experimental and exploration. We want to be unrestricted in our brewing ability, we don’t want to sit and do the same thing over and over. If i’m doing that I might as well give the recipes to someone else. The recipe development is my favourite part, and this line gives us the ability to do small batch and not have to worry about how people feel about it, they’ll enjoy it or they wont. If I have to dump 800litres I have to do that, I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again.
This gives us the ability to put things out in different formats and see who enjoys it. EXP01 on keg didnt really move, on cask it sold non stop and became our core cask.
We’re missing one beer from the list which is your Imperial stout which i’m sipping here. It’s silky smooth, straight down the line, finishes with a moreish bitterness. I wouldn’t have guessed it was 9.5% beer as it’s so smooth with no alcohol burn.
(Elias) – Yes that’s EXP06
Then there’s Christmas Cake which, I necked litres of the stuff at the Xmas market in December. So good
Laughter
(Elias) – Yeah thats EXP05 and that was featured on Love Your Weekend on ITV. It was incredible. We sent a dozen beers to ITV and they said they would put it on. We had no idea what they were going to say and the guests were not beer drinkers, but the reviews were fantastic. That beer is the reason I started the EXP lineup last year because I simply wanted to make a beer that tastes like Christmas Cake. But I didn’t want to put anything into it that wasn’t one of the 4 main beer ingredients.
So i was thinking about how I get the flavours into it, the sultanas, cherries, raisin and sweetness. I made it, and then I realised I actually have no idea what Christmas cake tastes like.
Laughter
So we had some stag do brewery tours here over the winter and I put it on and 30 guys sat and tried it, and turned to me and said, “This reminds me of my mothers Christmas cake”
Amazing and I’m surprised there’s no adjuncts in there! But i’m getting a feel for you as a brewer, US focussed but very experimental and I think we’ll be seeing a lot more EXPs from you in quick succession..
(Elias) – My target is to do an EXP a month
(Lewis) – I had that number in mind as well, i’m glad you said that
Laughter
So we’ve talked past and present. Do you have hopes or ambitions for the brewery this year?
(Elias) – My honest ambition is for people appreciate West Coast more
Laughter
(Lewis) – You can only dream
You plan to bring the West Coast to the South Coast
(Elias) – Yeah i’m going to push that more in 2023. We have a lot of customers that say “I only drink this, I only drink that”, so I want to break that. I’m hoping to take beer styles that are traditional, modify them, flip them on their heads, and teach people it’s about flavour and taste and not about ‘I only like dark beers’.
We’ll be doing a lot of controversial things, some will work, some wont.
And I can tell from your single hop beer development, El Dorado and EXP01 that you are really good at getting the most out of one hop. So i expect you’re good at identifying what beers people might enjoy based on their tastes.
(Elias) – The last year has definitely helped understand the British flavour profiles and palates. For instance, I didnt think a Saison would sell, we made a Saison early on, and people coming down just loved it.
(Lewis) – My ambition is to see us at more of the really cool independent bars alongside some of the other great local brewers, were already on at places like Easy Tiger and Prince Albert.
(Elias) – Yeah we went to the Albert one evening to try some of beer on and we were one of the last to get some of our Hazed and Confused. They’d gone through 4 kegs in no time which is amazing. But you can always try our beers at the taproom in Kemptown. We are opening Friday-Sunday through the winter. From Friday 5pm onwards. Saturday 4pm onwards and that fits nicely with the Whitehawk football crowd. Come Springtime we’ll look at Thursdays and Sundays.
The previous iteration of Loud Shirt Brewing Co. was in decline leading up the COVID lock-downs. Thankfully, an American engineer with a talent for home-brewing great US styles was looking for a UK base.
These days Loud Shirt Brewing Co. are letting their beers, rather than their shirts, make noise.
We catch up with Elias (Director/Head Brewer) and Lewis (Head of Sales) to discuss their beers and ambitions…
D – i’m here in Kemptown with Elias (Director and Brewer) and Lewis (Sales and Marketing) of Loud Shirt brewing co, the new, and shall we say improved, Loud Shirt Brewing Co..
(Elias) – I’d hope so
Laughter
So lets make intros starting with you Elias. Lets have some background on you..
(Elias) – I started with home-brewing about 18 years ago now, I am an engineer by trade and I was in the US and while in my studio apartment just started brewing away on these rudimentary kits you had back then. I actually made one of the worst beers i’ve ever tried in my life and after a few years kits and ingredients started getting better. So I started again and I got to a point where my friends and I were really enjoying the beers. But i just assumed they were blowing smoke up my ass, enjoying the free beer
Laughter
So i went to a couple of friends I knew with restaurants in NYC and asked them to give some to their staff and tell them this was a potential brewery you’re looking to stock, would you want it on the taps.
And i went in one night and was talking to them and asked if they had any new beers. They were like ‘yeah we have this new beer, it’s fantastic, we just gotta get it on the taps’ I asked which one and turns out it was my beer.
No way..?
(Elias) – Yeah, and at that point I realised I had honed the skills that people in the industry appreciated the product. After that my wife and I wanted to pursue a passion and something fun, New York was taking it’s toll and we said lets start a brewery.. and so we went to India..
Where all good breweries get started of course..
Laughter
(Elias) – We wanted to really expose the market to good beers and also come to the UK to contract brew and build the brand on this side. But then covid hit and we never left here.. So the brewery in India has stuttered a bit but it’s still in mind for collaboration and expansion. My wife is from there and we have that tie there.
Ah ok. So the UK division of your enterprise if you like is Loud Shirt, what lead to you taking over what was a pretty struggling brewery then?
(Elias) – Well, one thing I’ll say is Sussex has some really really great product and that lends it self to a great drinking scene. The [Loud Shirt Brewing Co.] business was on the market, which was a sign that it wasn’t doing well, but we didn’t have access to bars and restaurants because of COVID to find out what the vibe of the brand was. However, we took a punt because we had licensing in place, we have a taproom that is licensed for 7 days a week, and licensed to sell other products, wine and spirits, we have no limitations.
(Lewis) – I mean that’s as rare as licences get, that was one of your main factors in choosing this place wasn’t it.
(Elias) – Yeah it really was. And so we said worse case scenario, we come down there and see how it works and if it doesn’t we have the global brand. I very quickly saw the feelings of most customers was not very positive. So we are pushing to change opinions on it so people see we’re not the same brewery. Ergo change in branding, website, Instagram everything is stripped back bare bones
(Lewis) – We do love the name. It’s memorable. These guys set up to give it a go, but we keep a little bit of that history of the brewery alive. But with a better logo.
Laughter
So lets talk about tonight. Its the eve of a very special night for you. Lewis, tell us a bit about whats happening and why it’s important
(Lewis) – First and foremost, and importantly, it’s a thank you to all our current customers. Since I arrived 3 months ago my job has as sales here has been to tell people who we are and what we do. I came down here, followed by the product, I met Elias and I was convinced by the product, it was superb, so I left my last company to come join them and get it out there. So tonight is a thank you to all our customers who have bought from us over the last 3 months, and a time for new customers to try the beers on tap, including some of our new EXP, experimental beers.
We are also going to be announcing a collab as well as introducing our intention to collaborate with other great brewers in Sussex, many that we call friends, and others in the UK.
Cool cool, that brings us nicely to the beers, if people come down to the taproom, whats in the range to try?
(Elias) – We’ve got 5 core beers. 4 keg one cask. Hazed and Confused is our flagship NEIPA sessionable at 4.5%
Very sessionable by the one I’ve just finished
(Elias) – It’s a recipe I’ve been developing over the last 7-8 years. Working on the malt profile and getting the body into the beer, and also finding the right balance of hop profiles. Sabro is the main component of Hazed, a polarising hop I realise, but its a hop I like.
So thats your core session and it’s won SIBA bronze twice right?
(Elias) – Yeah back to back, it was the first beer I produced here at Loud Shirt. I want to improve it and I want that beer in the top spot next time as I think it’s just a great beer. That is our flagship core sessionable.
Then we’ve got El Dorado. The name stems from the development as it started as a single hop, and now it’s El Dorado and Tallas, it’s still predominantly El Dorado but I brought in the Tallas to add a bit of fruitiness to go along with the pineyness.
It’s a cracking beer, i really enjoyed that one.
(Elias) – It’s the beer I always tend to go to, it’s my session beer. I know a session in UK is 3.5-4.5 but..
Laughter
Depends who you speak to, i’m sessioning your imperial stout right now
Laughter
(Elias) – We’ve got our core American light lager. It’s a no frills, high adjunct, light cascade hop. We don’t want to overpower or wow anybody with it. It’s all rice, corn, light and drinkable, spend 4 hours drinking it and not even realise
(Lewis) – It’s quite a nice lager for the Sussex market because a lot of them are quite malty, pilsner, vienna style, whereas this is quintessentially an American light lager. Clean and crisp. And obviously in Sunny brighton, a great beer. When I first came down to join Elias last summer, the sun is shining, must have been about 30*, i’m here with my housemate and Elias has all these beers and asks us what we want, we say “2 lagers”. After that Elias asks us what we want, we say “2 lagers”. We’re like “I know you do great beers, but it’s hot”
Laughter
(Elias) – And the 4th core keg beer is our new pale ale, Like Clockwork, the name originated from Clockwork Orange but not, there are no notes of orange in it.
In cask we have our darker pale ale, EXP01, that’s our 5th core beer and that will always be available.
So you have other EXP beers, why don’t they have names..
(Elias) – So the EXPs are single one offs, EXP02 was our single hop cashmere hop IPA. So if we have a beer we find to be so great we have to keep it, it’ll enter our core lineup. The purpose of the EXP lineup is experimental and exploration. We want to be unrestricted in our brewing ability, we don’t want to sit and do the same thing over and over. If i’m doing that I might as well give the recipes to someone else. The recipe development is my favourite part, and this line gives us the ability to do small batch and not have to worry about how people feel about it, they’ll enjoy it or they wont. If I have to dump 800litres I have to do that, I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again.
This gives us the ability to put things out in different formats and see who enjoys it. EXP01 on keg didnt really move, on cask it sold non stop and became our core cask.
We’re missing one beer from the list which is your Imperial stout which i’m sipping here. It’s silky smooth, straight down the line, finishes with a moreish bitterness. I wouldn’t have guessed it was 9.5% beer as it’s so smooth with no alcohol burn.
(Elias) – Yes that’s EXP06
Then there’s Christmas Cake which, I necked litres of the stuff at the Xmas market in December. So good
Laughter
(Elias) – Yeah thats EXP05 and that was featured on Love Your Weekend on ITV. It was incredible. We sent a dozen beers to ITV and they said they would put it on. We had no idea what they were going to say and the guests were not beer drinkers, but the reviews were fantastic. That beer is the reason I started the EXP lineup last year because I simply wanted to make a beer that tastes like Christmas Cake. But I didn’t want to put anything into it that wasn’t one of the 4 main beer ingredients.
So i was thinking about how I get the flavours into it, the sultanas, cherries, raisin and sweetness. I made it, and then I realised I actually have no idea what Christmas cake tastes like.
Laughter
So we had some stag do brewery tours here over the winter and I put it on and 30 guys sat and tried it, and turned to me and said, “This reminds me of my mothers Christmas cake”
Amazing and I’m surprised there’s no adjuncts in there! But i’m getting a feel for you as a brewer, US focussed but very experimental and I think we’ll be seeing a lot more EXPs from you in quick succession..
(Elias) – My target is to do an EXP a month
(Lewis) – I had that number in mind as well, i’m glad you said that
Laughter
So we’ve talked past and present. Do you have hopes or ambitions for the brewery this year?
(Elias) – My honest ambition is for people appreciate West Coast more
Laughter
(Lewis) – You can only dream
You plan to bring the West Coast to the South Coast
(Elias) – Yeah i’m going to push that more in 2023. We have a lot of customers that say “I only drink this, I only drink that”, so I want to break that. I’m hoping to take beer styles that are traditional, modify them, flip them on their heads, and teach people it’s about flavour and taste and not about ‘I only like dark beers’.
We’ll be doing a lot of controversial things, some will work, some wont.
And I can tell from your single hop beer development, El Dorado and EXP01 that you are really good at getting the most out of one hop. So i expect you’re good at identifying what beers people might enjoy based on their tastes.
(Elias) – The last year has definitely helped understand the British flavour profiles and palates. For instance, I didnt think a Saison would sell, we made a Saison early on, and people coming down just loved it.
(Lewis) – My ambition is to see us at more of the really cool independent bars alongside some of the other great local brewers, were already on at places like Easy Tiger and Prince Albert.
(Elias) – Yeah we went to the Albert one evening to try some of beer on and we were one of the last to get some of our Hazed and Confused. They’d gone through 4 kegs in no time which is amazing. But you can always try our beers at the taproom in Kemptown. We are opening Friday-Sunday through the winter. From Friday 5pm onwards. Saturday 4pm onwards and that fits nicely with the Whitehawk football crowd. Come Springtime we’ll look at Thursdays and Sundays.
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