The Journey of Abyss Brewing

Martin (00:00)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Beer Rep chats with and today I am delighted to be joined by Andy and Andrew from Abyss Brewing. Andy, Andrew, thanks for joining the show.

Andy (00:11)
Hello, thank you for inviting us.

Martin (00:13)
It's great to have you guys on and quickly get a brief overview of what you guys do and your roles in the business.

Andy (00:20)
And generally, our first business partners, we started the brewery together back in late 2016, early 2017. Yeah, yeah. Andrew brewed every beer for the first four years and I delivered and sold every beer. To put it simply. Yeah. Andrew's Andrew's the talent. And, you know, I Yeah, well, talent, talent and making it

Martin (00:38)
Awesome, perfect partnership.

Andy (00:47)
maybe throwing it but there's also talent in selling as well. you know, we complemented each other. Oh, yeah.

Martin (00:53)
It's good to see. You definitely can't have one without the other, that's for sure. You need someone to have a strong sales ⁓ background and then obviously, know, great beer doesn't sell itself like you said, Andrew. yeah. So let's start at the beginning in how you personally fell in love with brewing and why did you decide to start Abyss?

Andy (01:14)
How far back do want to go? We both have always loved beer and we both were friends before business partners and we both like drinking kind of hoppy beers in the late noughties, I guess. Things like Thornbridge Jaipur, you know, really kind of resonated with us and Hophead as well. And yeah, even dare I say it Punk IPA. So that's probably not the thing to say nowadays. yeah.

Martin (01:41)
BrewDog ⁓ big on

the old eh news at the moment, aren't they?

Andy (01:45)
Yeah,

absolutely. But back then it was a kind of different time, different thing. ⁓ Also visited America, went to New York to visit my brother and had Brooklyn ale, know, that cold, draught, fizzy kind of ale which I hadn't really experienced before back in the late 90s. So that was another big inspiration really for beer, know, taken us away from kind of classic real ale styles you get in the UK, which we loved, or Belgian styles or even lager.

Martin (01:49)
Certainly was

Yeah.

Andy (02:14)
Yeah, those are that differentiating  kind of experiences, I guess, which form the love of beer. Yeah, then a slight context, especially for Andrew was Andrew's have the Pelham Arms pub in Lewes for what 16,17 years? Yeah, 2008. Yeah. And that's a Hall and Woodhouse pub Badger Badger beer.

And as a brewery, they weren't really keeping up. So you were kind of struggling with their offer that they were giving you because it was a managed house. you were bit like, give me some hobby beer guys. early kind of 2011, 2013, 14, around that period of time, you got to see more kind of craft options happening in the UK,  That's kind of like the acceleration point. And then as a traditional brewer, you know, they're brewing great kind of

Martin (02:58)
Yeah.

Andy (03:03)
Dorset Ales and then they had like a kind of, know, Heineken range kind of lager offer, but there was nothing in between. So it took a while for them to jump on board that, which they have now, which is great. But I think that ignited my kind of a DIY approach to things and thought, right, I'm going to do this myself then and started learning how to brew and taught myself how to brew at home. So I started off hand brewing really with the probably the intention of starting a brewery someday. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So we'd win a hundred points a week in their cellar of the Pelham Arms which is an old 16th century coach house, tiny little room, little pots laid out and two kegs a week. And to their credit, the brewery would let us serve the beer upstairs, which was the only independent tap in their whole estate of like 200 pubs. So that was the start of the abyss was under the pub in Lewes in the darkness. Yeah. ⁓

Martin (03:34)
Awesome.

Andy (04:01)
Pub was built 1640, so it had this like tunnel, brick tunnel, which goes back hundreds of years, and it apparently goes through to the crypt of the church next door, but it's been blocked up. And that's where the brewery started in this little tight space. And I bought a 100-litre brew kit and put that in there and started brewing, kind of practicing. And then we, yeah, we were registered as a brewer, yeah, end of 2016. So we started serving 2017 upstairs in the pub.

Yeah, yeah, with the same sort of woolen woodhouse. Yeah, yeah, so that was great.

Martin (04:32)
Awesome. That's a great story. There's not many

managed houses there that would allow that to happen. ⁓ So you guys got really lucky there and what a great little place as well to do your little start your brewing and stuff like that. Did you have like brewing clubs that you went to, like home brewing clubs?

Andy (04:39)
No.

⁓ Not really, no. I didn't really get involved with the club kind of thing. just kind of Shared, I did a couple of courses. Yeah, like a microbrewery course. But I was kind of just bottling the beer mostly and giving it out to the dads on the school run. I kind of became most popular dad pretty quickly and ⁓ trying to get feedback, but everyone was just loving getting free beer. So it wasn't really... That helped me maybe.

Martin (05:14)
Yeah.

Home

brewers always have plenty of friends. I always noticed that. They always want to come around and drink your free beer. So what was the, you know, what were the biggest growing pains during the transition of, you know, starting the, the, going from a hundred litre kit, moving on to your big kit.

Andy (05:40)
Well, we jumped for a few years to a small brewery in a unit, couple of miles outside Lewes, and that started off as like 400 litres. So we jumped to 400 litres and then to 1200 litres quite quickly and got proper fermenters. That was probably about 2018 where we could actually, you know, add unitanks and brew and carbonate in tank. So that was quite a big kind of

Martin (05:55)
Yeah.

Andy (06:09)
growth in terms of equipment for us then and that we kind of self-funded really. It was pretty hard, it? was like... Yeah, I'd say that probably the biggest thing in my head was just the mental, the leap of like, ⁓ we're doing this now. Yeah. You know, this is a separate standalone industrial unit, you know, and you know, don't take that on unless you start to get a bit more serious. Yeah, you get rent, electricity, all that kind of stuff. So it's just a nice moment and it worked well and then we had that up until...

Martin (06:23)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah.

Andy (06:39)
lockdown kicked in and it was a big change, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. And kind of made us in many ways because we we we we did some canning at Missing Link, our friend Jeremy and Chiddinglye and he sort of helped us out at the start and then we got the canners in mobile canners who were friends. So we started canning properly for the first time, which was cool. And then the other thing was we'd sell beer at the back of the Pelham Arms

to people Lewes sort of three times a week and this this massive queue started forming every time we opened and then because you you've put in the beer in people's hands you're having a chat and it's like  it was amazing because everyone knew the beers were making they all like we love we love Dank Marvin IPA would love I love tropical thunder  super pales the best it's like you you all know our beers we didn't we didn't really met them properly as such before so it kind of was quite a galvanising moment

Martin (07:26)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Andy (07:39)
And then, you know, was like delivering all around sort of East Sussex as well. So you're like on the doorstep with everyone like a weird milkman, you know, they used to be called the naughty milkman on my run. And they kind of gave us the confidence to open the bigger brewery and tap now in Lewes, which is on the other side of the river. Much bigger affair has a 12 tap bar, big yard, you know, food truck.

Martin (07:46)
You

Andy (08:03)
So we start building that at the end of lockdown, basically after meeting all of our customers and doing a crowd funder reward sort of campaign. Yeah, we signed the lease for the Malt House in October 2020, just before we went into the second lockdown. So it was quite a big leap of faith, wasn't it? And it was done on the back of the real good vibe we got from local following during the...

COVID. It's like the ultimate market research COVID for us. You know, just meeting your disciples and like, yeah, this fair is great. You're like, great. We'll make some more. Great.

Martin (08:43)
Yeah, it gives you the confidence to know that moving forward is a of a positive because you've got customers that are really enjoying your beers. So you wasn't canning your beers prior to COVID. was during COVID that you started canning your beer.

Andy (08:50)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Martin (09:01)
Yeah, think

a lot of breweries did that who started around about the same time. think Attic were ones that didn't can beers until COVID hit and they started brewing, started canning their beers to sell to get through the period. as well as COVID did bring a lot of challenges, it also helped breweries to move forward because they had to, even if they weren't ready, i.e. with canning. ⁓

Andy (09:23)
It was of a courage to do

the retail direct sales straight away rather than, know, before then it was trying to sell to pubs and bars, you know, which is one thing and we're still great at that. sell a lot of keg beer now. Most of our beer is keg beer, but going retail was like seeing that sort of profit margin difference and knowing we had to do retail really well when we opened the taproom, which is what I feel we have done.

Martin (09:26)
Yeah.

Andy (09:53)
with the Lewes tap was really, important. And that was probably COVID, which really focused that idea.

Martin (10:04)
Awesome. So your beers, they're quite old and modern. I've had the pleasure of tasting some of the beers. Thank you very much. Beautiful. How would you describe your identity to someone who's discovering you for the first time?

Andy (10:20)
Yeah, kind of modern beers with big personalities. We've never kind of scrimped on the ingredients. We've always liked the idea of, you know, kind of beers you can really get your mouth around and really enjoy. like Super Fuzz is an IPA we've been making for a long time now. It's kind of a little bit gnarly. It's got a nice hop, a nice hop character to it. None of our beers are kind of filtered out and smoothed off. You know, there's lots of...

personality to them. Dank Marvin IPA is another one. Tropical Thunder that's one from the old days under the Pelham one of the original IPA is that's got it used to be made with Sorachi Ace and now it's got a bit of Sabro in it. An example of something that's a little bit out there but people really are really behind that beer they love it when it we bring it back out again. Yeah, I think we just that they're all pretty, all pretty tasty really, to put it in a very simple way.

Yeah,

they're always adding to they're always kind of evolving as well because we brew kind of one off. Pale ales IPAs, you know, very regular basis and we learn, you know, we're always trying to push those more. So we've always had a core range really haven't we? You know, super pale, like super fuzz, dank Marvin, gonzo and

We don't sort of stand still with those where they're always putting stuff we've learned from brewing the one-off kind of specials into the core range so they can evolve over time. Yeah, what suppliers are you asking? Yeah.

Martin (11:57)
Lovely. What suppliers

that you use for your Malt and hops?

Andy (12:01)
For the ingredients we use,

yeah, well we use Yakima Chief for most of American hops, but we also use Brewer's Select and BarthHaas as well, yeah, and Freestyle, they're the sort of main hops suppliers. Freestyle for the Nelson. Yeah, we use Charles Faram's as well for some hops and malts, yeah, yeah.

Martin (12:28)
Awesome. Do you have like a kind of like a base backbone for your your malt bills for most of your recipes for your IPAs and stuff like that?

Andy (12:37)
guess we generally tweak it a little bit from brew to brew. Sometimes we use the same base. So if we're doing like a pale ale, 5 % DDH kind of beer, we would then, we generally, you know, we've got a base recipe like you're saying, which is kind of, we're pretty pleased with, but we do try and always tweak it a little bit after tasting them. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, they all evolve, the kind of growth is more incremental now because we're kind of pretty happy with how most of them are. I think water really is the bigger one. We've done lots of changes with the water. I mean, we've been doing changes with water for a while, but we had an RO system last year. So we've been able to do more with the water now and we still

Martin (13:16)
Yeah, awesome.

Andy (13:34)
kind of experimenting with that as well. But that helps round them out and soften them out.

Martin (13:40)
Yeah, it's

surprising that on home brewing scale, it's surprising how much water as an ingredient is overlooked. And I feel it's one of the most important ingredients. I mean, is 95 % probably of your beer. growing a water profile for the style that you're brewing is key to getting them flavours out of your malt flavours, your hop flavours, I feel. Yeah.

Andy (14:06)
Absolutely. You do homebrew

yourself.

Martin (14:09)
⁓ Yes, I try to as much as I can. I don't really get a chance too often as much, but I do do some brewery down at Mash Paddle on the Bermondsey Beer Mile So I enjoy doing them. So that gives me my little home brewing, you know, kick that I need.

Andy (14:23)
Yeah,

yeah. When I started brewing, I started buying water straight away from the supermarket, like buying the five litre bottles of soft kind of Scottish water or something. And I was using those. then after I did the course, they're like, you've got to learn to use your own local water. So I did this batch with Brighton water. And it was undrinkable. And I realised then, yeah, what do you do? And then you send a water sample off to Murphy's and you get a breakdown. And then you start learning.

Martin (14:34)
Yeah.

Hehehehehe

Andy (14:53)
have to do that. Yeah, yeah, that's a really big part of it. And you get into spreadsheets with it. And yeah, it gets quite serious, isn't it? So

Martin (14:53)
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. We've got

Yeah, there's a company that I use called Smartwater where you can just literally turn up it's like a

a unit or something or in the middle of a car park or and you can just get RO water as much as you want. I think it's like, it's really, really cheap and you can get like, I would use about 50 liters or whatever for doing some home brewing and it completely strips everything out and then can build like your own recipe and water profile and tweak it, et cetera, or even, you know, copy people's water profiles if you're confident that they're good. But yeah, it's a lot easier to get good water than

Andy (15:14)
nice. Amazing.

and you

Yeah. Yeah.

Martin (15:37)
it

used to be like you said you used to go down to the supermarket and get a bottle of water like you don't really need to do that now if you've got smart water close to you there's not many around but um i'm sure you know if you get a car if you've got a car then quickly run down there and fill up your your tanks with with ro water

Andy (15:54)
That's a good idea. Who else is using that? Is that like window cleaners using that as well? Cause they're big.

Martin (15:58)
Yeah, yeah.

So a lot of, you know, cleaning companies will use smart water because they like to build up their own cleaning chemicals from scratch. So yeah, I think it started off on that. But I think home brewers are starting to clock onto it and go, it's smart water. It's cheap. It's good. And yeah, I hope they don't go bust or anything like that because otherwise I have to go to the supermarkets and get bottled water. Don't want to do that though.

Andy (16:01)
Trust them.

Like this.

good. It's a good catchy name.

Good catchy name to charge more as well. like it.

Martin (16:28)
Yeah, it could

be, but hopefully they don't because it's quite cheap at the moment. yeah, keep the prices down if you're listening. So collaboration is a big part also of what you do. I really enjoyed your recent collaboration with Rivington that I managed to try and it was beautiful. Yeah, lovely. What do collaborations give you creatively, know, that brewing alone doesn't, you get to learn from other brewers and other

Andy (16:32)
Thank

Hay, hay.

Martin (16:57)
Obviously  equipment as well, I'm guessing.

Andy (16:59)
Yeah, I mean, we're all quite small breweries really, aren't we? And we're all learning in our own ways by, you know, mostly by trial and error and seeing what works for us. And then when you have a collab and you just start talking about processes and ingredients and where you buy things from and how you do things, you just kind of learn off each other. And it's about sharing information, I think. That's that, you know, so from the creative point of view. And having a good lunch.

Martin (17:03)
Mm.

Andy (17:26)
Yeah, we like to have a good lunch and nice busy lunch

Martin (17:27)
Yes.

I can imagine that every brewery is rated on how good their lunch is that they give you. Yeah.

Andy (17:35)
Yeah, we do. Okay.

I'm confident we'd do okay in the league table.

Martin (17:41)
Is there a league table? Is there actually a league table of best lunches?

Andy (17:43)
What's

your favorite thing to do at the moment, Andy? Yeah, right. I there is a bit of a classic. we've never, no one's ever cooked for us before. We've given pizza. It's like, come on, it's too easy. Too easy. Yeah, we like to, we pride ourselves on getting the barbecue out. And yeah, we have a very good Brazilian supermarket near us

Martin (17:52)
You

⁓ Yeah, even a stew, come on, nice stew. ⁓

lovely.

Andy (18:13)
⁓ that is a very high quality sausage. So that's all I'm saying, but you know, curl ups guys. Yeah.

Martin (18:18)
We're not getting on the subjects of sausages.

Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, I definitely think, you know, you've to a good lunch if you're going to go and travel to wherever you're going to go for collaboration. You've got to put on a good lunch. Take away pizza. Take away pizza is the least you can do, isn't it, really, I suppose.

Andy (18:33)
Yeah.

I think

so. We were doing a collab with Burnt Mill a couple weeks ago and they put on a great spread, know, loads of great local cheeses from the farm shop and sliced meats and sourdough bread and kind of farm shop style pickles, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, goes well with drinking. Yeah, really good.

Martin (18:58)
Yeah, soak up especially the sourdough bread, soak up

the alcohol. So when you're creating a new beer, when you're brewing, where does the process usually begin? Does it begin with ingredients or style inspiration or, you know, where do you normally start from?

Andy (19:18)
Well production schedule is kind of dictating. So, you know, what do we need and then Then there might be some hops So we want we want to try that we've heard about or or we might have we might have ordered and we might reuse them. So a little bit of that and then We share a lot of information together as a team as well You know, we're all kind of like scrolling what other brewers in America and places in the world are doing On Instagram and whatnot and we have a group and we share ideas and share

Martin (19:46)
Yeah.

Andy (19:48)
pictures of beers and hop combinations and what things look like in the glass and the vibe generally. So we're kind of always orchestrating this kind of rich kind of vein of inspiration, I think. Yeah, yeah. Listen to a lot of the American podcasts as well, see what's happening out there, because they seem to be a little bit ahead of the curve. Normally, I think we're probably catching them up. But it's interesting hearing what other people are doing in other places,  what's inspiring other brewers.

And yeah, so take inspiration from all sorts of places really. And just hit in the co-labs, hearing what other people have thinking about brewing and doing as well.

Martin (20:27)
Yeah, I see one thing recently, Garage Project, were talking about using spent hops and what to do with them. That seemed like an interesting idea, especially for wastage like you obviously, especially when you're brewing like a beer that's really heavily dry hopped and all that spent hops that you've got to just throw away. Why not use it again and make a, you know, a less hoppier beer with them?

Andy (20:35)
⁓ yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, was trying

to remember who was now who's doing the same thing. But yeah, using using for like a kind of a lighter pale ale.

Martin (21:02)
Yeah, interesting. What's been like the the thing that you've recently heard from America that's kind of got you excited to try and give it a go.

Andy (21:11)
dark mexican lagers i think yeah i remember when i was really young i worked in a off license just going back some way and there was a they had an imported mexican lager called Dos Equis i think Dos Equis yeah yeah which was like a three x's yeah mexican lager and i've been listening to quite a few lager podcasts recently

Martin (21:16)
dark Mexican lagers.

Andy (21:38)
from US craft breweries and that seems to be a recurring theme how to make lager dark but have it, you know, not too spiky bitter from the multiness. I find that kind of thing quite interesting at the moment. And then, yeah, we brewed a black lager last few years. Yeah. It's been really popular. German style one. Yeah. Yeah. Refining that kind of, yeah. Getting that real smooth and we've all enjoyed that one. But learning, there's a lot of,

Martin (21:48)
Yeah.

Andy (22:07)
and we've been doing this ourselves of like flowable products now as well and how to use those and whereabouts in the process to use those. So that's a real interesting thing for us, like really locking in flavour and aroma into the beer, know, and having longevity in packaging. So that's a real interesting kind of area, I think, at the moment.

Martin (22:31)
Would you say then your taste and your brewing philosophy have changed since 2016 days?

Andy (22:37)
Seems like a long time ago that I think when I started, I wanted to brew every single beer different, you know, think that was kind of probably lots of people's idea as well. But we quickly started looking at more core beers because, you know, you have to better sell it all the time. So I yeah, with that, I love the idea of making our core beers.

Martin (22:40)
It does, doesn't it? Yeah. 10 years.

Andy (23:07)
as good as possible now and that's a real good focus. But I think we're drinking other beers, not just hoppy, hazy stuff, know. Hoppy, hazy beer is still largely what seems to sell the most in the craft sector in the UK, but we're all quite inspired by other styles as well. So exploring those is good now.

Yeah, so definitely just what Andrew's been saying really, like the big difference between the early days and now would be, especially with you got a team and a bigger kit is just the science and really enjoying those kind of minor percentages of gain you can make. And then you know, and how satisfying that is to make a really, really high quality product. And like, you know, the probably the fact that you're speaking to us now is proof of

to some extent that you think our beers are good, so that's great and we do. But that hasn't been easy making them that good. It's been a constant kind of challenge. Yeah, a great challenge and we enjoy it. yeah, the science, I guess, is the big thing behind it all.

Martin (24:12)
learning curve.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, technology has come a long way and, you know, and hops.

different hops that coming out, different flavours, different tastes, different styles. Do you think that hazy IPAs are kind of coming towards the end of their boom? I mean, I'm a big, big hazy IPA fan. I'm starting to get more into a lot more different styles than I used to. I I always liked other styles, but I'm starting to kind of drift away from hazy IPAs and going into different, especially more like lager styles and dark.

you know, like Swartzbier and things like that.

Andy (24:59)
Yeah, yeah, I the fact that every, every festival, you go to all the brewers just drink lagers kind of for the last few years. There's a bit of a giveaway of where, the curve might be heading. But, but yeah, I don't think they'll ever die. But I mean, maybe maybe just there's a broader spread of styles that, you know, craft beer drinkers will enjoy. But they'll still be beautiful, hazy IPAs forevermore, I believe.

Martin (25:05)
Says it all,

Of course, yeah. They will.

Andy (25:27)
Yeah, yeah,

but yeah, it's not the won't be quite the haze fest it was maybe but it's not a bad thing. ⁓ Yeah

Martin (25:34)
Yeah, so double IPAs were quite a big thing at one point, especially during the COVID era. They're kind of dropping off a bit. I don't see many double IPAs as they used to. So we're to go on to a bit about the challenges that you guys have faced since opening, obviously COVID was one of them. But as an independent brewery, what's realistically the toughest part of competing in today's UK beer market?

Andy (26:01)
competing, probably the biggest challenge for us has been not having enough beer really.

Martin (26:07)
Drinking or brewing?

Andy (26:12)
No, we're always pretty good at getting higher on our own supply. We're good at that. ⁓ Yeah. The like, up until we put the new kit in last year, which, you know, we we funded by doing an equity raise a year earlier. We were still turning away a lot of orders last summer. And essentially, when you're doing that, you're letting down customers who have maybe emailed

Martin (26:37)
Yeah.

Andy (26:38)
in a very positive frame of mind, I'd like to order this Abyss beer and when you can't fulfill that, it's frustrating for them and for us. we're still, know, basically this summer is a bit of a new dawn for us. We've reached a bit of a new plateau where we can kind of supply more people and keep up the supply as well. So it can be quite detrimental, you know, if you can't keep up with demand a bit, but that's...

Martin (27:05)
It's a fine

line, isn't it? It's about knowing when to upscale production to meet demand. And when you get there, has it been worth upscaling to, know, are you seeing a positive return from it?

Andy (27:17)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's there's people who want to sell out all the time. And that's it. And and maybe that's a cool thing to do. I don't know. I think we're we like to sort of spread the kind of styles we do. So we like to have some, you know, our superpale is a sort of big session beer is gluten free, 4.4 hazy pale, and it just kind of took off really, especially locally. So that that kind of chugs away. And that wasn't the planning thing necessarily. But it just kind of got wings.

And then on top of that, we like to do two or three new beers a month. Probably the biggest challenge. mean, there's always cash blown away, but that's just being a bit careful, isn't it? That's business, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's boring.

If it make good beer, make better beer, all kind of comes together generally, I think. Yeah, when you mean as a business, when you grow and you start selling more, the cash lag is quite hard as a brewery because you don't get great terms from suppliers generally. And then you have to keep the beer, know, four weeks maybe fermentation packaging.

sell it, then you have to wait to get paid and then in that time you generally got to pay all the beer duty and pay all that you know maybe there's been a VAT return so the cash journey has always been hard as we've been growing through speed. ⁓ Yeah, I would say as well though our tap room is you know it's a good tap room and proud of it and it's busy in the summer you know and we have another site now at Newhaven which is busy as well and

They're really fun because you're meeting your customers direct. They're really enjoying your beer, having a great time. And that's a great feeling because it's a real reminder of why you do it. And it's also like, you can't put duff beers out when you're handing them over by yourself. So that's really healthy, but it's also good for the business and keeps you chugging along nicely. yeah. So the retail aspect has been super important for us for that reason, because it is like.

you know, it's good margin and it, you know, the money drops in the account on the Monday after the weekends.

Martin (29:32)
Yeah, to a touch

on what Andy just said about, you know, having that tap room and being able to talk to your customers. I mean, I personally think community for independent breweries is their biggest selling point. ⁓ You know, having that community spirit with your customers. Do you think that if

you as anyone, anyone in starting a brewery or thinking about starting a brewery, would you say a tap room and having customers drinking in inside the brewery or just outside is key to growing a business like an independent brewery like yourselves?

Andy (30:07)
I'd say 100%. Yeah. Yes. And that's what sets you apart, isn't it? Because no one else can do that. A big brewery can't do that. They can imitate, but they can't do it. yeah, have a Andrew kind of runs. We have a cycle club. We have twerking classes on a Saturday morning with Nozzi, our neighbour. We do craft events in the tap room. We have a quiz night.

and they're already popular and again, know, garner that sense of community. The sort of the, you know, the broader world outside the brewery. ⁓ Just feels good. Yeah. Yeah. I guess if you're an introvert brewer, maybe you just want to brew your beer and be in a cave all day and just do that. But we're a bit more kind of different people. don't know. Whatever suits, I guess. Yeah. Yeah.

Martin (30:59)
Yeah, that's what sets. Yeah, definitely. mean,

I think a tap room is essential for any brewery that's independent. Do you think like, going off like of, you your tap room and your customers and what kind of drinks they're having, do you think they're becoming more adventurous in the different beers that they're drinking these days?

Andy (31:25)
I'd say definitely the tap room Yeah, like the Black Lagers, know, if we ever put, you know, different sours we have always are really, really well received. People love drinking sours in the tap room which is great. ⁓ Yeah, so definitely all groups try the sours. We have skate flights in the tap rim. So we these sort of recycled skateboards, which were all used in Lewes. And they five holes in drilled out for little third glasses. So you can get a selection of five different beers and they're really, really popular.

⁓ So there's a definite sense of people wanting to try the beers. They know they're in a tap room and they can see the tanks and they want to get involved with that, which is really great. And obviously you can't do that anywhere else. So yeah.

Martin (32:08)
Yeah, exactly. A lot of new breweries are starting up. I'm starting to see a lot more independent breweries opening. Obviously, a lot of them are closing. What excites you most about the current wave of new independent breweries that are coming onto the scene?

Andy (32:27)
I think it's a very collaborative industry. think it's always great to see something with passion, created with passion, which is what we pride ourselves on. Personally, probably historically have been in more bars where I'm delivering beer or met our customers more because that's kind of my role. And I never mind seeing another new beer on if it's a great beer. I'm just a sort of beer fan at heart myself. If I'm excited to see it, then...

then great. I'd much prefer to see a young brewery on than, say, a Neck Oil or a Macro beer. I don't know. Just good beers, great beer, isn't it? We should all celebrate that. And that's where we came from. So, people have really backed us. So, yeah.

Martin (33:04)
goes.

Yeah, it's great. What's next for for Abyss then any got any new collaborations coming up any big growth changes any anything that's going to take you a bit further up than you are already.

Andy (33:26)
Well, definitely, yeah doing a bit more never really exported so we're doing like a festival in Belgium this year and then We get asked to do more and more festivals in the UK, which is nice. So There's more of that and they've got every doing Hop city for the first time in May. I mean hop city my leads Yeah, well, that'd be great and so on next month. Yeah, sure shot next month in Manchester doing a brew

We did a brew with Make Make at ours last month, which when we talk about doing co-labs, we spent most of that day actually just geeking out talking about pizza because well, Mark, Mark, he has his own kind of pizza place alongside the brewery in Portsmouth and we we make pizza at our Newhaven site. So there was a lot of pizza chat that day. Lots of pizza chat. More than beer maybe. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓

Martin (34:05)
And drinking and drinking beer.

No cheese and meats

this time then.

Andy (34:26)
No, and then we're always, yeah, we're always looking at potential other sites. So maybe another abyss retail site, hopefully. Yeah, that'd be fun.

Martin (34:37)
Awesome. That sounds good. Is there like a beer style that you guys are wanting to take on that you haven't tried yet?

Andy (34:48)
the next the next new one I can remember in the dark Cascadian Ale no less. Yeah.

Martin (34:55)
you

⁓

that's different. I've not seen many of them around.

Andy (35:03)
Yeah.

No, we've been talking about black ipa's then we thought no no will do we can we can get more refined on this We can we can we can geek out more. Yeah for me. We had a trip to antwerp end of last year and It was actually my first time to belgium. So as a brewer, that's quite outrageous and yeah something with her

Martin (35:13)
Yeah.

the time I've

been to Belgium was the duty free. That's about it really. Look, went straight to the supermarket, get some tobacco and never been any further.

Andy (35:33)
we did we did get to

Billy's, which was good. Billy's beer fest, which I would highly recommend. Yeah. Yeah. And docking again was a really amazing space as well. So yeah, something with Belgian vibe would be good. We've done that a little bit of that before. But yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Martin (35:47)
Like a Belgian beer.

Awesome. And we're going to finally, we're going to end up on this. If someone hasn't tried Abyss before, and I'm sure there's not many around, especially where you're from in Lewes, which beer should they start with? What one are you most proud of?

Andy (36:09)
Andrew the Brewer, please. I'd say Dank Marvin. That will give you a really good feel for like one of this one of our original IPAs. And it's one which has just been like, you know, evolving and getting better and better over time. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's as a starting point. And that's a good starting point. For sure. 5.8 % which which hops Andrew, which hops Citra, Simcoe.

Martin (36:11)
Go ahead, Andrew.

Dank Marvin, what a name, that's a brilliant name.

you

Andy (36:39)
Very

Chinock Very good. Well done. ⁓

Martin (36:42)
Good on the spot in the spot. you'd have

got it wrong, we'd have had to edit it. then you behind the scenes, like tell him what the hops were. And then, uh, yeah, that's, that's what they were. Um, who comes up with the names of the beers? What is one curious about that? And.

Andy (36:46)
Good, isn't it?

We have a WhatsApp

group. It's quite furious sometimes. Yeah, I guess a bit brutal, but I mean, you know, our branding is very psychedelic. So we kind of lean into the sense of the other and a sort of psyche vibe. So that helps if you know, you know, if you have a of a strong brand aesthetic, I guess. So yeah, it's me and Andrew and Jill, who's our sort of designer, creative designer in chief who does all of our branding and yeah, yeah, she wades in.

Martin (37:02)
You

Andy (37:27)
They have to fit with the abyss. So they have to resonate with the abyss. Yeah. So ⁓

Martin (37:33)
Yeah, what's been the

probably the one of the most outrageous names that you've been given on the WhatsApp group that you've not used maybe that was a bit crazy, but nearly not used, but nearly that nearly that was close, very close to making it but didn't.

Andy (37:45)
Oh, not used. Not sure. This

reminds me of... It's probably 98 % of the names we come up with, to be honest. Yeah, it was a big spreadsheet. The one that jumps out is a collab that I first brewed with Rivington. And there's a particular story attached that Ben from Rivi, Ben R, our brewer.

Martin (37:55)
You

Andy (38:15)
had both were both aware of a certain gentleman in Sydney or maybe or Melbourne, he had a particular habit, which is a very kind of what's a very, very niche, very niche adult habit. And the beer was called from the trough. And that's all I'm going to say. But there might be enough to Google that I'm not going to say any of it anymore. That's that's it. But it was

Martin (38:31)
You

Okay.

go.

Andy (38:42)
But the fact that both of them knew this guy was very, very funny at that time of night on the farm. Yeah, yeah, sorry. Been a bit cagey, but yeah.

Martin (38:46)
Yeah.

So

if you want to know more, then Google away. At your peril. Yeah. Might be something you want to see. It might not be. It's a stab in the dark. Well, anything else you guys want to say to anyone who's listening, everyone who's listening back at home or in their car or wherever they are?

Andy (38:53)
Yeah, at your peril. At your peril.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, thanks for listening for starters, it's nice to talk about the Abyss and yeah, our beers are available online and we'll hopefully see you at a festival soon around the country. Any questions, know, don't be afraid to ask, email in or... Give us a follow on Instagram at Abyss Brewing for like, know, updates and new stuff coming out. That's where you get all the new information. Yeah. Yeah. Web shops fully stocked, ready to... Don't be afraid to reach out.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was always up for doing events. Yeah, if someone's got a, you know, a bottle shop, they want to do an event or something where we always like to travel. So yeah.

Martin (39:45)
Yeah, all the links for all your socials and the website will be in the description.

definitely bare you guys in mind, that's for sure. Yeah, well, thanks for appearing on the show. Thank you for your time, ⁓ taking you away from brewing and your hectic schedule that you guys must have. And yeah, thanks for coming on.

Andy (40:11)
Thank you.

Martin (40:13)
Cheers guys.

⁓ was great to meet you guys too as well. And hopefully I'll see you around at some point wherever you guys are traveling to. Yeah, no worries. Yeah, so that's it for us for this week. ⁓ And we'll see you guys back in another couple of weeks. So until then, catch you later. Bye bye.

Andy (40:21)
Great. Thank you, Mark. Nice one.