When Jon Swain, co-founder of Hackney Brewery, returned from a visit to New York, he knew he wanted London’s own brewery’s to work more closely with the excellent outfits across the pond. He just needed to work out how. And in an age of countless collaborations he’s helped create The Skyline Project, an initiative that celebrates the beers of London and New York in a fresh, valuable way. Here, he us tells the story behind it.
Six o’clock in the morning on the red eye flight back from New York City. I’m sat staring out of the window as we circle around, waiting for our slot to land. The skyline of the city’s skyscrapers emerging out of the ground like crystals. I’m thinking about what I experienced in the last week and how I wanted to bring a part of it home.
New York. Lights, signs, advertising, people, cabs, the noise. It’s a busy city, sprawling out, as well as up. Everything ordered in grids, wide one-way roads alternating direction after each block. Steam bellowing out from the sidewalk from the subway below. Also, the Ghostbusters fire house really exists!
Kings County Brewers Collective (KCBC’s) taproom is located in a warehouse in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Barrels are racked up on each side of the bar that frames a glass wall where you can see the brewhouse in full swing. One thing the US does extremely well is taprooms. It makes visiting a brewery much more casual, you can drop in to try some beers, each with an experience tailored to the brewery’s own vibe and atmosphere.
I’m greeted by friends Tony, Pete and Zack. We had previously spent time brewing ‘Sleeping Giants’ together a few months before in the UK. Since we know each other, this bar has become a hub for me here. It’s the first port of call and the people here like family, it is also where Ben Williams is working.
Ben and I know each other from when he was working with us at Hackney Brewery, gaining experience in brewing and trying to understand how the beer industry works. Now he is based in the States and we have been on a few trips visiting most of the breweries in his city.
We catch up with all the news that has happened since we last spoke. New beers, the new ingredients they’ve been trying out, and we try a few things in tank. Then Ben suggests we pop around the corner to Interboro and meet Jesse. He’s with some of the brewers from LIC who are based 20 mins away over in Newtown Creek.
They’re hanging out for a brew of another collaboration between the pair. While they sat waiting for the wort to come to a boil, they went over details of the brew, hop additions, ferment profiles, final pH targets. They were also going over how the artwork will look, sharing advise and previous experience brewing with the kit and ingredients.
We meet up with the KCBC gang again and hit a few bars around Bushwick, chatting about beer, what worked, what didn’t, and what came close. We also discussed what we’d change to make it better a second time.
Then we get on to the subject that has been a hot topic in the UK over the past few months of big buy outs. Over here the consumers are a lot more switched on to the values of independent craft brewing.
It’s the community of brewers that hold independence in high regard and along with the Brewers Association help to promote and present its importance. The three-tier system stops the larger breweries monopolising over the outlets, although it also comes with its flaws.
It’s this sharing of information about their craft within the industry, and the way I saw no hidden agenda, no politics between them, just friends passionate about creating something that will be enjoyed. The community that goes beyond work, it’s the passion for an independent industry.
Back in London…
Hackney’s brewery under a railway arch, Hackney, East London. Historically, it’s not that we were opposed to collaborating with other breweries, for six of our 8 years, it’s just we never had the capacity, the connections or the understanding on how they worked.
Our production was never at the point to have free tanks. We grew with demand of our beers and never had time to build those relationships because of the workload; paperwork, brewing, delivering, cleaning, packaging, ordering, and scheduling that usually means spending time building inter-brewery relationships can be a challenge.
This is quite a common situation. We’ve seen over the past eight years with new breweries opening, focussing on finding their feet and making sure they stay open. The LBA and SIBA meetings, if you can spare time to get to them, seem to be only time when brewers get to-gether, even ones that are next door!
We spent all our time brewing 10 times a week, packaging and cleaning. It wasn’t until we installed the bigger brew house, reached a stable capacity and hired some more help, I found I had time to escape the “brew-cave” and make connections with other breweries. Making the effort to travel to see what everyone is up to and being introduced to the rest of the teams.
We haven’t reached this point alone, Pressure Drop, Gipsy Hill, Brew By Numbers, Wild Card, Brick. You can see these breweries reaching this point, where they get to explore more, build those relationships and reach out to be involved with brewing with their friends. One of the best things about this industry is the people, as the majority are open and friendly.
Despite there being more than 100 breweries in London now, it was only in January 2019 we brewed out first collaboration with another London brewery, Gipsy Hill. We had a great time, built better relationships and made a great beer. Since then we’ve brewed with Pressure Drop too and have a few more lined up.
I emailed Ben in the US with an idea. To bring the culture of the New York’s brewing industry over to London, to see if we can build a bit of that feeling into our scene. I suggested we invite some breweries to connect with some great London brewers here, hook up some collaborations and share stories and brewing techniques. Ben was keen to make this happen, and he’s experienced the industry on both sides of the ocean. Thanks to Ben, we have been lucky enough to brew with Finback, Barrier and KCBC at various points over 2018, these relationships seemed like a great place to start.
The idea developed into presenting the beers as a set to help us present the concept of a cultural exchange. The Skyline Project: 6 New York breweries, 6 London breweries, 6 beers. We wanted a range of beers in the set which allowed us to influence us in how we selected the breweries involved. Brick’s sours, Pressure Drop’s DIPA’s, BBNo’s farmhouse styles, Gipsy Hill IPA’s and Wildcard’s specials have all been making waves in the London beer scene for years.
Now we had a plan, we needed a reason to get everyone in town at the same time to get all to collaborations happening so they would be ready together. One of the best beer experiences I have had in London was on the ‘East London Party Bar’ at London Craft Beer Festival 2018. Set in the beautiful Tobacco Dock, with more than 100 breweries from around the world, I barely got to experience it all. And I was there for three days!
Greg Wells, founder of We Are Beer and one of the organisers of LCBF, has always tried to use the festival as a platform for London breweries to stand next to the best in the world. We met and I explained what we were up to and we are grateful for his support. This would be a turning point from turning our pipe dream to a real project.
We spent eight months, planning, designing and pinging ideas back and forth over the pond.
7th August 2019, London.
I had spent the day with Kevin from Finback, exploring some great spots around Hackney, Broadway Market, East London Liquor Company, Victoria Park, Howling Hops then The Red Hand in Dalston. As we arrive we see a crowd of familiar faces.
Chris Cuzme from Fifth Hammer, Jesse Ferguson from Interboro, Jaega Wise from Wild Card, Mike from Barrier, Sam McMeekin from Gipsy Hill, Dan Houston from Brew By Numbers, Ben and Tony Bellis from KCBC, Pete Vick and Ian Stewart from Brick, Sienna O’Rourke and Ben Freeman from Pressure Drop… The gang is all here!
This is the buzz I experienced in the states, being 3,500 miles away from home with friends. It’s our beer community coming together to make something happen, spreading knowledge, contacts, experiences and share a drink together.
We spent the next day brewing with each other, to mark the event, new friends and the start of a change to the scene, we released all six beers together as a boxset on the 27th September. It couldn’t have happened without people getting behind the idea.
This is the Skyline Project.
Photos: Rebecca Pate
