The Union IPA now in bottles!

We’ve now brewed multiple times on our union set, including several batches of our bespoke British IPA, Union, all destined for cask. It’s a style of beer I always wanted to brew here at Thornbridge; surprising, given the sheer volume of beer styles we brew here. It’s a real celebration of all that’s best about British brewing, using only the best British malt and hops, wrapped up in a premium, full bodied ale.  I’ve been particularly happy with how our house cask yeast has performed, emphasizing fruitiness from the malt that balances really well with the hop bitterness.

Each brew of Union IPA has been slightly different as we’ve tweaked the process and recipe slightly.  It’s been a steep learning curve for us, but I feel we’ve got it just right now, in terms of transferring the wort in and out, temperature control and various other parameters such as yeast counts and liquid volumes. We decided it was time to put our money where our mouth is and brew a version for bottle.

I decided to brew the bottle version at 7% ABV instead of 6% for a couple of reasons.  As we don’t have a filter or a pasteurizer, and given the ‘open’ nature of our union system, the alcohol will help protect the beer somewhat, microbiologically speaking.  The other reason is that as this beer is bottle conditioned, the higher level of effervescence lends itself to a more robust amount of malt in the brew.  The slightly higher finishing gravity is essentially balanced nicely with the carbonation from the natural bottle conditioning process we use.  Plus, you don’t have to walk home from the pub when you’ve finished drinking it!

Written by Rob Lovatt, Head Brewer/ Production Director

The Union 7% IPA bottles are AVAILABLE NOW! Shop here.