Be the Brewer at the North Laine Brewhouse 🍺
Before Christmas BBB tried out Laine Brew Cos’ new ‘Be the Brewer’ experience day at North Laine Brewhouse. It was a day of lovely people, lots of learning, a bit of hard work and plenty of samples.
Afterwards we had a sit down with Senior Brewer Liam Ager to learn a bit more about him and the brewery, and to get the run down on what to expect if like us, you’ve also wanted to get your hands dirty in a brewery.
Watch our Meet The Brewer and Be The Brewer videos.
Meet The Brewer – Liam Ager
After mucking in for the day in the brewery we sat down for an interview with Liam, Senior Brewer at the Laine Brew Co. Brewpub in Brighton
Tell us a bit about yourself
So my name’s Liam and I am the Brewer at North Laine Brewhouse, one of Laine Brew Co’s four breweries in the country.
This is where it all began, the North Laine Brewhouse has been running for nearly 10 years now as part of Laines, but we also have breweries in Battersea at The Four Thieves, and Hackney at the People’s Park Tavern.
How did you get into brewing?
My beginning in brewing was after an office job I had in London, I felt I needed a change. I was very lucky and moved to Otter Brewery in East Devon, which was a fantastic place to learn. A very traditional English ale brewery, very high quality production beers, with a load of great people there who are very passionate, knew what they were doing, and were very happy to teach the people that worked there about the best way of doing stuff.
That must be quite different to brewing here in a pub?
Laines is at the other end of the scale, brewing in a pub produces it’s own technical challenges and you’re working in other people’s space. One of the things I really enjoy though is being able to pitch up at the end of the bar and see people order the beers that I’ve made. There’s no more comforting feeling than when someone turns to their friend and says, “Cor yeah, get a pint of that, it’s lovely”.
The brewpub is in the heart of Brighton, we have an enormous space for events and all sorts of people come in. We have the Drag Brunches on Saturday, Roast Dinners on a Sunday. It’s a really nice environment – and I’m going to look sycophantic saying this – it’s exactly the sort of environment that I would choose to drink in.
The selection of beers they’ve got is really good, no less than what is made over their shoulder, and the vibe is just really nice, really gentle and welcoming.
What kind of beer do you like to brew?
One of the beers I’ve wanted to do for a long time was a coconut mild, so in May this year, which is the traditional month for mild, we made a lovely dark, thick beer with very slight bitterness and a little bit of coconut layered in there. I love the idea of taking traditional styles, especially traditional British styles, and forcing them into the 21st Century, and we were really able to do that with the coconut mild, it’s a really good style.
The brewpubs are fantastic for really pushing the boat out on what we’re capable of doing.
What concoctions are you working on currently?
In the tank at the moment we have a raspberry ripple white stout, we have a plum crumble sour and at the end of this month we’re going to be doing a long black espresso stout.
We’re playing with blood orange rye IPAs, we also have a salted caramel porter due out. So we’re really looking to play with flavours that aren’t necessarily as traditional as what you’d find in mainstream beer production.
How much beer can you produce here?
Our output at North Laine is the same as all our other brewpubs, which is quite small relatively speaking. We work in a really unfortunate unit of measurement called ‘brewers barrels’, which is also unhelpfully broken down into 36 gallons, so you’re looking at a normal run of about 24 kegs. So everything we do has a really limited availability.
Where can you buy the beer you make here?
We’re lucky that we’re supported by 30 pubs in London and about 30 pubs in Brighton, so all of the beer that comes out of the Laine’s brewpubs is only available on the Laines estate, short of a few beer festivals and things like that.
We try and keep it as exclusive as possible and we try and keep our more interesting, weird and wonderful stuff in house, because we know we’ve got good staff who will look after it, and we know it will be really appreciated by drinkers as well.
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north laine brewhouse brighton 1
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laine mosaic pale ale
Be the Brewer at the North Laine Brewhouse 🍺
Before Christmas BBB tried out Laine Brew Cos’ new ‘Be the Brewer’ experience day at North Laine Brewhouse. It was a day of lovely people, lots of learning, a bit of hard work and plenty of samples.
Afterwards we had a sit down with Senior Brewer Liam Ager to learn a bit more about him and the brewery, and to get the run down on what to expect if like us, you’ve also wanted to get your hands dirty in a brewery.
Watch our Meet The Brewer and Be The Brewer videos.
Meet The Brewer – Liam Ager
After mucking in for the day in the brewery we sat down for an interview with Liam, Senior Brewer at the Laine Brew Co. Brewpub in Brighton
Tell us a bit about yourself
So my name’s Liam and I am the Brewer at North Laine Brewhouse, one of Laine Brew Co’s four breweries in the country.
This is where it all began, the North Laine Brewhouse has been running for nearly 10 years now as part of Laines, but we also have breweries in Battersea at The Four Thieves, and Hackney at the People’s Park Tavern.
How did you get into brewing?
My beginning in brewing was after an office job I had in London, I felt I needed a change. I was very lucky and moved to Otter Brewery in East Devon, which was a fantastic place to learn. A very traditional English ale brewery, very high quality production beers, with a load of great people there who are very passionate, knew what they were doing, and were very happy to teach the people that worked there about the best way of doing stuff.
That must be quite different to brewing here in a pub?
Laines is at the other end of the scale, brewing in a pub produces it’s own technical challenges and you’re working in other people’s space. One of the things I really enjoy though is being able to pitch up at the end of the bar and see people order the beers that I’ve made. There’s no more comforting feeling than when someone turns to their friend and says, “Cor yeah, get a pint of that, it’s lovely”.
The brewpub is in the heart of Brighton, we have an enormous space for events and all sorts of people come in. We have the Drag Brunches on Saturday, Roast Dinners on a Sunday. It’s a really nice environment – and I’m going to look sycophantic saying this – it’s exactly the sort of environment that I would choose to drink in.
The selection of beers they’ve got is really good, no less than what is made over their shoulder, and the vibe is just really nice, really gentle and welcoming.
What kind of beer do you like to brew?
One of the beers I’ve wanted to do for a long time was a coconut mild, so in May this year, which is the traditional month for mild, we made a lovely dark, thick beer with very slight bitterness and a little bit of coconut layered in there. I love the idea of taking traditional styles, especially traditional British styles, and forcing them into the 21st Century, and we were really able to do that with the coconut mild, it’s a really good style.
The brewpubs are fantastic for really pushing the boat out on what we’re capable of doing.
What concoctions are you working on currently?
In the tank at the moment we have a raspberry ripple white stout, we have a plum crumble sour and at the end of this month we’re going to be doing a long black espresso stout.
We’re playing with blood orange rye IPAs, we also have a salted caramel porter due out. So we’re really looking to play with flavours that aren’t necessarily as traditional as what you’d find in mainstream beer production.
How much beer can you produce here?
Our output at North Laine is the same as all our other brewpubs, which is quite small relatively speaking. We work in a really unfortunate unit of measurement called ‘brewers barrels’, which is also unhelpfully broken down into 36 gallons, so you’re looking at a normal run of about 24 kegs. So everything we do has a really limited availability.
Where can you buy the beer you make here?
We’re lucky that we’re supported by 30 pubs in London and about 30 pubs in Brighton, so all of the beer that comes out of the Laine’s brewpubs is only available on the Laines estate, short of a few beer festivals and things like that.
We try and keep it as exclusive as possible and we try and keep our more interesting, weird and wonderful stuff in house, because we know we’ve got good staff who will look after it, and we know it will be really appreciated by drinkers as well.