Bar Preview – The BRZN Arms

Preview: The BRZN Arms

The BRZN beasts of brewing are uncontained and in a bar

Brighton Beer Blog were one of a few industry guests welcomed to the pre-opening shin-dig at the BRZN Arms, BRZN’s new tap bar outlet installed into an old builders merchant on Beaconsfield Road.

Interspersed with his pint serving we grabbed a few words with Aleks Levent to find out more..

Introduce yourself to the masses..

Hello, my Name is Aleks Lavent and I am the Director of Sales and General Manager at the newly opened BRZN Arms (at 62 Beaconsfield Road) and we have our little brewery round the corner on New England Street.

You’ve been selling beers out of a shipping container for well over a year now, why have you decided to scale up to a tap bar?

This was an inevitable part of this entire project because myself and my 3 business partners have all worked in bars and breweries for years, so this was the next logical step for us. We’ve had this amazing opportunity to do a pop-up here and so far it’s going really well.

So far, haha well you’re only a few hours in. So no hiccups?

There’s been the inevitable things of me and my business partners sampling too much of the product, and in a building like this there are little niggles, like today we had to open 2 hours late because the fire alarm just went mental (laughter)

Has this all been self built/setup by BRZN or are you collaborating with anyone?

It’s our space, it’s all 4 of myself and my business partners little venture. It’s full of all kinds of quirky crap that we all love. (laughter)
This space is on the rustic side, a big part of what we wanted, was not to do what another brand are known for, that is going into perfectly decent pubs and making it look like an industrial space.  We have an industrial space that we have built a bar into.

Also I would guesstimate that 90% of the furniture and all this stuff is either reclaimed or recycled. We’re really really proud at having a super-low impact on the environment and giving old beautiful furniture a new lease of life. It’s a handsome space I think. (laughter)

Are there other environmental aspects to what BRZN do?

One of the things we do, and if you own a brewery you absolutely should be doing it too, is we send our malt to a local pig farm. A lot of it can end up in general waste in a dump, or allegedly, not naming names, just dumped in a river, which is horrible for the environment.
The hops when they are cooked down, the particulate in them will make dogs so unwell, whereas you give it to pigs and they just don’t give a fuck, they’re fine.

I’m hearing a BRZN beer name for the future there.. ‘Pigs Just Don’t Give a Fuck’

That might end up on the list (laughter)

Give us your sales pitch for the space, here’s your chance to tempt people down..

This is the definition of a small local business. We make what I sincerely believe is a very high quality product and because we have virtually no overheads it’s very affordable.
We’re always going to have a £4 pint of Bitter, and a sub £5 pint of our beer available, which if you’re a reader of Brighton Beer Blog, I hope you’ve tried and I certainly hope you’ve enjoyed.

It’s been a real labour of love so come and see our blood sweat and tears, come and see the affects of my labour (laughter) and have beer in the beautiful sunshine because we’ll have a big garden out back with taco trucks and everything.

Tacos? Tell us more about what you’ll be offering punters here?

The focus here will be craft beer, principally ours, but we’re always going to get guests in if we see things that are cool or interesting Currently we have Lost Pier’s gluten free Lager which is the best GF beer I’ve ever had, drink it, it’s brilliant.

 

The bar is admittedly on the cosy side but when we have the garden open out back there’ll be loads more space for about 70-100 people to sit in the glorious sunshine. We’re right by this colossal railway bridge so you can come down and get your snaps in. (laughter and some omitted digression about how Aleks said schnapps and want’s to make some soon) And also as we grow and expand we’ll start doing collabs with other local guys and this is the place we will showcase that.

 

Another of the things we’ll be doing, I don’t know if you know about this, but one of our guys, Sheldon, invented Hopped Gin. So we’re going to start flogging that out of here as well. We’ve got access to all these stinky, delicious new world hops, so it’s a kryptonite green Gin and it is delicious.

 

When the taco truck gets here we’ll be opening Thursday – Sunday 2pm – 10pm and as things grow we’re going to try to be open 7 days a week. It is a residential area so we won’t be open super-late, it’s more of a pop in and have a couple of beers type of place. Initially we have a Taco truck opening up with an extremely talented chef from TACO NOT TACO, Also we’re going to get guests in. Myself and all my business partners have worked in bars for years, we know some profoundly talented people.

So do you think you could be the beginning of a Brighton Beer Mile now?

I think we are a strong contender for the beginning spot of the Brighton Beer Mile. We’re right between London Road Station and Brighton Station. Then there’s Unbarred nearby, loads of places have their own spots now, the craft beer scene in this town is incredible.

Sadly it’s all sounding temporary, how long will you be here for?

We currently have been offered the space as a pop-up for 15 weeks. So we’ll be using back to back TENS licences like we used to at the unit. Hopefully Brighton Council are cool and will give us the licence to the place, and if that happens this will be an ongoing adventure.
 But even if it is just a 15 week pop-up, what a great way to spend the summer.

Will the container still be opening Saturdays for selling brews out of?

Until now our entire business was that shipping container, and if you want to make anything in your life more difficult, do it in a shipping container. (laughter) Literally anything.
Now we have this space we have room for more equipment, more tanks. We have a tank stuck in customs right now in fact (Aleks rolls his eyes) and for anyone who doesn’t know the naming convention, if anyone here’s me say “Andy Peters is stuck in customs” that is the name of the tank, he’ll be joining Ant, Dec and Kat Steeley at the brewery. (laughter)
So that is now just a brew-space but if you want BRZN beers there’s a place you can go. With a chair, and music, and tacos…

As we have a chance to ask, can we talk about the beer names, and ask what your favourite BRZN beer name is to date?

We draw inspiration from a lot of sources; things we overhear, we’ve got a bunch of weird X-Men quotes, and classical literature. There is the existence of ‘The List’. It is a closely guarded secret, you may know of it, but you may never see it, which has currently about 400 things on it and it grows every day.

So the pigs one will make it on there?

Oh almost definitely (mini fist pump from interviewer Dave)  ‘Sean Bean Death Scene’ is close to my heart. One day I hope to meet the man and shake his hand, have him call me a ‘Bastard” but of all the names ‘Bring Me Pictures of Spiderman’ is definitely my favourite of the bunch.

Will there ever be a beer simply called ‘The List’?

‘The List’ is on the list (laughter) and furthermore ‘The List is on The List’ is on the list.. It gets a bit meta..

Better leave it there before we end up in the rabbit hole, plus that guy needs a drink. Cheers Aleks.